1) Skype should give incentives to ISP's to bundle Skype with the Setup Disks so that Skype is running on all new users of broadband accounts. Through SkypeOUT your sellect your isp and a commision gets paid to the ISP that recommended SkypeOUT. Positive for Skype to get new customers and positive for the ISP to generate aditional income.

2) Skype should start getting in on the Magazine cover CD's. I have never seen Skype on a Magazine CD cover. Your marketing people need to get involved in a world wide bases, millions of magazines are circulated with the CD's on them.


Rick.

Is Skype ready for this at this point in time?
I don't think so...
It's a great product, don't get me wrong, but I think it should take it's time to learn to walk and then run.
Give them an other half year...BOOM

Quicker the better, get people hooked on Skype2Skype Calls. .28 is fantastic for skype2skype. Yes SkypeOUT needs work but its only a matter of time until others start to catch up and market there VOIP systems.

It is tricky when SkypeOUT needs alot of work though, you don't want to scare people off by a poor quality product, there likely to not try the software later on when it is improved. Maybe it is to early.

Rick.

Has anyone taken a good look at the counter? At present Skype has been downloaded over 15 million times. This means it already grows significantly faster than most of the other VoIP applications put together. If anything I think the current approach to Skype's marketing: i.e. of press releases and free publicity, works just fine.

Your ideas on bundling Skype with new broad band users is something I find speculative at best. First of all ISP's often have relations with existing telco's. Most of them are owned by or are using their infrastructure. This means that as a whole the organisation might not benefit if the ISP is selling or promoting products/applications that compete with other divisions/companies. The amount the ISP receives in kick-backs might not weigh up to the loss of revenue at the telco-side and the increased costs involved with the enlarged demand for bandwidth within the ISP division.

The idea of providing Skype on CD with a magazine simply feels wrong. Most users will have broad band internet. So what's the point of sticking it onto a CD-ROM? Personally I feel that a good review in the magazine itself or perhaps national attention on a TV show may be more influential then having the application on a CD-ROM with only the smallest of references on the cover of the case. I think the current system of distribution is solid and will suffice even after version 1 hits the market.

Personally I think that Skype should first focus on its current users. There's already a very big user base (when I'm writing this over 410,000 users are online) which potentially could generate a decent revenue stream if a big portion started using SkypeOut. Converting PC<->PC enthusiasts to also make PSTN calls is I think one of the items that should be high up on their to-do list.

How is a good question, making skypeOut a stable reliable platform is a must. This goes without saying. Providing current users the opportunity to buy credit at a reduced rate (i.e. old friend discount) is another. However, when is a user considered an 'old' friend? This is a decision that will probably alienate many existing user. Better not to then, I guess.

Associating with hardware that is needed in order to use Skype, like plantronics microphones and usb phones, is a method I feel is good. Investing into developing embedded versions like those for Siemens GigaSet are a good idea too. Intergration, instead of standalone, might be an advantage that other products/applications lack. For competing with SIP this may even be a requirement.

I think bundling free minutes with SkypeOut to the 'Global Rate' countries every months would encourage people to use SkypeOut when those free minutes run out. This is exactly what Stanaphone has done. Maybe it doesn't have to be as much as 100 minutes but it defiantely needs some included for people get use to using the service.

Neel.

Kootstra,

I think you'll find that 410,000 online users is very different that 210,000 online users I get when using Skype in the time zone of Australia.

USA 26 Million Broadband Users
China 17.5 Million
Japan 7.6 Million
UK 4 Million
Canada 3.6 Million
Taiwan 3 Million
Netherlands and Australia 1 Million

What zone are you in and do you still think Skype has reached enough of a market to not only compete with other VOIP compants but also Telcos considering the amount of broadband users mentioned above?

Skype on the CD covers of Magazines are in the face of people that are willing to spent outragous amounts of money on a magazine that has articles you can read about on the internet but they prefering to read the mag instead therefore Skype will be one of those things they read about.

Skype also seems to have had better exposure in some countrys than others. I think there would be a huge percentage in the EU / UK next the US, most other countrys wouldn't rate that high.

Rick.

To clarify the 410,000, I'm in the EU time-zone and as has been mentioned on the forum before; the largest group of people generally occurs at the end of EU day, with the first US users joining.

First of all, Skype may not be able to compete with telco's all around the world. One of the reasons is that there are differences in tariff structures. For example it's very common for a US national to have free unlimited local calls, whereas in most EU countries the subscriber pays for every call. Some telco calling plans may actually work out to be cheaper then Skype, some people have already complained on the forum about this. This all results that Skype may not be the most interesting company to call with.

However, I do feel that Skype will prove to be one of the larger, if not the largest player on the VoIP market in the next couple of years. Support for multiple OS platforms, reasonably decent rates, easy to use/install and (most likely) a developer kit will prove to be something that most current companies can't offer. The funding that Skype was able to secure should allow it to develop a suite of applications which will allow them to turn a profit before the investment cash runs out.

In the end it will come to who has got a large enough user base first. MSN messenger still has the potential to become a big competitor if Microsoft would like invest more in VoIP technology. But there may also be other players that take some part of the pie. Skype was quite a big surprise, about a year ago when everyone thought similar thoughts about Net2Phone, FWD. It ain't over until fat lady sinks.

One item I would like to stress, I'm not against regular media coverage. Articles in magazine, newspapers and or using other company's media outings (Siemens/Plantronics) to generate awareness are in my view necessary. Adding software on a CD-ROM, which one generally has to pay for, in the hope that someone installs it, is something I feel is out-dated. The groups of users that may find Skype attractive most likely have broad-band already and the 6 Megs of data that needs to be downloaded shouldn’t be much of a problem for those types of users.

I have had broadband for 5 years yet only installed Skype when I read about it in a newspaper. The web is a big place and hard to find something you didn't know exsisted until you read about it, eg magazine/newspaper.

Rick.
In Australia we pay around 34cents for a local call. The two offices we use skype2skype we would make around 10-15 calls a day. Therefore Skype is saving us $3.40-$5.10 or $1500 per year.

rgainsmi

Hi Rick,

Skype has saved me the same. So that's why right now I don't participate in the whinning about getting credit for one minute at 1.8 cents Canadian. I know it is beta. I know it will get better. I know it costs me more in my time the 2 cents to post to the OUTRAGEOUS Thread!

Hopefully more users will see the value they are getting. Like you do.

Regards,

Bill

i'm in New Zealand only just found out about this great service from the NZ PCworld mag

There you go, perfect example magazines being beneficial. Target Market.

Rick.