Skype

AOL is announcing the launch of their Open Voice API today. The Open Voice API will work with the AIM Call Out service which allows users of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to call out worldwide. I guess AIM Call Out could be considered a Skype competitor though it's not as feature rich or as polished an application.

The new API will allow developers to create applications that build on the AIM Call Out functionality and use devices including softphones and mobile devices with WiFi capabilities. Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President, AOL said, "We’re building on the popularity of the Open AIM program and opening up the AIM Call Out platform, enabling open standards voice communication services to proliferate in the marketplace." Check out the developer guidelines for the API.

Both AOL Call Out and Skype's "Skype Out" service charge per minute and offer monthly unlimited plans.

Today's hot social news is the announcement of Skype partnering with MySpace to integrate Skype into the MySpace IM client and into the site itself. Owen from Valleywag sums it up well, "The bottom line: Now you can call your MySpace friends right from the "add me" page!" I really don't see the value here and am betting most users will turn off the call function after the first few "perv" calls.

What about the business model? That's easy too -- people who use a free service such as MySpace are going to buy premium services from Skype to integrate into their MySpace profiles and IM. Sure, they will use the free calling, but I can't actually imagine many takers on the paid services. This contradicts what Amit Kapur, vice president of business development at MySpace said today, "If we can engage the user base in the right way and increase usage and create the right sort of premium experience that people want to participate in, as well as monetize around the free environment through advertising, it can be a viable business partnership".

Caroline at Webware has some interesting thoughts on the deal, "Only 25 million out of MySpace's 110 million active users have downloaded the MySpaceIM client. And neither company is at the top of its game. MySpace still leads the social-networking field in membership and traffic, but has lost its place in the spotlight to fast-growing rival Facebook. And Skype hasn't exactly turned out to be a real winner for eBay, with some critics saying that the two are mismatched.".

Om Malik notes, "The new client will give a big boost to both communities and is a net positive for both Skype and MySpace."

I guess we will wait and see once the service launches in November -- will it be a long-lasting relationship or a one-night stand? What are your thoughts? Will you enable this option on MySpace?

Yugma is a simple-to-use desktop sharing application that we reviewed earlier in the year. This past week Yugma launched a Skype Edition of the tool offering quick desktop sharing access to anyone you are chatting with using Skype.

"We wanted to build upon Skype's legendary ease of use," said Karel Lukas, COO of Yugma. "Skype makes it easy for people to stay in constant contact and to communicate with one another spontaneously. We believe collaboration needs to move in the same direction, which is why it was natural for Yugma and Skype to come together."

"It's as simple as clicking 'Start Sharing' in the Yugma window and your friend can see your entire desktop. Press another button in the window and you can swap the sharing power to them… so users of Windows and Mac can share desktops with each other!" wrote Caitlin of Skype in last week's Skype Developer Program Newsletter.

Yugma offers free and paid options. The free is actually quite powerful and is ad-supported. The paid plans offer additional services such as a recorder, file storage and scheduling. I've used it a bunch of times for demos and it's easier than using WebEx as there is no software to install.

Canadian blogger Mark Evans discusses customer service when a service is free. Let's clear this up quick; Skype is free for some but not all. I just renewed my SkypeIn for $18 (did this go up in price??) and voicemail at $6. I also paid for unlimited SkypeOut ($25?) and in my book, that's enough to expect better communication than I received last week. It doesn't mean the service can't experience an outage, but it means I better know what is going on. Skype used their Heartbeat blog to let us know what was going on and that's great but why did I receive not one email? They have my email, they have every bit of info on me since I pay for their service.

Andy Beal agrees and notes:

Well, I pay for a Skype In number and Skype Out credits. I use Skype as my main office phone - so, yes, I expect more from them. ;-) What sucks is that I didn’t get a single update from Skype. I had to rely on reports from the web.

Mark does raise an interesting point about Freemium services, those that offer a free plan and a premium option. What should the support level be for each? Should it be the same or different? My belief is that a company like Skype needs to offer staggered levels of support based on the plan(s) a customer subscribes to. Customer service has been a very important part of my package since I worked at the grocery store at 14.

Last November I wrote a post titled, "Customer Service: Free vs. Paid Services" in which I describe the minimums that a free service needs to offer for support. They are:

Must have:

• Community Help Forums - I like Drupal as the example here, a completely free app with no advertising and their support forum is awesome - 85% of the time, someone has helped me (or I have helped) within 12 hours. This can also help you gain valuable knowledge into how your users view your application.
• FAQ - This is a must have. As inquiries come in, either through email, forums, etc. Get it up, make sure it is updated frequently. A good job for an intern.
• Wiki - This is similar to the FAQ but allows for open editing by service users.

Good to have:

• Email support - offer a way for users to email you for help. Make sure you tell them when to expect a response (24/48/72 hours, etc.)
• Phone support - most probably can't afford this, but with new services out there, you could have customers leave voicemail messages with questions or comments, and then get back to them. I would consider this to be the best possible level of support.

So I ask, what level of support do you expect from a service that you use for free or generating revenue from your usage of their product?

As we know Skype was out of service for ~36 hours last week. Well it's back now and we just received a tip that the newest release now contains heavy product ads. There have been small ads for a while now, but these new ads are bigger and bolder than before. It might be worth waiting to download for now. It this just the first step? Will we start to see eBay ads and others inside the Skype window? This is ultra-valuable real estate!

Here is an example:

Thanks for the tip Corsin.

Skype has provided the full explanation as to what happened last week when the service experienced an outage lasting over 36 hours. They open the explanation with:

On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.

So if I read correctly, it was our fault for updating Windows. Blah. What would have been great is to start with, "We are sorry, we screwed up." Instead, they push the blame around. Double blah.

They continue with:

The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.

Normally Skype’s peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, however, this event revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly. Regrettably, as a result of this disruption, Skype was unavailable to the majority of its users for approximately two days.

So there was also an issue with Skype's software but this wouldn't have happened if MS provided bug-free software. I love Skype but am disappointed with this final update message.

"Does Skype matter?" is the question on the plate this morning. Jason Calacanis, A-list Webulebrity and better-search engine builder, believes no. In a comment left yesterday here on CenterNetworks he said, "Is the Skyp outage that big news? If it happens again, or becomes a trend maybe. But every service goes down at some point... not sure this is as major a news story for folks outside the 'techcrunch 100k.'"

I am not sure what a "techcrunch 100k" is, but if we assume that it's the readership of Techcrunch, I have to disagree. If you review the comments on our Skype Down post 24 hours ago (the first U.S. site to report on the outage), the majority of the 68 comments come from non-webtechies. It is interesting to note that while Jason doesn't believe it's big news, he was quick to create a "stub" page on Mahalo.

Now let's shift gears to a post on Techcrunch, authored by Duncan Riley. Duncan notes that eBay stock dropped $1 billion in market cap yesterday. The post seemed quite ambiguous as to whether Skype was the reason Duncan believes that the stock lost its value. I asked, "Just so I understand Duncan, are you suggesting that the $1 b market cap reduction was due to Skype down today?" Duncan promptly replied with, "the failure of eBay to bounce towards the end of the day when the NASDAQ did (the red line in the chart) would seem to indicate that yes: there is a link." Luckily Mike (Techcrunch Editor) responded shortly thereafter, "There’s no link at all between these as far as I can tell." While a continued Skype outage will affect the books, right now it's a public relations issue.

My answer to the initial question is: Yes, Skype matters. Companies bank on Skype to provide services which they pay for. I have a Skype-In and a Voicemail which I pay for so this outage hurts. Jason and Duncan sit on opposite sides which is a shock considering how much they are tied into the Internet. As the outage continues, other p2p/voip services must be loving it. And it's a wakeup call for those that rely 100% on the service. Have a backup plan just in case it's needed.

FYI, as of 7:30 Eastern, Skype is still down.

Anyone else with Skype down? For me, it's been down since at least 5am eastern. I have another report out of Switzerland that it's also down there. The Web site is not loading as well.

Please report in, thanks.

Update: 12:22 Eastern - Thanks everyone for reporting in! Here is the official update. Looks like another half-day possibly before it is back.

UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Additionally, downloads of Skype have been temporarily disabled. We will make downloads available again as quickly as possible.