From the EDge

It is not a good sign that I am too busy to comment about Skype and the EBay quarterly report. I don’t watch closely but Skype Journal is a great reminder of these events. Skype should be concerned that I am spending time with Facebook instead of Skype. Of course they might not care what I personally am doing but the numbers of developers and applications on Facebook speak for themselves. Skype should be asking if there is a lesson here. There is.

First developers do not need to pay the platform and find a place among favorite sons and big money. While there are always going to be some advantages to dominant participants, Facebook offers a remarkably level playing field. The platform benefits from developer applications and innovation beyond the platform itself. Skype does have the most versatile telephony platform. In my view they barely appreciate it. It is not exploited as well as it could be. Users certainly have little visibility into the benefits of such. (Compare to Facebook where users rule.)

And here is a real fundamental that is missed as far as I can tell. I think the biggest general malaise around Skype is staring us all in the face. I can barely figure out Skype. Now how can an average user approaching Skype know what benefits may accrue, if it is so complicated and obscure that I can’t even explain it easily to such a user? The Skype Journal posting by Jim Courtney correctly wonders, what is the rate of acquiring real users? Why are so many coming but not staying? Duh. Do you suppose something is lost in the translation and users don’t want to spend hours trying to figure how it can help?

For some reason the Skype website (they aren’t the only one) does not want to clearly express all the various user benefits. You have to probe and probe, go to sign-up pages and present various alternatives to see what you might discover. They make a phone company look straightforward. Names of initiatives change, get modified and restructured so that if you knew what something was last year, it’s not quite the same now. I get the best insight on explanations that come periodically on Skype Journal. If Skype Journal has to explain what Skype features are offered this is a very sad state of affairs.

The Skype value proposition is dependent on where you are in the world. Maybe they don’t want that so visible, but so what. If a new visitor cannot figure out what possible value may be delivered to them, or to their friends and family elsewhere, the user moves on. If the unique capabilities of the Skype platform are not exploited, it degrades into just another IP voice option from a visitors view. I think Skype remains largely dependent on word of mouth for one user to introduce others. In the beginning that was very useful. Check the calendar, it’s 2008.

Recently I bought a digital video camera and I have been taking it to public meetings, particularly to capture slides and presenter’s comments on same. Last night I was a bit shocked to be called out publically to not record a presentation. I had no problem complying but, of course, I became more interested in the presentation.

I tried to imagine what hands a recording could fall into and what foul deeds could be done. I was at a public venue open to anyone with $25 (Hispanic-Net June Meeting). No surprise, the presentation was by a lawyer and the subject was DRM (Digital Rights Management) issues. I don’t think I learned any secrets. One thing was very clear. Trying to track various rights claims on a property like a Hollywood film is unbelievably complex in the new world of today. And why is that? –Because it was designed for another era. So we are stuck with a phalanx of attorneys trying to preserve an image of the past that simply does not exist. –A very complicated mess. –A business at war with its customers. How out of touch can you get?

I think it is time for the messy part to end. DRM is a lawyer full-employment initiative. (Not that there no other such initiatives) The fat lady is singing. The lawyers are lined up adding more verses to be sung to extend the singing, but it needs to end. Some among the legal profession should tackle the challenge of revising the practice for what the new world has become. If some insist on old rules, they must be left behind. If some artistic work can only be heard on an original 78 rpm record, just leave it there. Put it in a museum. Lock it up and leave a couple of lawyers to guard it.

P.S. I mean no harm to the lawyer who in conscience had to ask me to hide my camera.

I had to chuckle when I first read on Skype Journal that 3 Monkeys were going to do press work for Skype. That may be a clever name for a firm– even I am not sure about that, but when one could ask how many monkeys has Skype had working on PR and marketing in general it ceases to be too funny.

While Skype has been largely wildly successful and a great business story, it is hard to complain much. There is a lot more to Skype’s “problems” than PR. (”Problems” meaning ones that many would love to have!) It may be that 3 monkeys can help get the word out, whatever it is, but that is more the issue.

What is the strategic vision at Skype? Most have gotten tired of thinking that it may come from eBay, but it must come before the tank is too close to empty. It is a difficult problem in my view. This is a paradigm shift, but has to keep connecting with the old paradigm of telephone service. So now users and Skype think it is some phone service, but what is it?

My view is that Skype very quickly got confused about being a phone service or what it was. First the use of VoIP was verboten, yet it was built completely on VoIP. Fair enough because VoIP was such a confusing moniker in the marketplace. It is not a phone service because then 911/emergency services become an issue. In the meantime alternately partnering or terrorizing phone providers in various markets seems like a phone competitor. And in the end are users who are still thinking of phone service as they know it.

I think it will take more than 3 Monkeys or any number of monkeys to figure this out. Paradigm shifting is exciting and non-trivial. Embracing the old helps the transition. Yet if you partner with the walking dead, where will you be? We knew the Internet would change everything, but no one provided directions.

The Vista clock is ticking, counting the days to have Windows XP mothballed. This has not been a development that I welcome. Most have been concerned about the inefficiencies and various expected challenges associated with a new operating system. My concerns have been with the audio system since TeleVoce is all about exploits of PC audio. We have built our software on utilizing the Windows audio system that has been in place for over 10 years. After early PC proprietary solutions made audio problematic for users, the core standardization was a great concept. Then along came Hollywood and the recording industry. The old school found friends in Washington—a great place for the old school to hangout. Now we are all hamstrung by the outdated concerns of the past. Re-architecting for proprietary interests got us a Vista mucked up. There may have been many hands in this committee design but digital rights issues have left us without fair use of PC media.

For my comedy break today I got the update Microsoft Partner email today.

Windows XP End-of-Sales Date Announced
Sales of Windows XP will end June 30. Prepare now to advise customers and maintain relationships while promoting upgrades to the Windows Vista operating system. Access resources to help you learn, sell, and deploy Windows Vista solutions–and get complete Windows XP end-of-sale details.

So I clicked the link for the details:

Page Not Found
HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found

There must be some embarrassment that we should not see. Then maybe I can find out at the End-of-Sale announcement link:

We
listened.
Now
you
can
act.
The
Windows
Vista
operating
system—the
most
innovative,
large-scale
technology
release
from
Microsoft
in
a
decade—has
been
improved,
thanks
in
part
to
your
feedback.
Strengthen
your
case
for
Windows
Vista
upgrades.
Show
your
customers
how
improvements
to
the
initial
release
address
reliability,
security,
performance,
administration,
and
support
for
emerging
hardware
and
new
standards.

That must have been formatted in Vista and my XP machine could not render correctly. But now that I read it, it says nothing about Windows XP. Maybe that is the new policy.

After further searching I did find this:

After careful consultation with customers and the partner community, Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP, effective June 30, 2008. Extended support will continue until 2014. This presents a great opportunity for you to consult with your customers and grow your business. With higher levels of reliability, security, performance, administration, and support offered by Windows Vista, you can make a strong business case for Windows Vista upgrades.

What an ugly story. The downgrading game I think gets to the heart of the matter. PC vendors can sell a Windows XP machine only after it was registered as a Vista sale. This is no way to treat customers or manufacturing partners. I don’t enjoy abusing Microsoft. Where would we have been without them, but this bytes.

I don’t mean generation as in age, but as in creation. Video is playing an increasing role everywhere in the Internet. It seems a bit bifurcated to me in that we have the people’s crappy whatever you get video and we get professional, i.e. expensive, production video.

As important as video is becoming the barriers need to be lowered for creating and deploying video. It looks like this is now emerging and I think we will see video completely normalized as these new concepts spread. There were a few different examples at Adtech. For a flash class of content Sprout has lowered barriers to creation and distribution. Aditall offers a low entry video creation and distribution of video ads. The $500 range for making a video ad is astounding, subject to any constraints. The technology (still seeking the business model) that totally was amazing was shown by Xtranormal. If they could say what the business model would be and it made sense for me, I would have spent a very long time in their booth. I did spend long enough to see this was a game changer. I could not believe their platform name as Text-to-Movie –until I saw it. This thing has more legs than a centipede. I can see why they may not be sure of what the roll-out model will be, but I want to check it out.

While each of these solutions may not solve all or, more importantly, your problem, it is clear that we are closing in on the democratization of video. I am feeling very inadequate just writing about it. That is why Adtech is one of the most important trade shows and now it is no longer a secret.

Well not exactly. Banning Facebook or restricting is yet another sign how far Facebook has come. I don’t have a list of historical benefactors of bans off the top of my head, but banning is one of the best things that can happen to almost anything. Seems like another marketer’s dream. Ban me, ban something I want to promote. I am also seeing the arguments for banning Facebook in businesses. This is the ultimate arrival. Panic about new modes of communication will be in vogue probably forever and also cannot be stopped. If we stop communicating we stop being human. That doesn’t sound good. Maybe if we all communicate more we will discover how human we are and how much we don’t need to shoot at each other. It would be great if the Israeli Army considered how to use Facebook in achieving peace.

Connecting Skype and Google has been an ongoing game for a couple of years. It is a good story that can fuel all kinds of speculation. Since the acquisition eBay has generally appeared more confused than delighted by Skype. Constantly looking to some future objective has been tiring no matter what you might be waiting for.

Now we have another eBay initiative to do … what exactly? I thought the recent Oprah relationship was the most aggressive we have seen from eBay. If eBay is getting the act together and believes that they can extract the promised value out of Skype, there may be no reason to cash out. My concern has been that they keep looking inside eBay for answers and have not demonstrated any strategy of driving the segment leadership that Skype established.

Skype is in a great market position. Who can maximize that value? EBay has lost our confidence, but can still make the acquisition payoff. If they are doubting, I hope this is more than a rumor. Unfulfilled expectations don’t serve the substantial community that is ready for continuing leadership and innovation. Someone stand-up and deliver.

Added April 3: Where’s the buzz? Skype Journal, including history. ZDNet. And on the financial front.

Those of us in the VoIP market have a relationship of one sort or another with VON and Jeff Pulver. Often they have been one and the same, certainly as the founder Jeff is the voice of VON. Now that all rumors point to the demise or significant transition, it appears to be an end to an era. This era is not the VON Show, but the state of the market and industry. VoIP is not news, so to speak. Jeff has embraced video, adopting the V as video and now the dot X, so there have already been many transitions, not to mention the ownership dance.

What we really miss and have already been missing is the gathering of thought leaders and friends that we see at each VON. I marveled and have often commented about the irony of Jeff’s inspirational keynotes being unappreciated by most show visitors.

Some of the commentary has unavoidably discussed the simultaneous scheduling of VON.x and VoiceCon. From a trade show industry view this was poor scheduling, but to me more interesting because VoiceCon could easily have been part of VON. Since VON has been dominated in many ways by old school telephony as they adopt VoIP technologies, the “new” unified communication movement could easily fit within a VON community. I have always felt this tension around VON that innovation was always valued, but we must pay the bills– and who could argue with that. Ultimately the brand of VON became difficult to position. The share of the early VON audience continued to decline and there was little need to preach the technological innovations that have made anything over IP as practical.

Speaking of innovation VoiceCon is not the land of innovation, so this is not a battle about leading any new market. That was my point about how this could have ended up as one larger show as innovation became dispersed into the mainstream of VON exhibitors. I recall attending a VoiceCon event (2 years ago as I recall) and finding that the participants had no clue what Skype was. How you could be any kind of a professional in the telecom business and not even know what Skype was is pretty shocking. Sadly there were probably a few attending VON in similar ignorance, but a very small minority.

It is somehow appropriate that Jeff has now embraced the next even bigger movement of social networking. I am on the same bandwagon myself. There is no question that while this is not much about technology, it will be much more pervasive and important than VoIP, as disruptive as it was. Many have already noted that there is no need to worry about Jeff. Hopefully all affected will land on their feet. News must be forthcoming. Jeff’s BlogTV show today was scheduled very early and short as he left for what must be a challenging meeting for him. Jeff could not comment on the recent rumors, but watch the wire and blogosphere .

I should not admit that I don’t read TechCrunch unless a specific link sends me there (a blog for another day). It is claimed that you can learn from the wisdom of crowds and I would think TechCrunch is supposed to attract an informed following. On March 27th TechCrunch posted that there was additional investment in Facebook. My guess is there is a pretty long line of investors who would like to have that opportunity, but the comments from the TechCrunch audience would make you think this was a gigantic mistake.

Clearly the readers of TechCrunch, or those commenting on this post, don’t seem to be in touch with the tech world. What are they in touch with? This might be arrogant site is a sought after news outlet, but I hope most readers are smarter than all the folks who are clueless about the leader in what may be the most important new market segment of our time.

Maybe flaming TechCrunch is a hobby I am not familiar with, but these folks need to buy a clue. Google knows. Do you think they have a clue? Maybe you have to be careful which crowd you look to for wisdom. I wouldn’t seek advice from this group.

Yesterday’s SNAP Summit was filled with food for thought. A comment by Facebook’s Dave Morin about the market penetration in Canada made me think. What about creating an arctic innovation center for communications? You wonder why?

We have seen communication leadership from the great white north. Canada has long been a telecom innovator, but think about the mobile phone. Where would we be without Finland? Market innovation and adoption has come form Finland. Some may argue about recent innovation from Cupertino. Does anyone know that Steve does not have a Yukon outpost?

Now Facebook has 20% market penetration in Canada and 25% in Toronto, the last time I heard that quoted. Apparently being isolated indoors with X feet of snow outside your door must be good for creating and adopting communication technologies. We haven’t heard from Iceland yet, but they don’t really live up to their name. I can only conclude that an arctic community could create and drive innovation. Are there any volunteers?