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Google, Skype and the Future of IM
Matt Veenstra sent in a nice little piece of rumor mongering about how Google's new Talk/Jabber/IM thing is just a stepping stone, but it's really just a foreshadowing of
their future buyout of Skype. Worth some thought anyway.
Did anyone who moderated this actually look at the site?
It has less than 10 posts, and was 'created' by the twit who posted the URL.
The few posts on the site tend to be inaccurate.
As I understand it, Skype can route your call to standard landlines/mobiles as well. Google Talk (at the moment) cannot.
-Jar.
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
Google respects and protects the privacy of individuals that use our services. Google Talk gives you control over whom you talk with, whom you block, and who can see your online status. Additionally, Google only requires minimal personal information--just your name and Gmail address--for you to use Google Talk.
Google Talk currently does not encrypt chats or calls. But we are working hard to make many improvements to Google Talk while it is in beta, and we plan to fully support encryption of chats and calls before our official release.
When you use Google Talk, you can choose to have your IM chats stored locally on your own computer so that you have a chat history. Google does not collect the content of instant message chats or voice conversations. As with all major IM services, Google Talk will collect certain log information created in the course of a conversation. This information is for Google's internal use only, to maintain statistics on usage and to improve our service and the user experience. We do not permanently store any personally-identifying information in the Google Talk logs. And we do not log any of the content of your chats or calls."
Good enough for you?
Also notable is that this is the first time I can think of that they've actually alluded to the Official Release of one of their perpetual betas.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
I have this feeling that the page will be slashdotted soon, so I'll just go ahead and post the worthless article (not that anyone will read it anyway)
Vol 13: Why Google's Instant Message Service is Not about Jabber but about Skype Date Published: August 23, 2005 By: Matt Veenstra
We recently have heard through the grapevine that the 3 billion dollar (US) offer from News Corp. was not enough money to convince the wonder twins over at Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, to sell. This is not just about money for Niklas and Janus. There must be a passion for technology. Look at Kazaa. Illegal file sharing is a hard business to make money at. At this point, it seems that any way they go, they stand to make a boat load of money when Skype hits the market, but it will be in a way they want.
Now step in the super boys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, of Google. Google does not have a great VoIP and Instant Message option. Jabber is fine, but it is no Skype. Technology-wise, Skype fits Google very well. A closed sourced open API environment that really just works. Look at Google maps. Look at AdSense and AdWords. They just work and on any platform, much like Skype.
Since $3 billion was not enough we know the offer needs present more money, and definitely more opportunity. More money equals Google's enormous market cap combined with their announcement to sell $4.2 billion worth of stock. We now we have the money. More opportunity is very simple. The first offer was made my News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is not the technology playland Skype wants to join. Google on the other hand is the company we all want to sell our great cool technologies to.
Skype has doesn't have an advertising revenue stream with Skype In and Out. This is attractive to Google as their revenue is very ad-based. In the future, there needs to be new revenue streams for Google's stock to justify its price.
At the same time, Google would just love to intermingle Skype and AdSense. It would be great. Every time you click on an ad you get a free minute of long distance. Sounds like a good idea for the home user who wants to talk to his family in India. I can only imagine the number of clicks happening. Ads change as you IM your friends and start talking about the latest movie star gossip. This is completely in line with Google's context sensitive advertising.
Google likes to create in-house, but they also know when to buy. The Picasso Image browser and Prya - Blogger.com - are some good examples of technology purchases they have made. It is not out of the question for Google to buy technology.
Google and Skype are technology companies who care about company culture, and dare I say it, world culture. Now we have the hottest technology company in Google buying the telecom killer of tomorrow, Skype.
Wonder twin powers activate ... form of ... the Fantastic Four.
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
If you read the google talk about and developer pages,
they clearly say that Google is committed to open standards. Skype is certainly not an open standard!
http://www.google.com/talk/about.html
http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html
Um...one word man...Gaim, just get Gaim. It already does all those chat clients (and google's) plus IRC.
Skype supports multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, MacOS X, PocketPC w/ WiFi). I use it under Linux (using the version one step back from the latest, since the latest has bugs) and it works beautifully. Plus it uses some form of technique (a P2P network) to get around firewall limitations as much as possible. As I understand it, the CODECs it uses (probably along with the network stack) are provided by http://www.globalipsound.com/ (in a PC-to-PC skype call it says the "ISAC" codec is being used-- http://www.globalipsound.com/datasheets/iSAC.pdf)
They have the SkypeOut/SkypeIn service which allows you to make outgoing calls, and SkypeIn allows you to own a telephone number in a number of different countries (USA, UK, France, Hong Kong, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Poland currently) which link to your account. When you're using these I don't think Skype uses the ISAC codec, it uses something with crappier quality.
(note: I don't work for them, I've just been a happy customer for the past few months, especially with the Linux support.)
the real at&t mix
Michael Robertson
Quote "But there's something much more noteworthy about the announcement. Google is agreeing to connect to other networks - something the big three instant messaging companies have refused to do. My company, SIPphone, has agreed to join into a federation with Google to use open standards and allow our customers to trade instant messages and voice calls. "
That's from the latest newsletter, which will eventually be at http://www.michaelrobertson.com/index.php when his webmaster gets off his ass and posts the latest one.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Slate has a much more plausible explanation for Google's secondary offering.
Google Talk's Developers' Page both explicitly says that GTalk will move over to SIP for VoIP services, and makes a big deal out of "Client Choice" and "Service" choice, which apparently they plan to accomplish through inter-connecting to SIP providers.
Skype itself released an SDK for third parties to hook up to its own network. That doesn't sound like a good move from a company that's in talks to be acquired by an IM operator.
It's probably more likely that Skype will be acquired by a phone company (probably a mobile one that's not afraid to undercut PSTN, Vodafone would be a good choice), and that Google plans to use SIP to reach Skype-scale quickly, without paying Skype prices...
try to do just about that with a little hacking and greasemonkeying.
another Roadkill on the Information Superhighway
Mailinator is a recieve-only e-mail service. :D
My Systems
They should use NAT punch-through.
Xenu loves you!
Janus Friis of Skype just said the opposite:
"We have potential, as the only IM (instant messaging) company focused on communications and as a result of our fast growth. We're very happy with our prospects as a standalone company. We've always meant this company to be for the long run. We're investing heavily in our infrastructure,"
Link to story
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Yeah, Jabber has server2server capabilities, but for some reason, Google has switched this off. In other words, I cannot add anyone with a jabber.org (for example) account to my Google Talk jabber account. You can only chat to other Google Talk users. I'm a little dissapointed by this step. Perhaps they will open it up in the future.
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
Google could have released a client like this: http://jwchat.sourceforge.net/ no? or at least a minimal version that only does text based msging.
True, however, RTFS and you will see they plan to partner with the Gizmo Project, which has in- and out-bound calls at rates comperable to SkypeIn and SkypeOut. Plus, the whole thing is open.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.
They are currently working with two service providers to integrate services with. As for other jabber servers, if you email federation@google.com and tell them you'd like to run server2server with them, they'll set it up. Keep in mind Google Talk just came out so they may have bigger issues to confront first. One of their main concerns with just opening up the jabber server to any other jabber server is spamming from instant messengers.
Regards,
Steve
2. Google didn't buy Orkut, it was created by a Google employee.
Not quite, the aforementioned employee(Orkut Buyukkokten) actually started Orkut when he was a grad student at Stanford. Google adopted the project after hiring him.