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Skype Starts To Morph With 3.0 Beta |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 09 November 2006 |
Skype's first Beta of its third generation console has seen the company make significant evolution of the client software with changes to the user interface, the introduction of more social networking features and space for third party developers to hook in to provide extra features and services.
The new client software brings together a number of features developed over the past 18 months and brings them all within easy reach of the user. Click-to-call toolbars for FireFox and Internet Explorer are now included in the package and the company has expanded its Chat features to allow for multi-user chat sessions.
In some ways the changes are clearly dictated by its new corporate owners at eBay which need to make shopping an integral part of the tool to leverage the user base it paid so dearly for.
The public chats feature allows for moderated chats (anybody can moderate their own chat) for up to 100 users as with the previously available audio Skypcasting. It's now easy to find Skypecasts, though, as the client software now has a list of active one's right their in the console. All the controls for Skypcast participation have also been bought within the confines of the console making it a much neater solution.
The new version also makes the discovery and integration of third party developer widgets much neater and easier for the end user.
Skype has the potential to be the core of an ecosystem of monumental proportions. If the company can support its third party developer base not only via development support, but with integration, marketing nad profile, this will certainly drive adoption of Skype as a platform rather than just as a solution.
The Beta 3 release drove the number of online users to more than 8 million for the first time. A milestone event for the 136 million registered user base, but to make a return on its investment, eBay need to get Skype to do so much more.
In an interview with Reuters, one of Skype's founders Chief Executive Niklas Zennstrom explains how the future of Skype is less about communications and more about services - e-commerce services.
Although Skype revenues are growing exponentially, with forecasts for 2006 revenues up 225 per cent to US $195 million, it will take far more than telecommunications to make eBay's investment pay judging from what Zennstrom has to say.
"Our long-term goal is to have much more balance between e-commerce and telecommunications revenues," he told Reuters.
"There are other e-commerce services that I cannot talk about today that we are working on as well," he said.
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