MySpace-Skype Deal Turns Keyboard Clatter to Chatter

By Katherine Noyes
TechNewsWorld

MySpace and Skype are partnering to bring free voice-calling capability to the social networking site. The deal makes sense for both MySpace and Skype, Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst with Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "Skype needs some good news, and this adds one more service that MySpace can use to showcase its site as a platform."

MySpace users will soon be able to chat by phone thanks to a new partnership between Skype and the popular social networking site, the companies announced Wednesday.

MySpaceIM with Skype is a new product that integrates MySpace's instant messaging client with Skype's free voice-calling capability using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Launching next month in 20 countries with localized MySpace communities, MySpaceIM with Skype will enable millions of users to place free Skype Internet calls to other MySpace or Skype users.

"Skype has the leading technology in Internet voice communications and an enormous international user base that we're thrilled to connect with our existing community," said Chris DeWolfe, cofounder and CEO of MySpace, which is owned by News Corp. "Our network has no geographical boundaries -- Internet calling is the natural next step for how our members communicate with each other."

MySpace claims more than 110 million monthly active users, while Skype boasts 220 million registered users. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Privacy Protection

MySpace users will not be required to download any additional Skype software to take advantage of the feature, which will give users more ways to easily connect with friends and family around the world, the company said.

The new functionality will also tap into the personal privacy settings available on MySpace. Users who have a MySpace profile set to "private," for example, will not be able to receive Skype calls from people not on their friends lists. Users can also choose to allow only people on a select Skype personal contact list to call them. They can prescreen incoming callers and block any MySpaceIM with Skype call or user at any time.

Two-Way Connection

Another new feature enabled by the MySpace-Skype partnership will allow users to link their MySpace profiles and photos or avatars to their accounts on Skype. Skype's VoIP service is available in 28 languages and is used in almost every country around the world, the company says, and the new feature will be available globally except in Japan, China and Taiwan.

"Both MySpace and Skype have become a part of people's lives by bringing people closer together, no matter where they live in the world," said Michael Van Swaaij, interim CEO of Skype. "This partnership reiterates that Skype is the platform of choice for Internet communications because we make it simpler and easier for people to place free calls to one another whether they are on Skype or within the MySpace network."

A Communications Medium

The deal makes sense for both MySpace and Skype, Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst with Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.

"Skype needs some good news, and this adds one more service that MySpace can use to showcase its site as a platform," Enderle explained.

Indeed, social networks in general and MySpace in particular are increasingly becoming a communications medium, added John Barrett, director of research with Parks Associates . "I think social networks are the dial tone for the next generation. People plug in when they want to, they exchange messages openly or privately, and then they unplug again. Adding voice to that is a really smart move."

'A Dead Heat'

Whether or not Facebook, MySpace's principal competitor, will offer something similar remains to be seen. "I think Facebook is able to move a little more quickly and to be a little more nimble because it doesn't have a large corporate parent," Barrett said.

The percentage of people using Facebook is increasing at a faster rate than that using MySpace, he noted. "A lot of the chatter suggests MySpace has become slightly less cool, with a tarnish that Facebook hasn't yet acquired," he said.

Will VoIP provide the proverbial magic bullet to fend off competition from Facebook? "It could make MySpace more appealing, but I doubt it could do that," Barrett said.

"MySpace is in a dead heat with Facebook, and both are trying to add more and more capabilities," Enderle concluded. "It will be interesting watching these guys compete going forward."

Link:http://www.technewsworld.com/story/voip/59884.html

IBM Developing Wicked-Fast Wireless Data Transfer Chip

IBM and MediaTek have announced a joint effort to develop ultra-fast chipsets that will be able to blast a full-length high-definition movie faster than most people can read this sentence. For example, IBM says, a consumer could upload a 10 gigabyte file in five seconds with the new technology versus the 10 minutes it takes using current WiFi technology. The new technology will be based on the 60 GHz band, which is a free and unlicensed band of radio spectrum. Most home wireless networks utilize bands in the single-digit range, such as the popular 2.4 GHz band.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and MediaTek have announced a joint effort to develop ultra-fast chipsets that will be able to blast a full-length high-definition movie faster than most people can read this sentence. For example, IBM says, a consumer could upload a 10 gigabyte file in five seconds with the new technology versus the 10 minutes it takes using current WiFi technology.

The new technology will be based on the 60 GHz (gigahertz) band, which is a free and unlicensed band of radio spectrum. Most home wireless networks utilize bands in the single-digit range, such as the popular 2.4 GHz band.

IBM and MediaTek will collaborate to integrate IBM's new millimeter wave (mmWave) radio technology chips, antennas and package technology with MediaTek's expertise in digital baseband and video processing chips. The partnership is also intended to leverage MediaTek's influence in the consumer electronics market. IBM first demonstrated a prototype chipset as small as a dime in February of 2006.

A Whole New Living Room

The idea is to let media devices transmit or receive large amounts of data quickly, making the millimeter wave radio technology particularly useful for PCs, digital video recorders (DVRs), handheld devices like iPods or iPhones and HDTVs. Synchronization between the devices could occur in seconds and without a mess of cables.

Aside from speeding up home networks, there are other uses in store, such as file transfers from kiosks that a consumer might find in common retail spaces.

"[A kiosk would be] more like a point-and-shoot application," Mehmet Soyuer, IBM lead researcher on the mmWave project, told TechNewsWorld.

"It could be used to download DVDs and movies, things like that, in a train station or airport," he explained.

High Frequencies Are the Key

Higher frequencies -- 60 GHz in this case -- tend to allow greater bandwidth for data transmission than lower frequencies like the popular 2.4 GHz used in many home wireless networks. While transmission speeds at 60 GHz are super fast, "the signal doesn't travel too far," Soyuer noted. "It typically stays in a room, so it would be a good match for personal area network -- PAN-types of applications. It's like a much higher data rate version of Bluetooth , in some respects."

Using higher frequencies for the transmission of very large media files is a more logical solution for wireless applications, Soyuer said. "For the application of uncompressed video, we are talking about needing two, maybe three GHz per second, and it's almost impossible to achieve those data rates using the conventional lower frequencies," he added.

Years Away

Wicked-fast movie downloads using IBM's and MediaTek's mmWave technology is a few years away. In addition to nailing down wireless networking standards -- critical so that a variety of devices can talk to each other in the same language, so to speak -- device manufacturers need to build and ship products with mmWave features.

Progress is happening, however. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.15.3c is a working group that was formed in 2005 to standardize the use of the 60 GHz band.

Link:http://www.technewsworld.com/story/59941.html

MySpace: A Place for Developers

In a move echoing one made by rival Facebook earlier this year, MySpace plans to open its platform to third-party application developers. The wildly popular social networking company owned by News Corp. plans to formalize its relationships with developers and will release a MySpace application programming interface development platform in the coming months, the company confirmed Thursday. It will also allow developers to monetize their applications, MySpace cofounder and CEO Chris DeWolfe reportedly said at O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

In a move echoing one made by rival Facebook earlier this year, MySpace plans to open its platform to third-party application developers.

The wildly popular social networking company owned by News Corp. plans to formalize its relationships with developers and will release a MySpace application programming interface (API) development platform in the coming months, the company confirmed Thursday.

It will also allow developers to monetize their applications, MySpace cofounder and CEO Chris DeWolfe reportedly said at O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Sandbox Testing

Before the doors are officially opened, however, MySpace will first compile a list in the next few weeks of all widgets and tools available on the site so far, the company said. In a few months, it will make industry-standard APIs available through a new platform in which developers can try new ideas out in a sandbox environment.

Down the road, users will be able to participate in an opt-in beta test program to determine usability and vote to determine which widgets get tightly developed into MySpace. The best ones will be formally introduced by MySpace into the community with highly developed integration, the company said.

'Something They Had to Do'

Facebook, which is MySpace's principal rival, announced in May its Facebook Platform, which allows developers to build applications that integrate with its social networking site and enables them to make money by selling advertising on what's known as their canvas pages.

"This is something MySpace had to do," Paul Gillin, blogger, podcaster and author of The New Influencers, told TechNewsWorld. "The amazing popularity of Facebook and the stunning success of its decision have raised the barriers to play."

MySpace is lagging behind Facebook in public opinion, Gillin noted, with a reputation for being not quite as innovative or open as Facebook. As a result, MySpace is "naturally trying to build on Facebook's success with its decision to open up."

Customers Benefit

The result will be a great benefit for customers, Gillin added, as new applications are brought into the environment, building the value of the community as a whole. "

This will make MySpace more of a destination and a real platform," Gillin said.

"What Facebook is trying to do is make itself the place where people spend their day," he explained. "The closer they can get to that goal, the more valuable they become as an advertising venue."

Yet while MySpace's move may be motivated at least in part by Facebook's past decision, there may be more to it than that, Andrew Frank, research vice president with Gartner (NYSE: IT) Group, told TechNewsWorld.

Openness vs. Protection

"I think there's been a bit of a pendulum swinging back and forth between wanting widget platforms to be more open and concern about protecting revenue streams like advertising and also the overall integrity of the platform from a security standpoint," Frank said.

"Right now, largely because of the success of Facebook, we're starting to see more pressure to open up," he explained. "But I'm pretty sure this isn't the end of that oscillation -- there's definitely the potential that we haven't seen the end of the balancing between openness and control."

'Distinctive Experiences'

Though they are often viewed as head-to-head competitors, MySpace and Facebook "still offer pretty distinctive experiences," Frank added. "They may compete for time share among people with accounts on both sites, but I think people use them differently."

MySpace, like all such sites, "has to continue to innovate to compete," Frank noted. "But I don't think this move is all about competing with Facebook."

MySpace boasts 110 million active users worldwide. Facebook says it has more than 47 million.