I've been looking through the VON Boston program and don't see Skypenomics on the agenda. Nobody is talking about how Skype and its cousins continue to change the rules.

1. Skype is building Click-to-Call advertising. Online advertising is the only ad sector that continues to grow. Skype, eBay and Google are diving in to get their share. Click-to-Call isn't new, but the marketing might of Google and eBay, and their far reaching ecosystems, suggest they can deploy to millions on the web, and eventually on mobiles.
2. Skype hardware partnerships are extending Skype's brand and customer reach. Hardware is part of Skype's strategy for earning brand acceptance. Hardware is also crucial to putting Skype into homes and home offices.
3. China. Skype's biggest userbase is in China, the fastest growing broadband market, a place where more people speak English than in the United States. How many telcos and cablecos are as active globally as Skype? How many have become household brands outside their native markets?
4. Yellow Pages. PC-based search is a direct competitor to directory assistance services. This year Skype added business search to their browser toolbars and promised to add it to the Skype user directory. Their business development team continues to build alliances, country by country, with yellow page database providers. Watch browser-centric phone apps like Skype erode directory assistance revenue as Skype migrates to mobiles.
5. Payments. Skype will add person-to-person PayPal payment to its client, as shown in our banner this week and the graphic above. Skype is going to get its share of the remittance market. Again, Skype wraps conversation in commerce.

In short, Skype is

• Amplifying network effects. It's not just more is more. You can do more things with your Skype buddy list, create more social capital, than in other networks.
• Surrounding calls with value-added services. Revenue, for starters. Loyalty builders, too.

In a time of large dinosaurs everyone else is either quick or dead. Right now, Skype looks quick.