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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.
Honestly, is a story based at least marginally on fact too much to ask? A entire article without one scrap of evidence to back it up...in fact, in under thirty seconds I was able to find two articles that would seem to contradict this assertion.
How exactly did this make it onto Slashdot?
Google, Skype and the Future of IM
Oh, I see...
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But I guess history shows that the Skype creators could sell their creation to set out for something else. That's what they did with Kazaa anyway.
Clever signature text goes here.
They already have VoIP built into their client and a huge marketing machine, including millions of viral marketing droids, working in their favor.
Doesn't anyone concern that Google now can archive your email, your IMs, your web search (thus your personal interests), and your phone calls?
whatever happened to privacy
It's Wednesday. Tuesday was yesterday. Your troll is a day late.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Given how they've dissembled and denied all the rumours about instant messaging, it's good to see that Google's "corporate morality" is such that "tell no lies" doesn't fall within the aegis of "do no evil".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
A Google topic. I was startin' to get the jitters waiting for my fix. Tx Taco!
I thought Google Talk already came with a voice feature? I see it right there in the options.
Is Skype technically better?
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.
I doubt thats how it would work, it would probably require you to DO something after you clicked on the advertisement.
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 a side note, Im sure we would soon see google integrate everything where we search for a person/name, it brings up his address, phone number (both currently found by searching for number), icon to send email, IM or call directly, all a click away. Imagine that!
Check out Kottke's article GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?. In which he speculates about the future of the WebOS.
If Google were planning on buying out Skype, why would they release a version of Google Talk with their own implementation of voice chat? Doesn't make much sense to me. Furthermore, has Google ever bought a company worth that much before? Most of their aqcuisitions seem to be companies that have good software but aren't very popular, therefore, they Google gets quite a bargain by purchasing them for far less than they're worth. Skype doesn't fit that bill, imo.
Since we're jumping to conclusions about Google's corporate strategy today, I'll go ahead and give mine. It seems to me like Google wants to get into the field with their product and see where it goes.
Google Talk seems pretty barebones at the moment, but if we remember correctly, so was Gmail when it first came out. I've had it from day 3 or 4, and it wasn't really all that great at the time--the only thing to write home about was the amount of space you have.
Anyway, that seems to be Google's strategy with everything--launch a product in beta, then continuously improve it until everyone loves it. I could be wrong, but it seems like they would be competing with Skype and using their own in-house programs, rather than buying them out.
Just a thought...
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
Worth some thought anyway.
Or not. I have better things to think about than rumors of Google buying companies they haven't offered to purchase. Like commenting on this story about the rumors!
...so I guess I'll join in. This could be really cool. Skype and Google could be a marriage made in heaven. Skype is a good product, but to be great I think a few google phds could really iron out some of its potential flaws. Also, the google brand could make the product less scary to companies who see 'from the company that bought you kazaa' as a bad thing (quite rightly). It would also increase the number of people on the system. Even though its been out for months, I know very few people that use it.
The biggest problem I see with Skype at the moment is hardware. I set my girlfriend up with it and it caused no end of problems. Its one thing learning to use the interface (which is good) its another thing to learn about feedback, line in/out and buying a headphone set specifically for the purpose of VoIP (even if it is only $15). Still it was easier than trying to get AIM to work with iChat for a video chat.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
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
who can't stop all this jibber-Jabber about Google.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Computerworld seems, to me at least, to be rife with lots of sensationalized articles about dubious tech issues. The Air Force article was vague and over-generalized, and didn't explain what security flaw had been exploited by the attacker.
In another article on their site they describe employees intentionally releasing viruses into the workplace network as "workplace violence". Vandalism was probably the word they were looking for, but violence sounds so much more dangerous. Its not much of a suprise that your submission got rejected. I didn't even check out your second URL - it sounded silly.
Better luck next time.
planet texture maps and more
Um...one word man...Gaim, just get Gaim. It already does all those chat clients (and google's) plus IRC.
If you send email to someone on gmail, or you IM someone who's using Google-Talk, sure, Google could have a copy of that.
But lets be realistic. Google probably doesn't want any information about *you*, they probably want to *aggregate information*, which is what they've been doing all along.
This is all an extension of search. Through all the "omg", "lol", and "haha"s in Instant Messenger, there's thousands of words that can be associated with both each other and with other links. There's thousands of white-listed and black-listed participants, because people naturally filter their conversations. They don't want a database about *you*, they want a relational database about *communication*, to make it easier to find out what someone means when they type something like "river bank" or "white house".
It's all about relationships between language. Conversation is a natural extension. They provide a service, they get tons of data.
At least, this is what I would be doing with the data. Google might not be doing that.
Well, a more accurate title for Slashdot would be "ads for money". That's all the site is really about these days - the stories are just posted to get readers to the site, who in turn will see the ads (or pay for the privilege of not having to).
Among other things, this influences what stories are posted and whether they make it to the front page - stuff that'll draw in more readers is more likely to get posted.
So, yeah... so much for "news for nerds". It was a nice idea, but these days, it's more about the stuff that matters - money.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
They did infact "rigged something up" except that instead of IRC they used the nice and open standard Jabbar protocol. They also have information on their site how to access it from various other clients.
And you could just use any of the various IM clients that intergrates all the seperate ones, like GAIM, Trillian, etc.
Wouldn't have hurt if you at least pretended to look at it before whining about it.
Open-source (it uses Jabber!) IM that is backed by Google? Yes please!
I don't know about you, but I want to have "one IM to rule them all" that is also open source. Jabber was the prime candidate, but it was rather minor when compared to MSN, AIM and the like. Not anymore. Google is about to increase the number of people using Jabber by order of magnitude!
With Google's help, we just might get an IM-infrastructure that is based on open source and open standards. No need to mess around with MSN and the like, just use Jabber. No need to work around proprietary protocols.
If Google manages to put VOIP in there as well, more power to them! Once system for all your IM'ing and VOIPping. Based on open standards. Based on open source. With millions of users. Yes please! No longer would we have to rely on Skype for clients and service. No longer would we have to worry when MS or AOL breaks our IM-clients with "updated" versions of their protocol.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I said the same darn thing yesterday on my blog http://thatedeguy.blogspot.com/ this article is a little more technical about it but what the heck...
A Linux flavor for every Month!
whatever happened to privacy
Do you think they're providing those services out of the kindness of their heart or because they are somehow indebted to you? You chose to give up some of your privacy by using their free email, free instant messaging, and free web searching, you cheap bastard.
You want privacy? Buy a stamp and send a letter.
This whole piece is full of half-baked speculation. Google is perfectly happy with their current client which has been in development for months.
Its not as if Google is in the business of investing time, money and press exposure on "interim, stepping stones".
Google wanted Jabber. And that's what they used. The current client supports VOIP, and uses open standards. Anyone who knows Google knows that Jabber and Google's own VOIP are the platform for the next 5 years at least.
The only question should be: Will Google buy Webb Interactive (46% owner of Jabber)
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Actually, the more I think about this... the more it makes sense.
Webb Interactive (WEBB.OB) owns somewhere south of 50% of Jabber, Inc.
It *does* seem sort of surprising that Google would bank so heavily on the Jabber platform with no equity stake. Granted, its an open standard, but the amount of development Jabber, Inc. has in terms of server and enterprise components far, far exceeds anything that Google has.
I'd put my 2 cents on Google buying (the very tiny Webb Interactive) before they buy Skype.
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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
s/dim-wit/yet
I think, therefore I am. I think?
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.
Mailinator is a recieve-only e-mail service. :D
My Systems
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.
Mod me troll if you like but I'm sick of people going on and on about Google's privacy policies, every single Google topic will have hundreds of posts from people who are worried about what Google will do with their email, search queries, IM conversations, IP's etc. Yes they are collecting data and so much data I really don't care what they have about me, I'm hidden in obscurity by millions of other users and, more importantly Google don't care about my personnel credentials, they care about how many hundreds of thousands of people click their ads and why. Please stop bitching about it, they collect data, they like data, nobody is so big and important that they give a damn what your address is or that your wife emails you about the nooner you had last week at work.
http://share.skype.com/e x.php
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/08/24/skype/ind
Indeed, all they said was "it's a rumour". Well, it WAS a rumour, and a true one, at that.
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Well said.
Having spent a while this morning instlling it, and generally buggering about with it, I was left with the distinct impression that this is the thin end of another GoogleWedge (TM).
In summary:
but
- It has millions of ready made users with gmail accounts.
- It has a surprisingly respectful user interface that is a joy to use.
- It has potential to be extended from day one (unlike AIM or YIM where the owners have fought to keep the protocols closed and proprietary.
If I were to be really speculative I'd say that the most significant effect of todays beta launch is that it positions Google as a credible competitor to Skype, which may lower Skype's valuation, and thus make it a more attractive aquisition.boakes.org
As has been posted in other messages on this thread, Google has publicly claimed to be moving toward SIP. There are only 2 standards that are really being used by telephone companies (both ILEC and CLEC) for their VoIP -> SIP and MGCP. By leveraging SIP, Google can plugin to this network if they so choose. Skype is out of the question since it's a closed protocol that's going nowhere but between people already on the net.
However, the money isn't made in SIP connections, it's in the connection between SIP and POTS (plain old telephone service) phones, and phone features. Current phone companies make money in 2 ways: phone connection services, and phone features. Internet phone services remove option 1 since the bandwidth on the net can use a little as 64k for decent quality phone 128k+ for high quality (ala Vonage, et.al.), and it's paid for as a monthly pipe instead of a per minute charge. Phone features come primarily from big class 5 switches that are notoriously hard to upgrade and add new features to. They are being replaced with Open Source IPTel and other SIP servers, and the features become trivial to add / upgrade, besides the cost is 1/100th of a class 5 switch.
The real money maker is in the transitionary connection charges between SIP / MGCP and the POTS network. Since Google has been buying lots of dark fiber (presumeably to light it for massive internal bandwidth increases and -no- connection charges), they will soon have their own internal bandwidth to route free VoIP calls through. The beauty is that they could then begin selling SIP POTS services for far less than Vonage, and this service will make oodles of cash. If they were to purchase Vonage, they could get a jump on the subscriber base and local phone connectivity could then be move to Google's new high speed internal network.
So, Google buying Skype? Not a chance. Google buying Vonage? I've wondered about that for over a year.Google is turning into pure corporate evil. They are attempting to emulate Microsoft's behavior only with some tweaks by extending into everyones market and crushing them and making one NEED Google. Here in Europe where I am visiting there is a very strong feeling that Google is a American cultural danger to Europe and that MS and Google want to dominate the desktop and the internet. It looks in some ways that the fears are founded.
google could save 4b on the purchase price of skype and buy digium to get asterisk instead - which interoperates with all the major voice protocols (sip, iax, h323, mgcp but not skype at present). Asterisk is approaching version 1.2 at a breakneck clip.
I don't think Google has any intention of aquiring Skype. Skype isn't SIP compliant, and while Skype might be more well known right now, SIP is a standard, and Google's own developer page highlights a desire to integrate with one of Skype's competitors, the Gizmo Project: http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html
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.
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.