

MySpace, Skype announce partnership (2007) - timjahn
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21341042/ns/technology_and_science-internet/t/myspace-skype-announce-partnership/

======
flyt
"Some pundits are complaining that the technology is not new, but that’s
besides the point. Case in point: at MySpace we launched what Zuckerberg is
announcing in 2007 (try googling “myspace skype partnership”), and MySpace
also had one-on-one video chat back in 2004. The point is that people weren’t
really ready for it back then—now is the time, and Facebook has the user base.
The large user base (750 million) paired with a simple integration of arguably
the best voice/video tech (Skype) is what makes this news."

-Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/zuckerberg-first-public-
res...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/zuckerberg-first-public-response-to-
google-plus/)

~~~
kenjackson
Tom gets it. One of the problems with experience is that you have, well umm,
experience. It's the unfortunate ability to say, "We did video chat X years
ago. Didn't work out, it's a bad idea."

I've seen this type of thinking first hand. You must understand why it didn't
work before, and what is different now. I can see people at MS saying, "The
iPad will never work. We tried tablets w/o keyboards back in 2002 and everyone
wanted convertibles. It'll never work."

Little differences can be a big deal. Experience is not useful w/o the
analysis to put your experience in perspective.

~~~
msbarnett
While it's certainly true that past performance of a technology is not a
flawless indicator of future success, I'm not clear on what makes "now" the
time for video chat.

With the iPad, Apple's key insight was that tablets had sucked because the OS
hadn't been meticulously tuned to afford use on tablets. I'm curious as to
what people think the key insight is that Facebook is bringing to video chat?

From what I'm reading here the TC author seems to think that Joe Average User
wasn't using skype or stickam or any of the previous offerings for video chat
because the user base wasn't there. I don't know about that, because all of my
friends have had skype forever and I can count the number of times I've video
chatted with them on one finger. I feel like I wasn't using those, and won't
be using this, not because the user base wasn't FIXNUM huge, but because it
feels intrusive and I don't want to feel like I have to shower, shave, and put
on presentable clothes just to tool around on Facebook.

~~~
kenjackson
A big reason why Skype wasn't big on MySpace was that it wasn't seamless to
use -- at least from my vague recollection didn't it require users to download
MySpaceIM? That alone makes it a non-starter for a lot of people.

The other issue is that MySpace never reached this critical mass of users that
Facebook has. I can see video chat being about Facebook, more than Skype over
the next year. "Get on Facebook so we can video chat".

Lastly, broadband penetration and bandwidth is that much better since 2007.

~~~
guptaneil
Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the
same barrier to entry. I don't see being able to video chat from within my
facebook.com window instead of in my Skype.app window as being a huge
advantage.

Case in point: I told my younger sister about Facebook's announcement today,
and she didn't really care since she already had Skype to video chat with her
friends. Then I told her about Google+'s Hangout feature and her eyes lit up.

Video chatting is no longer a killer feature, but group video chatting is as
long as Skype maintains premium pricing for group chats.

~~~
kenjackson
_Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the
same barrier to entry._

No, Facebook will install it automatically. With MySpace you had to do a
separate download to get the MySpaceIM client.

 _I told my younger sister about Facebook's announcement today, and she didn't
really care since she already had Skype to video chat with her friends._

I have Skype and Facebook both today too. I have like 8 addresses in my Skype
book. I have about 200 friends in Facebook, which includes almost everyone I
talk to. I don't think my setup is all that unusual.

~~~
mlinsey
I used Facebook video chat this morning, and it required a download that you
then had to run in order to proceed.

~~~
kenjackson
So to be clear, you had to go to a seperate webpage, download the plugin, go
back to Facebook, and start up the chat session? I want to make sure that the
old MySpace experience current FB experience are the same.

~~~
guptaneil
Nobody is claiming that Facebook's experience is as bad as MySpace. I'm sure
it is much better, but that's irrelevant because Facebook isn't competing with
MySpace. It's competing with Google+ and Skype, ironically.

~~~
phereford
I don't think Skype is a competitor to Facebook at all. Facebook has had a
good partnership with Microsoft for several years and have finally found a
good social element that Microsoft brings to the table (Skype).

Skype is great for video calls, Phone calls...and thats about it. Facebook
does everything else.

~~~
guptaneil
Skype may have a good relationship with Facebook, but their products are still
indirectly competing. Now that Facebook supports one-to-one video chat, I have
no reason to download or register with Skype. Facebook went through great
pains to keep user data anonymous from Skype. If Facebook is successful in
getting its users to video chat, Skype will effectively become just a
technology provider. Once that happens, Facebook could replace the underlying
Skype technology with something developed in-house, thus killing Skype
entirely.

Of course, given the good relations that Facebook has with Skype/Microsoft, I
doubt they have any desire or intention to kill Skype, but the two services
are certainly competing for the same users now.

Facebook's video chatting feature has no influence on my decision to use
Google+, but it does influence my decision to use Skype.

~~~
phereford
I do understand your reasoning and logic behind your belief. If you were to
ask someone now: "What application do you use to video chat with?" the answer
is most likely going to sway heavy to Skype. If you ask that question in 3 to
9 months time and that answer has not changed, then Skype will be just fine.

Personally, I don't like the idea of video chatting through Facebook. I use
skype exclusively to video chat because its what I am accustomed too, it's the
application I trust. Trust being the keyword there because I do not trust
Facebook.

------
jhuckestein
It's a different feature. The skype button on myspace would bring up skype and
require the other side to have a skype account.

The Facebook feature runs in the browser and guides the receiving side through
the process of enabling in-browser video calls.

That said, I agree that Facebook's announcement is not that big of a deal.

~~~
timjahn
On the contrary, I think it's a big deal. Facebook has unprecedented reach.

Grandmas everywhere will now be playing bridge over video chat. :)

~~~
cookiecaper
Does Facebook have group video chat now? Not even Skype proper supports that
afaik.

~~~
jtbarrett
Just FYI, Skype proper (but not on facebook) does support group video chats as
a paid extra feature now: [http://www.skype.com/intl/en-
us/features/allfeatures/group-v...](http://www.skype.com/intl/en-
us/features/allfeatures/group-video-calls/)

------
snorkel
Next feature announcement from Facebook: ghetto bling wallpapers

------
BvS
According to this article it wasn't about video but free Internet phone calls.

As Tom Anderson (founder of Myspace) stated on Google+
([https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts/g2zmxn1L...](https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts/g2zmxn1LmtX?tab=mX))
Myspace had one-on-one video chat back in 2004 but I guess without the help of
Skype and without the necessary broadband penetration it wasn't all that
useful.

~~~
timjahn
Still blows my mind that they had video chat that far back.

~~~
VladRussian
first time i saw video from camera being immediately rendered inside a window
on computer screen in 1995 (it was in Russia where we were technically
noticeably behind the West) It still blows my mind what video chat is still
not ubiquitous, and that a company adding video chat feature is a matter to
notice.

~~~
jonknee
Video chat isn't a technical problem, it's a social problem. I have multiple
ways to video chat almost wherever I am, but I almost never want to video
chat. When was the last time when you wanted to video chat but couldn't?
That's never happened to me.

~~~
VladRussian
i guess that you're a Generation X-er, around my age, ie. ~40 years :)

~~~
untog
I think that younger generations are the same, if not more so. Texting is far
less intimate than a phone call, and a video chat is more intimate than a
phone call. People are going in the other direction for most of their daily
social contact.

------
timjahn
Just noticed the title of this post changed from what I originally entered.

I was unaware somebody was able to do this. Who has the ability?

(I don't mind, just curious.)

~~~
pilgrim689
It used to say "3 years ago" right?

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

That has some guidelines on titles and mentions that "the editors may rewrite
it."... perhaps they didn't like that you used the number 3, and preferred
2007 because that has more meaning?

~~~
timjahn
Ah, oops. I promise I'll read the rules next time. ;)

------
city41
Features alone do not a good product make.

------
haydenevans
How many actual active users does myspace still have at this point?

------
ericfrenkiel
execution execution execution

~~~
T_S_
unwords $ replicate 3 "timing, execution"

