Skype Announces Voice Services Program
This morning, Skype announced their new Voice Services Program. Skype has partnered with three VoiceXML platform providers: Tellme, VoxBuilder and Voxeo, giving content providers the ability to host and bill for that content on the Skype Network. Services can be free, or paid for, at the developers discretion.
This is a fascinating development.
First, Skype has adopted the AOL walled garden content model. Host your content in our network, and we’ll share the revenue we collect from the user with you. This strategy worked well for AOL, especially when they had the momentum behind them. MSN, the johnny-come-lately to the online services party, was overwhelmed by the Internet. So, projecting forward 5 years, will we see a walled garden Skype surrounded by an open services world built on SIP, or will the promise of open services on SIP fall by the wayside as carriers seek to wall those services in?
Second, Skype has effectively turned their higher level API strategy over to three third parties. VoiceXML is far richer, and easier to write code for, than the Skype API. It seems certain that the Skype primitives will quickly become part of the VoiceXML offerings for each of these platform providers. I can only think of one reason to do this — Skype doesn’t have the manpower to build both a platform and extend their network. What a tough decision that must have been.
September 8th, 2005 at 10:05 am
[...] Andy’s point of view is interesting. He’s looking at how the Skype announcement affects content providers –> radio, media companies like Disney, and so on, as opposed to their platform strategy. Certainly with 160 million downloads, and a regular audience of more than 30 million users, Skype has just become one of the larger media audiences online. [...]
September 8th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
[...] Bill Campbell over on Skype Journal is very critical of the Skype Voice Services business model. It’s a consequence of not owning your own platform and API, as I said earlier today. Everyone has to get paid! Now, having said that, giving up 70% of your revenue to the distribution channel, in exchange for the weak promotional benefits offered, seems rich. Compare that to packaged software where there is an actual cost to warehousing and carrying credit, it’s very rich. [...]
September 11th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
[...] Aswath points out that speech rec isn’t required in systems that have keyboards, and questions the value of the recent announcement by Skype. First, we should note that these technology platforms have two components: playout the content stored in a website and recognizing the user’s speech to decide what needs to be played next. [...]