It breaks my heart to see Skype toying with fate, at the edge of the abyss. With such untapped market for small business communications, and what are they working on:

Skype 3.0

# feature: Public chatrooms
# feature: Extras Manager
# feature: Sound Settings Widget

(From changelog)

And then:

the biggest threat to Skype today is not being able to develop non-telephony streams of revenue. There is excitement in eating our own revenue streams

(From an interview by Shel Israel with Sten Tamkivi)

Does this mean that the bulk of Skype development will be devoted to features such as pretty icons, funky sounding ringtones and rehashes of IRC? Wow, my productivity will be going through the roof!

This is not what Skype’s DNA is about. Skype = great voice conversations from my computer.

Doesn’t Skype grasp that it has a golden opportunity to single-handedly change, once and forever, the meaning of “phone”? At the Voice 2.0 conference we explored the paradigm change, but, are we the only ones realizing what this means?

So much talent, such puzzling direction.

People who use the phone for a living, small businesses, they’re crying out for their own Skype revolution. It’s not just about the consumer. There is such a thing as a better phone, one that understands my time, my contacts, my availability, the groups I’m part of. One that uses more than an 8khz audio channel and tones to signal. And the smart, talented people at Skype have a chance to make it happen. Before it becomes too late.

And, while Skypecasters around the world rejoice, we wait for “the Transfer API“, and “Naked Skype“, and “SkypeNET“.

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