Yahoo Messenger vs Skype

Reuters Eric Auchard writes about Yahoo's news to offer a Skype-like solution, so that people can now make and receive calls at lower rates than Skype and traditional phone companies. The west coast empires are 'a growin.'

Ouch - I'm still thinking of the price for Skype and despite co-launching Teleo, I still don't have an exact number of what Microsoft gobbled them up for. Now with the addition of voice and video ("Phone Out") into Yahoo Messenger text, it should be interesting to watch the playing field.

With Phone Out, the cost will be low from PCs to phones and with Phone In, there will be dramatically reduced rates (as a subscription service) from phones to PCs. Yahoo Messenger calls to the states will be half of what Skype offers per minute.

Here's a link to who has been blogging about this article.

Skype and eBay

An interesting article talks about the Skype eBay connection, asking: "Why would an online auction company be interested in buying an Internet telephone company?"

VoIP & IM Explosion

More on the growth of, NO, the explosion of VoIP and VoIP over Instant Messaging.

The article references the Radicati Group, who suggests that there will be 867 million instant messaging accounts by the end of the year, growing to over a billion by 2009. And as for the market and the tie-in with VoIP; its probable that many of those accounts will be using VoIP. (think Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others)....most of the giants have a VoIP strategy in place or are thinking of implementing one.

While voice quality has improved, its not there yet, not where I'm ready to give up a landline....plus, I want to be able to walk around the house or office and not glued to a PC. At the same time, the growing costs of landline phone usage infuriates me. Anyone else out there? Just like cable, the quality and value goes down and the costs go up. So much for making it easier and cheaper for the consumer.

Yet with IM usage up and VoIP being integrated, there's clearly a market. Does that mean I'll be glued to my screen for more hours in a day? I'm already hooked on Yahoo Messenger and sadly its because I'm partial to the user interface and smiley personalities. (hard to image at my age, but its true)...

The convergence between the AOLs, MSNs, and Yahoos of the world and the Skypes and Vonages has already started.......it will be interesting to see (and hear) the results and how this will change the way we communicate in the coming months ahead.

Yahoo with Voice

Finally, Yahoo with Voice is ready. Called Yahoo Messenger with Voice, its a Yahoo instant messaging client with voice capabilities that allows users to talk using VoIP. (Couldn't their marketing team come up something a little snappier than Yahoo Messenger with Voice??)

Each person must have Messenger installed and a microphone or speakers, which most systems today have, but not all.....

According to the PC Magazine write-up, they'll include ring tones, free voicemail and a call history that shows what calls were made, a list of when calls were made and the length of each call.

Vonage & Enterprise

Om writes about a new Vonage deal, straight from the WSJ.

According to the news piece, Vonage makes an enterprise move with TowerStream.

With roughly 1,000 customers, Towerstream is a great fit for Vonage, who now has immediate access to those customers........from the post: otherwise, "it can fall prey to the whims of the incumbent carriers who have their own VoIP ambitions. Its not a slam dunk, because enterprise VoIP is a hotly contested business."

On Blogcasting......

Blogcasts are new to SuperNova this year. David Weinberger is hosting on-site and CNET News is also 'blogcasting' the event.

JD Lasica posted an in-depth summary of Chris Anderson's Long Tail talk, which many of us have heard about in the past year.

Says Chris as recapped by JD, "The Long Tail is basically about a variety bloom. We've had a variety bloom for decades in this country, centered on products. Today, there's also an explosion of information about products. So you don't just have variety but you have information about that variety."

Three forces that make for a Long Tail market: (1) the tools of production have been democratized, we've made it easier and easier to make stuff; (2) the Internet has lowered transaction costs so it's easier to buy stuff; (3) finally, there are new ways to connect consumers -- word of mouth, recommendations, search, techniques that drive demand.

Lunch with the Flickr guys, Mary Hodder and an industry pal from Plantronics. Other familiar faces include Doc Searls, CEO of BuzzMetrics Jonathan Carson, John Clippinger of SocialPhysics (on tomorrow), Adaptive Path co-founder Janice Fraser, Six Apart, Sxip's Dick Hardt, Steve Gillmor, Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw, Jeremy Allaire, Charlene Li of Forrester who just did an interesting post on Google's Wallet Musings.

The speakers are set up in a larger and more formal room than the South Bay venue last year. The wiki is alive and extremely active as people post comments and ad-ons to each session.

More video, audio and photos to come.

SuperNova Takes Off

While SuperNova had workshops at Wharton University (west) in San Francisco yesterday, sessions officially start tomorrow at The Palace Hotel.

In addition to mobile wireless and the relevance and importance of games, client Peter Sisson, CEO of Teleo is speaking as part of a panel with AT&T's Hossein Eslambolchi on VoIP, the convergence of.....and the connected world.

"How will developments such as unlicensed wireless and software-based voice over IP undermine the old communications order? Perhaps more importantly, how can they help to build a new one that is both viable and vibrant?"

Geek Gazette on VoIP

Says the Geek Gazette. 2005: The Year that VoIP becomes the Killer App.

VoIP at Networld Interop

VoIP is back and in a big way. (especially for the mobile professional). People are tired of paying for high landline bills, not to mention the countless additional services they soak you for (voice mail, call waiting, caller ID, etc). But for those who have two hour conference calls, cell phones alone are not enough. VoIP is a great supplement.

Of course I'm bias because Teleo is a client and their beta rocks. We did an analyst call the other day and afterwards the CEO told me he dialed in using Teleo. Unlike other VoIP services I've experienced, there was no latency or echo -- and the clarity was great.

VoIP was a hot button at Networld Interop last week in Las Vegas.

There's a great article about what the big VoIP story really is, which they remind us is not all about cheap phone calls. True, but every Skype user I've ever talked to seems to bring that up first. The big VoIP story, they claim, is its pending convergence with other technologies.

They're right and how cool is that.....VoIP will soon be integrated into everything, "from wireless mobile computers to smart phones to vehicle dashboards to media players to business and household appliances."

Client Teleo gets a plug, particularly for its "patent-pending technology that safely traverses firewalls without changing settings, so calls can be made over WiFi or inside corporate environments." What that means is that when you're not online, or the connection is down, you can still make or receive calls on your cell phone or your regular phone.

They also talked about LiteScape, who previewed their VoIP-based emergency notification application designed for individual and group paging in both public and business environments.

VON & VoIP on the West Coast

If you're in the Bay Area and at all interested in VoIP: the future of, the trends of, the impact of......check out VON this week at the San Jose Convention Center. Client Teleo is in the Global IP Sound booth, #629. Companies use GIPS SoundWare to bring the highest quality VoIP-enabled products to market.