Skype rolled out Skype Prime this evening, a new service that lets people charge for Skype voice and video calls. Users set the fees they want to charge, on a per-minute or per-call basis. Skype charges the paying side via their Skype credit, and then pays the money out, minus a 30% fee, via paypal (Skype’s sister company).
Like Ether, which launched last year (and charges just 15% or the gross fees generated), this will be a very useful service for certain types of consultants. Unlike Ether, Skype Prime starts with a huge installed base of users, and works cross-border. You can also say that both companies stole the idea from the old 976 pay-per-call numbers.
To use the new service, both sides of the call must be using the newest version of Skype (3.1.0.134) for Windows. Other platforms are coming eventually, Skype says.
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Phone sex…
If they actually crunch the numbers in a year I bet >50% of their revenue from this model will be from phone sex.
Ha, thats the first thing the I thought of ATLBeer.
“To use the new service, both sides of the call must be using the newest version of Skype (3.1.0.134) for Windows. Other platforms are coming eventually, Skype says.”
Skype’s Linux support is a joke. Every so often I read about a great new release of Skype. However when I go to download the Linux version, it is several releases behind. Given that there are now numerous tool kits to produce cross-platform applications for Windows, Mac, and Linux - it’s about time Skype moved its development platform into the 21st Century.
ATLBeer: The sad thing about that is that Skype, like most communications programs, doesn’t make it particularly easy to maintain multiple profiles or accept communications on two different profiles at once (I don’t think you can run two copies of Skype at once?). I don’t think grandma or mom and pop will be too impressed with their daughter’s profile
30% fees and waiting time of 4 months to see the money!!!
Who would want that when their partner http://www.bitwine.com takes 0% fees and pays immediately for the same service?!
I think this is a great idea and I can imagine tech support and lots of other uses, even for our company. But 30% just strikes me as greedy. It strikes me as a more like Microsoft than 37Signals, more like an Ebay under Wall Street pressure than a hip/viral Skype. It makes sense for the sex lines, but doesn’t make sense for other business and so my guess is that well more than 50% of revenue from this will be adult related.
Very good idea. This revenue model may gain traction as a way
for specific web services to provide revenue to mashup services which add adding value by aggregating services in ways that are valuable to users.
Let’s see who is next. Google apps should do this. It may be an important
distribution channel in the next couple of years.
Steve Kohler
Do they have a search function then? Not at home to download install yet, but this could work. Sounds a little like Bitwine, which did the same thing, and even integrated with Skype, but just had no user base.
Skype STOLE my money. I had $9.85 credit in my Skype account, and they TOOK IT because i didn’t use it for a couple months. So now I guess I have to take something of theirs. Like a flower pot or something. Where is their headquarters?
I really wanted to believe that 30% was a typo.
Check USPTO records here and see if you are surprised?
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacg.....amp;d=PG01
@Jonathan Kane
Because Bitvine has no user base.
Also, yea, 30% seems way excessive. BUT, it could be worse.
If you charge $1 a minute, you still walk away with $42. Not bad for an hours worth of work.
Obviously, techcrunch readers didn’t hear about Wengo
I work for this French-based start-up and we already (since few months) developed the “same” system & the marketplace that come with ! (sellers are rated, classified in a directory….) new tools and a new version of the website will be live in two weeks so stay tuned 
for more information plz check: http://www.wengo.com
Aziz
Wengo guy
Bitwine doesn’t charge because it’s in beta…I’m sure that once they come out of that, they’ll take a piece of your earnings as well.
Note the resemblance to keen.com/ingenio - and the likely evolution to adult lines/ psychics/ astrology…
Funny, when Wengo/WDEAL showed their concept at LeWeb 2.0 I asked the CEO what would happen when Skype did the same. “But they won’t!” was the answer.
BitWine has the same user-base as Skype, think about it!
BitWine simply have a more efficient payment system. Skype system must charge high commission and hold the money for ages to avoid losses on charge-backs - fraud.
BitWine pays after 10 minutes.
When they do charge commission, it will be lower than Skype and will support Rev Share for the benefit of the users and Advisors marketing affiliates.
When we filed our patent for the C2C revenue model in 2003, we included “Pay-U” as an option in addition to the “Free” and “U-Pay” options. Skype missed that piece of goodie so far, but I doubt that they will play catch up after knowing there is a string attached to the whole concept.
What is good in a “Pay-U” call? Well, it serves the demand side just as “U-Pay” scheme serves the supply side. A market place should serve both sides to achieve balance. If you price yourself at $20 per minute, and nobody calls you, why don’t you go out and look for “Pay-U” users on the same subject? You might find a $6 customer, so you don’t get paid $20, but $6 is better than $0 while your time is slipping away between your fingers.
We expected all IM players to make their moves towards monetization with C2C fee flows, but we will claim our IP rights based on the patent that we applied for as earlier as in 2003 and granted since 2004, and for those who are curious about what we are hoping to achieve, here is our mission satement:
IM, Instant Money ™!
I’ll have phone sex with you for 30 minutes at 15% off the list price. Just paypal me first and then skype me for free! You save 15%, I make 15% more. Win-Win.
you will be a loser who has no track record for credit ranking, people don’t buy cheap, they buy quality and security. If your theory works for all, then there will only be prostitutes and no pimp in the society, but in fact, the two co-exist since day one! .. ;o)
skype pimp…i’m gunna use it to bill my mum, everytime she needs help fixing the computer…Instant Money that one Mr Patent
up to you, skimp, if you havn’t noticed the potential of click-to-call in advertising!
Go to Kijiji or Adwords and expose yourself to the public, I’m sure you can make a comfortable living just by helping people out. BTW, Skype is not the first one offering click-to-call and presence icon, Y! is the one to my believe.
Yours,
Mr. Patent
IM, Instant Money!
skype should take a fixed price, not a percentage.
If one plans to use this skype feature to sell “knowledge” like 100USD/hour consultant, 30% is unfair.
hope skype comes up with another model. (otherwise I’m not gonna use it)
It is great to see Skype in the market….. all of a sudden it seems as if the debate has shifted from market viability to whether 30% is too much to pay and, of course, the merits of phone sex
.
As an investor in Bitwine (www.bitwine.com), we have seen tremendous growth in installs and number of advisors. I am sure that some folk will prefer Skype, others Ether, etc. The point is that the market is so huge and the potential for innovation is so great, that there is ample room for quality services, such as these to provide value for users…and shareholders.
Well said about the shifted focus, 30% or pricing schemes are just superficial, and phone sex would be just about the same size of distant learning not counting language exchange.
I’d love to point out to everyone that once IM got monetized, and calls can be place in distributed online ads with just one click (click-2-call), either ended pc-2-pc or pc-2-pstn, you will see an emgerging sector which grows exponentially on Instant Soft-Commerce.
I am sure one of our innovations, the “Pay-U tm” scheme will also add flavor to the online ads and CRM industry with improved intimacy and respect towards individual “YOUs” who together created and added value to the internet and mashed up the Web 2.0!
Greetings all -
The idea is sound and a natural progression forward in the digital age; with products such as plasma televisions being a simple stop gap until new interactive media is released I believe we will see such services as Skype for commerce boom.
True at 30% it is ridiculous and I am sure that both competition and increase of user base would substantially change the price point of such technology.
We are moving forever towards more digital communication, my fiancée and I are about to spend 6 months backpacking Australia and blogging as we go. Equipped with Nokia N series a Mac and Pc lappy, canon movie camera, and a Nikon DSLR D2Xs plus a bit more stuff just for good measure.
Even though we are still going to run into some Internet access issues over all it will still be a reasonably easy live blogging venture. With people such as us living from mobile incomes; technology such as Skype and up and coming developments only helps this new breed of virtual income earners.
Yes we can gripe about the prices and or payment guidelines, but we have to remember, did you release a better cheaper technology? Or are we just picking holes in what we know is going to be huge and just another step forward.
I for one welcome this with open arms, will probably even partake in the system, have to wait I will for Mac support, but this as well will become a distant memory as other software is developed. Also at the end of the day we know the Mac is a better platform with many active developers world wide, tomorrow there will probably be students huddling together seeing if how they are going to make the next Mac / Linux client.
Until we charge each other for our knowledge I bid you a b l o g g i n g good day
30% is pretty pricey for a fee, I’m not to pleased with that one. Plus both have to be skype users, not to plausible now, but maybe in the future http://www.shopautodotca-seocontest.com