New VOIP App. Profiled

sniggly writes "Cnet News.com has an interview with Kazaa co-founder Janus Friis about their latest product Skype. Skype is a p2p VOIP technology that quote '... is addressing all the problems of legacy VoIP solutions: bad sound quality, difficult to set up and configure, and the need for expensive, centralized infrastructure.' Windows only beta client available."

Comments

What about spyware?

[dzym]

I'd only use it if I could be reasonably certain that it wouldn't be some spyware-riddled infested crapware like Kazaa itself.

Which, since it's from the same guys as Kazaa, I would certainly expect it to be.

Color me uninterested until accounts of user experiences pop up all over the internet with an overwhelmingly positive response.

Google Censorship

[Aliencow]

I wonder how long til there's a Skype Lite out there..and how long before Google removes links to it. Grr.

Probably Redundant, but

[malus]

the telecom industry still hasn't figured out that VOIP is going to take more and more $$$ away.

I wonder just when their lobbyists will get the US congress to outlaw or at least hamper the use of inter/intrastate VOIP?

Hmm alternatives

[Daath]

There are several similar applications out there, the oldest I can remember off-hand is Speak Freely which does secure p2p.

Right now we use Ventrilo internally at work - it's not secure, but we can do conferencing in super quality with VERY low bandwidth! It's excellent!

Forget the popups

[vile7707]

With this we are likely to see a new telemarketting trend if it takes off. Think about it, there's a no call list, but there's certainly no such regulations regarding this technology yet.

Thw Telecommunications wishlist...

[ChozCunningham]

Is it impossible for the open source community to develop a new app and protocol for IM. IM is the biggest thing to not happen on the internet fro users. (Micropayments interest providers, not users.)

Give me one single robust protocol and the apps to run on it can be many and slendid. Just make sure it has everything useful from all the other IM apps out there. Even if the execution quality is poor, lay out the groundwork.

a) decentralized
b) secure
c) video and audio
d) messaging
e) file transfer
f) file browsing
g) open protocol
h) whiteboard
i) multiple logins j) basic multiuser functionality(a la IRC)

I am certain I am missing something. But I really didn't expect things to take this long... I know hypertext took a long time to turn into the www, but that was a bit more pioneering. This is largely a technical issue, since every feature above is offered by On of the big IM's, Skype or Waste.

Obviously, the Major businesses are not intersested in developing an interoperable standard. However, it is the technophiles and pedestrian Internet Users who would benefit from this. So it should be seen to by us to create one protocol to implement such an awesome app. And even if you couldn't call POTS from it, it would catch on. Hell, if it was open, the major IM providers would probably build gateways to access it or eventually leave their existing systems to jion it, increasing it's already immense value.

At least then I wouldn't need to have Trillian, ChatZilla, IIP, Waste and Shareaza all at once (and Y! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AIM and ICQ installed) just to share a few annecdotes and family photos with friends!

Please, coder people! Help us out!