Yahoo Finds its Voice

[Kevin Delaney]

I've never been Yahoo's biggest fan. They've acquired and essentially murdered many of my favourite products such as Flickr and Konfabulator.

So when they announced the public beta release of their new Skype-killer, I was interested in why they think they can win the VoIP game.

Why Yahoo has an edge:

• They have the North American market secured, while Skype is still struggling to enter Canada and fully bloom in the USA
• Yahoo Voice uses SIP, a standard protocol, as opposed to Skype's closed one.
• They've licensed the GIPS codec for voice transport
• They have the power to advertise it on the #1 Most Visited site in the world.
• Some of their prices beat Skype's

Why Skype is still better:

• Skype has the European market. Yahoo clearly mentions 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.
• They are fully P2P and encrypted. Nobody's listening, while Yahoo will submit under the pressure of big brother to eavesdrop.
• 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.
• No ads, no bloat and nothing you don't want.
• Calling is the central focus of Skype, while Voice is now a "feature" of YIM.
• It's fully cross-platform.

Overall, this is much more of a threat than other lame attempts to take Skype's marketshare, but Skype still holds a clear advantage. If they play their cards right, they can still stay alive, beating one of the web's most powerful companies.


via KevinDelaney.org

Editor's note: Thanks to Kevin for his views on the new Yahoo Messenger; I'm sure it will stimulate some interesting dialogue. -Jeff

[Eagle_Kiwi]

Yes indeed, thank you for a very interesting and timely item, Kevin. :)

(Yahoo) "Intended for use by U.S. residents only.", leaving Canada and the rest of the world in the dust.

That bold section does indeed appear on Yahoo site - but - doesn't seem to square with my having been using PhoneOut, having paid YM for the privilege, easily here in New Zealand since mid-January.
It's also been available for use in 7 other countries, but oddly NOT yet the USA!?!
(I think surely someone just accidentally left that phrase on the site!?)

Calling is the central focus of Skype, while Voice is now a "feature" of YIM.

Yahoo are certainly "featuring" that VOICE word, hugely - to point out to the millions of "text only" YM users just how easy and close "voice" can be.

In my case, it's no way a special feature any more - it's simply an alternative way to contact my friends - I can use IMs, or pc-to-pc voice, OR call their phone, work or home or mobile, all from the same place. That's what I call civilised and integrated, rather than having to use different programs for different ways of communication.

(Yahoo) Some of their prices beat Skype's

I've used Skype and YM, and I believe ALL YM prices - certainly to the major countries, USA, UK, Australia, Canada, etc - beat Skype's!!?! (though sure, once YM becomes established this could change ;))