
"What are the new Skype features [in Skype for Windows 2.0]?
* Best ever call quality.
* One-to-one video conversations with anyone, anywhere in the world.
* Contact list grouping – organize your Skype contacts anyway you like by creating groups for 'colleagues', 'friends' and 'family',etc.
* Mood message and local time display - so your contacts know where you're at and how you feel.
* Improved web presence through Skype buttons - display your Skype status on your blog or webpage."
There is much speculation on fellow bloggers' sites on how Skype is headed for some rough times. First came reports of employee defections after the eBay merger from OM and Andy, then channel canibalization with the incorporation of features that used to be the "sacred garden" of Skype affiliates who invested in R&D hoping for some time before Skype would eventually give it for free.
I would add to that the emergence of a P2P SIP protocol, the release of more SIP compliant hardware such as sub $100 Wifi phones, the competition from Microsoft (which has included a wideband codec in its latest release of MSN) and Gtalk.
In a nutshell, I predict that Skype has acted, not unlike ICQ in its heydays, as a catalyst for mass adoption. It was certainly not the first tool to allow point to point voice and and video chat and PSTN VoIP (MSN has offered it more than 5 years ago in partnership with IconnectHere) but it was the first tool that actually works most of the time and works well.
It is only a matter a time before competition, and especially open source competition, would catch-up and give eBay a run for its billions.
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