Skype backlash…

It was inevitable...skype is fab product, but the hype and expectations got to be so large that some sort of reality-check was bound to take place, and it looks like it finally has: -James and Andy cover how MSN is now licensing the voice codecs of GIPS. For those that don't remember, GIPS are the folks behind the great sound quality of Skype. - Stuart questions whether a crisis is looming, and very critically assesses many execution errors that seem to have taken place with innovation in voicemail product development and management of the developer program - People who have been through the interview process at Skype have reported to me a "shockingly arrogant" attitude by some of the interviewers. Could the hype have gotten to some of their heads, giving them a sense of inevitability of their success? Have they just been under too much pressure and expectations, and too understaffed to continue to execute at their previous pace? Or is this just the media/blogosphere, "that taketh away as easily as it giveth"? Personally, I hope these guys succeed properly; but their success is FAR from guaranteed, and they'll have to scramble continually to stay ahead. After all, they're the key deflationary agent in a worldwide trillion dollar industry (bound to make some enemies when destroying that much surplus!), and are starting to be chased by some of the very scariest companies in the planet (Microsoft, Yahoo, perhaps Google, bunch of VC-backed startups)...nobody said it would be easy!

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Sharp Increase in Tax Revenue Will Pare U.S. Deficit - New York Times

From the NYTimes, looks like the US budget deficit, even including the cost of Iraq, will dip back under 3% of GDP this year. That would make the US budget more responsibly balanced than most EU countries! Link.

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Who Says VoIP’s Not Sexy?

Andy, via the Register, finds that BT is resorting to using Page 3 girls to sell its BT-Yahoo Communicator. Sort of seems a bit desperate to me, but then let's consider the massive success of T-Mobile US with Catherine Zeta-Jones and GoDaddy.com with it's own now-famous Superbowl ad model... using sex appeal to sell...wireless phone plans and domain name registrations...

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DVD sales disappointing….

Too early to tell for sure if this is a blip or a the start of a trend.

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VoIP, schmoip

James' telco-spy network reports sneaky moves by mobile operators to block voip calls and access to skype.com domain! If true, this is a bad sign- means the competitive battles are more likely to be fought in courtrooms and regulator offices than in the marketplace...

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World’s largest mobile phone companies

Om links to a Wikipedia page with the World’s largest mobile phone companies. Pretty great stuff, this Wikipedia. Although the page in question is somewhat incomplete (when I checked there was no listing for Telefonica, one of the top 5 operators in the world), it's an interesting start. Maybe James' thoughts on open-source research don't even need a specific home; it might just happen on a broad platform like Wikipedia. Speaking of Wikipedia, I'll be going to a presentation by Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, at the Copyfight conference this weekend in Barcelona.

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Telegraph | Money | China opens gates to foreign money

A little odd that with China booming so consistently, for so many years, that its main stock markets are doing so badly.

hitting eight-year lows

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A stone’s throw from poverty, Brazil’s Daslu glimmers | csmonitor.com

Nothing inherently wrong about Daslu, but it makes me uncomfortable that a store like this can exist and thrive in a country like Brasil with its 50,000 homicides per year and other massive problems.

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Chitika, Inc. - Risk Free On Demand Contextual Advertising

Interesting new take on the banner ad. Chitika marries comparison shopping data with personalised contextual advertising...curious to see if it works.

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