I figure I'd take a moment tointerject some discussion into Skype Journal's very fair summary of how Yahoo voicecompares to Skype. I've quoted the Journal's Kevin Delany in italics and added my thoughts:
- [Yahoo] have the North American market secured, while Skype is still struggling to enter Canada and fully bloomin the USA.
I don't know where Kevin lives, but I've had more Skype conversations on Skype in the goodold U.S. of A. than on any other VoIP tool.
- Yahoo Voice uses SIP, a standard protocol, as opposed toSkype's closed one.
Yup, and for the umpteenth time, Skype, I would like you to add bleeping SIPsupport to SkypeOut, for the love of Pete!
- They have the power to advertise it on the #1 MostVisited site in the world.
Aren't we forgetting about the eBay angle? eBay is the top e-commercesite on the web, and one of the most heavily trafficked in all categories. If I had a link from eBay to one of myblogs, I could retire tomorrow.
- Some of their prices beat Skype's
This won't matter inthe long term. Price isn't the cornerstone of VoIP software appeal, or I should say it's no longer thecornerstone.
Why Skype is still better:
- Skype has the European market. Yahoo clearlymentions on the bottom of their information page: "Intended for use by U.S. residents only.",leaving Canada and the rest of the world in the dust.
This is true. But it's only a matter of timebefore Yahoo starts rolling up European and Canadian PRIs.
- They are fully P2P and encrypted. Nobody'slistening, while Yahoo will submit under the pressure of big brother to eavesdrop.
Skype will submitunder the pressure, eventually, too. The bottom line is profit, and if the inability to tap phone calls, whethersoftware driven or not, will get trumped by law enforcement any day of the week. These guys are in business to makemoney, and, last time I checked, Skype isn't an open source product.
- As much as they like to think it,Yahoo does not own the IM world and doesn't have nearly the amount of IM users that Skype has.
Nor asmany as AIM. Good point, Kevin.
- No ads, no bloat and nothing you don't want.
The SkypeAPI is bloat by definition: you have to have the PC desktop version of Skype installed and running just to use it. Again, for the umpteenth time, Skype--separate the Skype API from the desktop Skype software, for the love ofPete.
- Calling is the central focus of Skype, while Voice is now a "feature" ofYIM.
I actually see this as a perceived disadvantage for Skype. Integration between text,data-recall, web, and voice applications should be viewed as more and more seemless, not the other way around. Voice is just an application running within the scope of a larger network, so saying something like "all voice,only voice" is sort of like ignoring the core issue of importance at the heart of the VoIP revolution: softwareand networks are flexible enough to do more than one thing at once.
- It's fullycross-platform.
Kevin nailed this one. Of course, I would've place this point at the top, not at thebottom.
Despite my critique, I actually think Skype Journal hits most of the right points.
http://voip.weblogsinc.com/
