B. Mann Consulting

Phil Wolff of Skype Journal contacted me (over Skype, of course!) earlier in the week to ask about posting something for Skype's 5 year anniversary. I didn't get to it earlier in the week, but when I was chatting with him I had some ideas around Skype and the identity space that I've continued to think about. So, here is a belated birthday wish to Skype. Check out Dan York's post for a lot of the same items that I'll be mentioning here.

I was really annoyed with Skype when it launched. Annoyed because I had spent the previous 5 years working in the VoIP standards space at Nortel, having seen MEGACO and MGCP fall by the wayside so that my favourite, SIP, could reign supreme. And here was Skype, with its proprietary protocol. That just worked. And nary a cool SIP service to be seen (other than the Gizmo Project, which is still the only cool SIP project around...).

I wouldn't say that Skype is an integral part of my work flow today (lots of people use it much more heavily than I for all of their voice communications). But it is one of the communications channels that I do need to have open most of the time, primarily for group IM chats. 3 years ago at Gnomedex, we started a Skype backchannel group chat, and it's still running today -- the "Vancouver Swarm". For various groups and companies, multi user chats are just an add to channel and bookmark away. Oh, and of course, the way that chat history "flows" to you if you've been offline for a while: persistent chat!

And I'm still not talking about the audio and video features :P

My dad is a heavy user of Skype, especially Skype Video. Whether it's sitting down and "sharing" a coffee with my sister in Italy, checking in with relatives in Germany, or showing off the snow up at the cabin at Deka Lake, he uses Skype all the time. He continues to "evangelize" Skype to people he comes across.

I started by mentioning the concept of Skype and identity. With sites like Twitter and other social networks and services exploding into general consciousness and discussion, I'm (still) thinking about identity.

Each of these services are an identity space. Systems like Facebook are rooted in your real identity -- you use your actual name and such -- while others like Twitter have you using nicknames or shortened forms. These nicknames become your identity within those spaces. Phil Windley talks a bit about this namespace federation -- in response to Craig Burton ho humming it. Yes, there is a friction with federating so that a single namespace is very valuable.

Are phone numbers, especially international phone numbers, a single or federated namespace?

In the past, our phone number was a large part of our identity. e.g. my parents have had the same home phone number for 29 years. I still remember the last 4 digits of my childhood friend's phone number (the whole island has the same 6 beginning ones, so the "local" identity space only needed the last four...). Now, less so, in part defensively. I give out my Vonage VoIP number which rings all the numbers I need it to. Of course, when I then switch to text messaging, my cell number shows up (and shows up as "unknown" for those that know me by my home number). Traveling between countries and switching SIM cards, you have multiple numbers.

Skype is a portable voice identity. It doesn't care what country you are in or what SIM card you happen to have inserted. It is Internet voice. One could argue that federation and open standards are needed (and I would agree ...), but no one else has reached the same "just works" level of functionality. Here's hoping that we get at least another 5 years of innovation and disruption out of the Skype juggernaut. Happy birthday!

Flat rate mobile broadband? 3 Group in the UK just announced their "X-Series" -- flat-rate broadband Internet access on their mobile phones, with interesting tie ins with everyone from Google to Sling boxes to Orb.

I saw this a couple of different places, and agree with Troy -- I also hope that this "will drive a chain reaction and like the Berlin wall, this would cause flat-rate pricing and open gardens to flourish across the planet, creating a massive open platform upon which innovation would explode across the 2 billion phones currently on the planet."

At the same time, I spent some time today looking at a mobile service that still includes WAP and really simple services. This is a huge addressable market, but it doesn't seem as interesting as some of the "next step" smart platforms that we're seeing. 

Of course, my recent trip to the US saw me paying 95¢ per minute for roaming charges. Due to my grandfathered Fido plan, my data services the whole way were free. In what universe does this make sense? 

Some quick notes for an upcoming interview.

Benefits

• free voice calls between Skype users
• easy multi-person conferencing (up to 50, depending on bandwidth)
• multi-platform -- works on Windows, Mac, and Linux
• first IM client for many users who use voice feature first
• easy file sharing
• can have "real" phone numbers in many locations
• can also use video (various solutions, Windows only for now)
• Skype on your phone -- Microsoft PocketPC has a Skype client, EQO is new and works on Symbian Series 60 and other Java capable phones (client currently requires Windows on desktop)

Disclaimer: EQO is a local Vancouver company that I've met with, and my company Bryght powers their online community forums. They're also the only mobile app other than ShoZu that made my jaw drop (well, until I found out about the desktop client requirement...boo!).

Drawbacks

• have to have Skype to communicate (or pay for SkypeOut)
• built on a closed network, closed protocols (as opposed to open standards like SIP or JINGLE)
• computers on open networks might be used as a SuperNode, consuming lots of bandwidth
• Skype (now bought by Ebay) is the only provider of the service

Other forward looking options include click-to-buy or click-to-access solutions -- use your Skype ID and the client to pay for online goods and services, including restricted access to online content -- enter your Skype ID into a web form, get messaged with a special code, complete a transaction, receive an access code -- voila! instant online access. Note: this is of course possible with any IM service or even SMS, and Jabber is doing this today. In many ways, Skype is JAIS -- Just Another Identity Store -- that happens to have VoIP/IM/etc. built on top of it as an application.

There are a bunch of us (Scott, James, and Chris, too, once we told him the specs) that are lusting after the Nokia N91, but it is supposedly delayed until the first quarter of 2006.

Some background on the specs: this phone is a pretty high end unit, including a 4GB hard drive (store tons of music, photos, etc.), standard headset jack (use your killer headphones to listen to the music), 2MP camera (almost decent enough quality to leave your low-end digital camera at home) AND, the big one, built in Wi-Fi of the 802.11G flavour.

It's this last that is interesting. Nokia has already said that is working on Voice over WLAN: see Time Europe -- "2006 will be a big year for [mobile] wi-fi" and vnunet.com -- "replacing mobile and desktop phones with series 60 Nokia smartphones could make IT management easier". So, my guess is that they are specifically holding back the release of the N91 so it can be one of the flagship phones to include this functionality.

I can't remember what exactly prompted it: I wanted an application for my cellphone that *wasn't* a productivity app, that *wasn't* the half-finished handiwork of a lone developer, and that did just work. So I ended up buying a game.

My phone is a Nokia 6630, running on the Series 60 platform. The Fido site does sell applications, including games. It was basically useless for looking for stuff. My phone isn't sold by Fido, and they only offer browsing by type of phone. There is no way to say what platform your phone is.

Luckily, the Mobile Gamer site in the UK was great. Right at the top of the site, you can filter everything available by your model of phone, and mine was listed, so I got a full page of Nokia 6630 games. I browsed around for a bit, and settled on Might & Magic -- the same name of a game that I remember playing on the Apple IIe. Actually, the graphics on my phone look better than an Apple IIe.

Getting the game was ridiculously easy. I entered in my full phone number, including the +1 to show it's in North America. I paid via PayPal. Moments later, I got an SMS with the URL of a download. I clicked on it in my phone. It downloaded the installer. The installer launched, and downloaded the rest of the game.

That is what seamless delivery of mobile content is all about. I didn't try it, but I suspect I could have navigated the site directly, and completed the entire experience via my phone's browser. Hmmm...pay for something via PayPal, have it delivered immediately around an identity-based infrastructure that's encrypted. Skype + eBay ring any bells now?

Benjamin Kowarsch emailed me to give me the thumbs up on mentioning this. Ben's company, Sunrise Tel, have been putting together graphical front ends and configuration wizards for the Asterisk IP-PBX running on Mac OS X.

There is now a placeholder website at Astmasters.net -- "where the Macintosh Asterisk community meets". Of particular interest, if you request an account on the Macintosh Asterisk Mailing List, you can get a free VoIP account:

Regular members of the Macintosh Asterisk Mailing List may apply for a free account on the Astmasters VoIP service. This service supports both SIP and IAX and is predominantly intended for Macintosh Asterisk users to test connectivity and to be able to call other list members free of charge. However, it is also possible to make and receive calls to and from other networks.

Account holders will be provided with an Astmasters.net SIP URI which can be called from any SIP compliant IP phone. Regular PSTN telephone numbers can be called, provided that the numbers are E164 directory listed. Both VoIP calls and VoIP to PSTN calls are free of charge. User controlled Do-not-disturb (DND) is provided by default and incoming voicemail will be sent by email.

Astmasters VoIP Service

Ben is going to be completing peering with Free World Dialup as well. Oh, if only I had a few weeks to focus on nothing but Mac VoIP for a while...

Unrelated from Asterisk on Mac, I just found out about Jon's Phone Tool, an immensely scriptable application that lets you do all sorts of phone-related things from your Mac. Including, dial via Skype from your Address Book. Check it out.

This is something I wrote today, when someone asked me about VoWLAN handheld hardware:

To be honest, the VoIP space is over-saturated at this point. I did a fair bit of market research and analysis in this space when I first moved back to Vancouver, but there are just too many people in the space right now. We'll see a die-back here just like we did with the Data CLECs -- NorthPoint, Covad and Rhythms are all dead and gone, even though their stock went from 70¢ to $170...

Where to focus on the VoIP space? Software. For VoWLAN, a killer application would be localized detection of other handsets and buddylists, etc. This is kind of like a walkie-talkie plus instant messaging.

So, needless to say, I'm focusing on web applications and collaborative tools. Hope that little rant was useful.

I skipped adding a bunch of other stuff regarding UI design. Like, Skype is winning as much because of their usability as their technology. But if someone built a softphone with a decent UI that worked with open protocols...perhaps that is the same as asking for Linux desktop usability: it's not quite there yet.