2005/10/05 14:42:00
So Ebay brought Skype and things move on. I have not really read that much about it but it did make me wonder why ebay would want it. I assumed it would be mostly about adding realtime messages and a “Talk To Seller” icon but now I am thinking much more.
Telcotrash has a few screenshots about some Ebay Skype intergration work that is going on and it suddenly struck me. How long will it be before you can pay for goods using skype credit? This is going to be really important in the future of virtual cash, Paypal is the one everybody has heard of but why should you not be able to transfer your skype cash?
While this is all very interesting I don’t think that it has a massive future, skype, while interesting is only one half of it and it will not be long before they are forced to open up and support more open protocols either in their client or at the server level. There are still lots of issues with companies trying to lock users into their VoIP clients but there is no future there. When was the last time you visited an AOL or Compuserve group, or waited for a MicrosoftMail message. You don’t because they were locked in and you opted for the most open format so that you could play with everybody. The same will happen with VoIP. This will probably be with SIP and even Peer to peer SIP but it will come and you will use it on your mobile, on your home phone, on hybrid GSM,WiMAX, Wi-Fi voice enabled PDA.
The funny thing is that who is going to pay for it? Nothing is free and as the income from phone calls disappears what are the Telcos going to do? Can they still make money from supplying Data Lines?
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