Skype's Sale As Media Feint

ansak writes "Bob Cringely's latest article shows evidence that some aspects of the 90s bubble are indeed back: Why would Rupert Murdoch think of paying $3billion for a mostly free online service like Skype? But his last line shows a keen understanding of Murdoch's skills and methods: 'By putting Skype in play, he distracts for no money at all most of the major media companies. And while they try to figure out how to respond to VoIP, old Rupert will be attacking them on some completely other front. He'll be stealing their shoes.'"

Comments

Re:Skype quality??

[paulius_g]

I like Skype and MSN Messenger over Yahoo's voice for several reasons:

First, Yahoo does not always transmit voice. So there is that weird silence when nobody is talking. I better like hearing the backround noise because it makes you feel more "emersed".

Secondly, voice quality of MSN Messenger and Skype depend on your microphone and Internet connection. I recall calling a 56K user and having near-32bit quality. Another time, I've called a radio station (which had an excellent microphone and a decent Internet connection) and the quality was astounding (at a whopping 128kbps)!

MSN Messenger, only has two quality modes. I call them good and bad. The bad quality will mask some backround sound and transmit at 32bit, while the good quality even goes beyond Skype, many times. Of course, because of Microsoft, proper connection detection fails at multiple times and sometimes the voice simply does not work!

Now, let's get on a bad side of Skype (uh oh!) Skype uses quite an abundant percent of CPU compared to other programs. On a 800MHz computer, Skype takes up a whopping 80% while MSN remains at a low 5%. This is bad if you're trying to play some FPS game togethor or surf the web. Skype is preservative on bandwidth, though.

On the alternatives side, we have the usual VO-IP programs used by gamers and communities: Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. I prefer Ventrilo as it's quality can be comparted to MSN Messenger, but TeamSpeak is a bit preservative and goes at a way lower quality. Both these alternatives are excellent when chatting in groups.

So, to conclude:
      Skype
Advantages
  o Conference support
  o Great quality
  o Stable and reliable
  o Nice interface
  o Multi Platform --- Yay for Linux support!
  o Low bandwidth consumption
  o Bypasses firewalls greatly (I've tested with many corporate firewalls and Skype knows it's way around it!)

Disadvantages
  o High CPU usage
  o Not excellent for 56K connections

Until next time,
Paulius

Re:Skype quality??

[pmazer]

Gizmo is trying to compete... we'll see how that pans out.