Skype – latest disruptive technology – Ebay is the one!

I have written on this in the past. I can’t believe how low our phone bills are at golfnow.com

Vonage has cool ads, but at $24.99 or whatever, IT IS NOT FREE, therefore, not disruptive. People want to exchange infrmation for free and Skype is the closest thing.

This from a long time CTO – Todd Vernon

FP…on the Internet Application Tipping Point

A few weeks back the world crossed a tipping point. Did you feel it? It was when the world of connected applications started and the age of browser dominance ended…

From this point on, all the killer applications will be connected ones. They won’t be boring web based applications with webpage user interfaces, although AJAX will breath new life into those. They will be fully immersive experiences in code that gets installed onto your desktop. The pendulum is now officially swinging back the other way..If there is one thing consistent in computer science, its that the user experience will move from server, to client, to server, to client.. Only now… its moved into the network..

The tipping point happened when Skype agreed to be purchased by EBay. Not only was this the tipping point of the connected application generation, it was also in my opinion the first acquisition misstep of Google. Interestingly, google has seen the connected revolution coming for quite a while with Google Earth and Picasa being the first of the new world order.

Like all things disruptive, Skype happened on its own terms. Why can’t I talk to anyone in the world over IP using just my computer and broadband connection? And why can’t it happen peer-to-peer sometimes and client server other times? And thanks for the years of ‘standards’ work that the internet telco nerds thought up… but they really don’t serve our needs here.. I LOVE DISRUPTIVE BUSINESSES AND TECHNOLOGIES!!

Still others slightly missed the mark. Vonage a breakthrough company that seemed to ride high a few months ago is now on uncomfortable footing. Why? Their business model is uncomfortably close to the establishment and the use case to the end user is totally replacement. You can’t create a revolution with a new frying pan..