Google is building WebRTC into Chrome. WebRTC code and standards will let web developers and designers build realtime IM, voice and video into web apps and browser plug-ins. This milestone means we could see WebRTC apps in Chrome in the next few months. Nimbuzz and others are working on it. This removes one obstacle to Skype for Browsers, without downloading a fat client. How soon will Microsoft’s Internet Explorer follow Chrome? Or will it adopt another technology, making choices harder for developers and users?
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Business | competition | Competitors | dialtone | iPad | iPhone | iPodTouch | Skype | skypelandia | Strategy Every startup founder is getting this question from investors, and customers. This wasn’t true in 2009. The question speaks to two of Skype’s strengths as it approaches its 8th birthday: brand and network effects. The first strength is brand awareness. Everyone knows Skype. Literally half of Internet users have tried Skype. So Skype is no longer the domain of specialists in telecom, instant messaging, or video conferencing. More people know about Skype than know about Cisco’s telepresence or that Vidyo powers Google+ Hangouts. More people understand you can make cheaper calls on Skype than know of the hundreds of other services that offer even lower rates. The second strength is network effect. The chance that someone you know is in Skype are vastly better than with any other communication or collaboration service. A user’s social network switching costs are not trivial. You lose history, you lose touch with contacts. You are adopting a weaker dialtone with fewer people you care about available for calls right now. To be considered, challengers must do what Skype does. Skype is the new vanilla, the new baseline, the ante for this round. Once you can “skype,” then you must offer something different, something more, something better. Bonush will try to be Skype voice chat in a browser after it launches. (open for early Beta right now.)
Ooma Mobile was Skype on an iPad, before Skype’s own iPad app.
Vonage’s Time to Call is the voice part of Skype while paying for international calls at Skype rates with pay as you go billing to your iTunes account. Convenient for some.
TalkMe.IM’s Talkatone is Skype with Google Voice.
IsCoord’s is-phone conference for iPad is Skype with SIP without video on an iPad available for white-label OEMs.
Toktumi’s Line2 is Skype with better SMS and telephony features, without video, instant messaging or presence.
FriendCaller is Skype on many devices and in browsers, with a Facebook voice app.
ChatTime is SkypeOut international calling for less money, showing what time it is where you’re calling.
Voxer is Skype without PSTN, adding voice IM and location check-ins.
Apple’s FaceTime is Skype just for Apple and without PSTN service.
Skype still wins. Explicit or not, every time we discuss a product in this space, we invoke Skype. Rivals (and even the term “rivals” invokes Skype) have four choices:
Two things complicate matters. 1. Skype is a moving target. They left an opening for iPad apps for two years, letting others define themselves as Skype+iPad before entering the space. We will see Skype@Microsoft co-brand all sorts of products, from Sharepoint services to gameplay add-ons. This adds danger to filling in a gap in Skype’s product family. 2. Skype is become platform. Microskype will offer real-time communication components to developers on nearly every Microsoft platform. Mobile, web, desktop, server, you’ll be able to build Skype into whatever you imagine over the next few years. APIs make “do less,” “do more” and “niche” easier for everyone, right down the long tail. For example, blogs like Skype Journal will offer group video chat for readers of this very page, the site paying a tiny monthly subscription for the feature, free to visitors. It will be part of every “would you like to talk with a customer service agent” widget. Peer-support graphs like WeightWatchers, Quantified Self, and Twelve-Step programs will guide with whom you talk and when. Platformers like Skype, Voxeo, Tokbox, Jajah and Twilio will power them, commodifying voice and video chat as hundreds of thousands of apps and web sites add realtime talk to their user experience palette. So what works now? Less, more, different and niche are all viable. You just must be extremely persuasive on why the “better” you offer is worth the customer’s switching costs. Investors will want you to spend toward achieving network effect critical mass. What works in the long term? Dominating a defined niche (there’s room for only one Grindr) or changing customer expectations, as Skype did to Plain Old Telephone Service. Someone will change the paradigm, displacing Skype as the iconic reference. Until then, product managers, buyers, investors and the press will ask: how are you different from Skype? Your answer is… GoogleTalk video calls are now an Android app, as are Skype’s Qik video calls. But these are just milestones on the way to a new platform for video calling.
They’ve had many experiments with streaming live video, perhaps going back further than the October 2009 live-streamed U2 concert. 2011’s Royal Wedding was YouTube’s most-watched live stream. This means they had to upload one stream, instantly. Transcode for different screens, live. And cache and distribute live streams simultaneously across all regions. Millions of live viewers, so, nicely done. Is YouTube ready for the next challenge? To turn YouTube into a live video calling, conferencing, and casting service? I’ve asked video and VoIP professionals about this for two years. Everyone says there are three challenges: addressing, connection and latency. Can YouTube users perform people search efficiently and accurately? Can you connect people promptly, grabbing attention so people answer a call? And can you stream the voice and video with less than a tenth of a second delay, so people don’t notice the lag? Industry people say these are hard, especially latency. No doubt. But I have confidence that Google’s commitment and resources can meet the challenge. When the Google Voice team nails these problems, they are free to innovate user experience and market applications. To build live conversation into Google properties. To offer live conversation as a platform for AdWords advertisers. To define video as the default Android calling mode. To make your Google identity more important than your phone number. Where does that leave Skype? Will they launch a cloud Skyping platform before Google? Will it be as compelling for today’s users and developers as the first Skype desktop clients were in the Summer of 2003? I know they aspire to a new degree of awesome. Yet it probably won’t come down to quality or design. Network effects attract users, so the people you want to talk to or work with are within the network. Network effects trump product quality and user experience. Multiply network effects by the ability to reach people in the network. So can your network offer dialtone all day, everywhere, in every context? Android gives Google an edge in network dialtone, always on in your pocket. Skype will have to be strategically awesomer to beat that.
Muzaffar Rizvi reports for the Kaleej Times:
Why the fuss? Apple is hiring cloud engineering talent. They should. Everyone with a digital side to their business should. That’s how infrastructure works today. Web sites? Cloud. Entertainment for sale? Cloud. Storage to rent? Cloud. Apps to license? Cloud. Data portability features to host? Cloud. Universal identity services? Cloud. Nearly all of Apple’s non-hardware lines of business have an online component. Cupertino staffing cloud talent doesn’t signal revolution or new strategy. It’s an everyday tale of ordinary business adjusting to swings in technology architecture. And if you didn’t notice, Apple’s had cloud operations for years. So. Whoop. De. Doo.
NetTALK president Anastasios ‘Takis’ Kyriakides answered a few of my questions. SJ. MagicJack operates a phone company to back their VoIP operations. Does netTALK? Yes, our Network Operations center (datacenter) is located in Miami, Florida, with several POP locations in several states for redundancy and to guarantee uptime. We are interconnected with most major carriers and emergency services. SJ. Skype tried a retail strategy a few years ago, with adapters, PC-free Skype desk phones, and Skype credit gift cards. Why do you think netTALK and MagicJack have had success in retail? Skype users were early adopters of VOIP technology, when Skype introduced retail products consumers were in a transition of mobile communications, the economy was more stable and consumers were less concerned about the cost savings associated with Skype technology. Andy Abramson blogged the subsidies made by the YMAX phone company to MagicJack, allowing free/cheap calls, violated FCC rules. Will MJ raise rates, cut services or quit? Toktumi founder Peter Sisson talks right into the camera and says Line2 is better than Skype on iOS or Android. He’s pitching Line2 as a phone service, positioning Skype as weaker in at least three features.
Other areas not mentioned in the video but compared on their site:
Line2 costs $9.95/month for unlimited calling to US and Canada, and texting from the US. Skype is $2.99 for roughly the same service, with the differences listed above and the caps of the fair usage policy. Are Line2’s extras worth three times the cost? For many people, I’m sure they are. Yet when you talk to Skype’s leadership, they are all about the video. These types of apps are not especially interesting when a new frontier of video calling, messaging, conferencing and collaboration lies ahead. More ISPs now charge fortunes for blowing your bandwidth cap. Netflix.ca now lets you choose a lower quality video stream for one-third the bandwidth consumption. While Skype automatically adjusts your quality to fit available CPU, bandwidth, and connectivity, would it make sense to offer a bandwidth-conserving user preference for lower resolution video? Irrawaddy reports Burma’s Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT) ordered a stop to competitive over-the-top services. Salesforce spent millions launching Chatter.com on yesterday’s Super Bowl. This video is Yammer’s prepared response. Yammer argues Chatter is where Yammer was two years’ ago, when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff praised Yammer at the September 2008 TechCrunch50 unveiling. The newly public Chatter offers the same things now Yammer offered then. To the tune of “Copycat”, Yammer says it spent the last three years “developing, creating, growing, organizing, learning, enhancing, inventing, evolving, influencing, stimulating;” building new applications, new enterprise features (“virtual firewall, two-factor authentication, custom branding, custom usage policy, Active Directory sync, SharePoint integration, keyboard monitoring, multiple domains, data export”), and serves 100,000 companies (including eBay, Skype’s partial owner) and two million “passionate users.” That’s 20 users per company, for you doing the math at home. Let’s hear what Chatter.com has to say about the comparison. More interestingly: Let’s contrast the ability of both companies to bring higher levels of excitement, engagement, platforming, and adoption to workplace communication and collaboration. Let’s see to what degree they bring live, realtime communication (voice and video, simulation and immersion, mobile and augmented reality) to collaboration. About the song: Lyrics to Copycat (chorus: “He’s a copycat, trying to steal my soul, But he’s too fat to rock ‘n’ roll, He’s a copycat, trying to steal my soul, But he’s too fat to rock ‘n’ roll.”), rockabilly music video, performed live by Patrick Ouchène in Eurovision 2009. advertising | collabonation | Collaboration | competition | Competitors | marketing | salesforce | skypelandia If Salesforce made a Skype for intranets, it would look like Chatter. We’ll talk more about it in the days to come but here are some of their television commercials which aired during halftime at Super Bowl 45. The style is fun and enthusiastic. And, like Skype, Salesforce loves the blue skies, clouds, and rounded sans serif typefaces visual identity. Related videos: api | Business | competition | Developer Zone | platformers | platforming | Skype | skypelandia | video The API folks at Mashery blogged about OpenTok:
Very nice. I played with an earlier version at Startup Weekend this summer. It’s great to see TokBox partner with Mashery to bring their API to a wider pool of developers. So when do you think Skype will offer a similar set of APIs? Pick a week between 1/1/2011 and 1/1/2013 when Skype blogs it. I’ll give a FreeTalk Headset to the person who leaves a tweet tagged #skypegroupvideoapi or a blog comment before 2011. Not open to Skype employees and insiders. Sorry, for those of you outside the US; you’ll only win bragging rights. My guess: the week of 3-9 April 2011, right after April Fool’s Day.
Until I build a Skype video chat room into Skype Journal, chat with me on Skype. Call me at +1-510-343-5664, follow on twitter @SkypeJournal (just the posts) and @evanwolf (everything). Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats. 
Comcast told Level 3 to pay a toll before sending Netflix video streams to Comcast users. This fee wouldn’t be unusual if, say, Level 3 were moving the video files over Comcast’s network to Verizon or BT customers (transit). But Comcast is charging both the home user and then charging again for the data the user is trying to download. They’ve already been paid to move the data. Comcast is holding customers hostage while interfering with their freedom to use the Internet. Comcast is abusing its oligopoly power. This is bad for Skype and its customers. It doesn’t take much imagination to see Comcast charging Skype for voice and video call traffic before it ever gets to a callee. Perhaps it is time to break up Comcast into separate companies: one each for content creation, traffic termination, Internet transit, and communication. Is it too late to block the Comcast-NBC Universal deal? It takes strength and independence to take on Comcast. Few congressmen have either. See also:
Skype users call billions of minutes yearly. That customer behavior is stolen from phone companies. Skype accounts for more than 12% of long distance and international minutes after seven years. Those phone companies can’t fight back using their PSTN phone system: 40% of Skype calls have video, and your local phone company can’t offer that. Mobile operators (like Skype partner Verizon Wireless) are migrating users from minutes to megabytes but haven’t shown any apptitude [yes, that’s how I meant to spell it]. Apple’s FaceTime video calling products compete directly with Skype. Skype 5’s group video calling serves more than the first FaceTime beta, but it’s only been a few months; Apple will catch up. Andy Abramson thinks an Apple+Cisco partnership could bring WebEx-style video conferencing to everyone with a Mac or an iOS product. Andy nails it: the hard parts are client distribution and getting the messaging and video streaming right. Both are easily within Apple’s grasp. If they want it. Will Apple wait to cement their new, ruthlessly simple calling behavior before extending the product family to group calling, webinars, presentations, TV apps, and video meetingware? Probably; they are a consumer products company first and foremost. The opportunity to pick up a billion dollars in Confabistan could well override their sense of purity. Cisco is in the best position to help Apple’s consumer products sell to business. They sell at every end of the conferencing spectrum except at the most democratic, consumer level. So FaceTime might close that gap for Cisco and lend some of Apple’s brand magic to Cisco’s B2B identity. As attractive as Apple may be, Cisco may have greater opportunities partnering with Skype. Skype has a focus on communication, like Cisco. Skype is much more amenable to integrative partnerships than Apple. Skype is looking for ways to boost its valuation before IPO, so they’ll be looking at things Cisco’s way. So Skype would be easier to work with. Skype has a serious enterprise agenda. Skype is pushing into business through trunking, where inbound and outbound calls travel over Skype’s network. This is an important point of control. While SkypeOut brings in the money today, Skype can help companies bypass the telephone system altogether using the IETF VIPR protocols developed by Skype’s Jonathan Rosenberg and Cisco’s Cullen Jennings. Skype should be able to extract large payments for producing even larger savings. Skype’s video calling network should fill in Cisco’s low cost retail gap, a gateway drug for Cisco’s more expensive WebEx, ūmi, Tandberg, and TelePresence lines. And Skype can be bought outright, unlike Apple.  Until Cisco buys Skype, chat with me on Skype. Call me at +1-510-343-5664, follow on twitter @SkypeJournal (just the posts) and @evanwolf (everything). Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats. |
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