by alec on November 29, 2006
The Ebayization of Skype is continuing. Yesterday Skype Journal reported on the reorg, and today Om Malik has a whole lot more inside detail. Henry Gomez is now running the show. Most interesting was the way that the business development organization has been let go, and senior execs in multiple European markets.
Senior executives in Poland, France (Jerome Archambeaud, French Market Development Manager), UK (Alistair Shrimpton) and Italy have been let go, while Jonas Kjellberg, who headed up Skype’s Scandinavian operations has been redeployed in UK. Alberto Lorente, head of Skype in Spain and Portugal has been offered a position in London. In total about 14 people are leaving the company, many of them pre-merger employees. Many of them have till end of the year to finish their duties at the company.
That’s three reorgs in 12 months. It must be hell to be on the ground there. What’s that old saying?  “The firings will continue until morale improves!”
by alec on November 29, 2006
There’s been a torrent of criticism over the YouTube / Verizon deal announced yesterday. Fred Wilson calls it lame, and Om Malik moans that the cellular providers walled garden will never come down.Â
The deal with the devil, for those who don’t know yet, is simply this: for $15 per month, Verizon customers will be able to download selected YouTube videos to their cell phones. Verizon and YouTube will maintain editorial control, deciding which videos are available and which not.
Critics fear that this will destroy the ethos of YouTube. And never mind that $15 per month is a stupidly expensive price for the service.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with BBTV – a service provided by Rogers and RIM that lets you download summaries of the day’s news to your Blackberry. For five dollars per month, it provides three (count ‘em, three!) video clips daily of approximately 60 to 90 seconds duration summarizing news, the world news, and sports. It takes 3 to 5 minutes to download each clip, depending on the cellular connection.
It’s totally lame. A complete and utter ripoff of the consumer, it may be the single most disappointing thing I have ever bought in my entire life. Old news, managed by an editorial board that chooses what I get to see, and a carrier who overcharges me for the content.
Let’s be clear, though. The YouTube / Verizon deal is just a co-marketing deal. It’s a last gasp of idiotic old-skool telco thinking seeping into the internet, because YouTube doesn’t need Verizon to reach the customer on a handset. Every current model mobile phone I’ve got — from Blackberry to Nokia N-Series — can play video and connect to the net. You don’t need Verizon to download video off the net.  Moreover, Flash for mobile will shortly have the ability to play video, if it doesn’t already. It’s just a matter of time before video sites like YouTube and Revver start to publish video optimized for the mobile handset.
A while back an asteroid called the Internet crashed into Planet Wireless. It’s taking a while for the secondary weather effects to be felt, but the dinosaurs in control of those networks will eventually die. Until then, legions of bright young MBAs toiling in obscurity in the bowels of marketing departments at these behemoths will be doing their best to keep resuscitating the lizards…
