Naked, barefoot and invisible Skype

An interesting post today on the Skype Dev Blog, has generated a fair bit of discussion in the blogosphere. Essentially it broaches the concept of a naked, headless, Skype client. Skype announced last August, the SkypeNet API, (Vaporware to this point btw) which was along these lines, but the concept of a 'Naked Skype' as discussed today goes much much further.

Alec weighs in with his Voice 2.0 manifesto musings, and they are bang on. Jim has a follow up post on SkypeJounal. This idea; creates and solidifies Skype as a platform for voice communication. Developers would flock to have access to the Skype communication network. I could see "Skype Inside" stickers popping up like Intel Inside, or "powered by Skype" etc., all driving a healthy and expanding developer community and enlarging the userbase for Skype paid services.

It seems pretty apparent that these are the tools the dev. community wants - and on the heels of a Techdirt analysis that Skype is far from reaching its earn out clause numbers, I would think they would jump at the chance to start offering robust, enterprise tools for the loyal community to start driving real numbers to the bottom line.

Ringtones are so last Tuesday.


Developer, Developers, Developers....

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FireFlicks Contest - First Entrants are posted

The first entrants in the Firefox promotion for a Video Commercial are out, this is my fave so far.

You can see the rest and vote here.

$218 Trillion Phone Bill - Someone needs Skype!

Telecom Trends: Data Entry Error - ya think?

Mark Goldberg, caught this Fox News Story of a Malaysian man who received a 218 Trillion Dollar phone bill.

That is a lot of SkypeOut...

From the Associated Press Article.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

Iotum builds - Asterisk Integration Kit

This morning, without having the opportunity to peruse my usual blog postings, I asked Alec Saunders CEO of Iotum - at the VON Toronto show, how one would integrate to Asterisk, PBX. (I swear I wasn't a plant) - co-incidentally - Iotum (earlier this morning) released a MAJOR intiative to support Asterisk Worldwide with an integration kit to Asterisk. Well DONE, smart and I look forward to seeing it work.

Embracing open standards Telephony for a startup is a risky but brilliant idea. Marketing to a niche like Asterisk, is very forward thinking and this will really showcase the power of new Voice 2.0 apps. Telco's will constantly be pushed by moves like this to embrace new apps.

Alec's excellent keynote (best so far) pointed out one thing that is ringing in my ears, Niche's can be very profitable, I am glad telco's are not thinking in this space as it opens the doors for quicker, faster and (hmm smarter) companies like Iotum to make some big gains.