While eBay prepares to unload Skype via a sale or IPO next year, it is busy looking for new ways to make money off its 405 million global users. They already account for an estimated 8 percent of international calls, and many of them are increasingly paying for SkypeOut calls to regular phones. Its revenues last year were $551 million, but it wants to get to $1 billion by 2011. To get there, it might have to start thinking local.
In fact, it has already started trials in Europe and New Zealand with Yellow Pages businesses that turn business phone numbers on the Web into free calls. Mike Boland at the Kelsey Group explains the concept:
The idea is that Skype is used by 405 million global subscribers to make free and cheap calls. Why not position it as a complementary tool to help find and drive calls to local businesses too? This was the same idea behind the launch of SkypeFind (which we covered here), but takes it a step further.
Essentially it broadens this to the larger Web, where most local search activity is already happening. What the idea requires is that phone numbers that show up throughout local search results be hyperlinked to launch a Skype call.
The SkypeFind feature he mentions is basically a local business directory within the Skype client which nobody uses But currently there is a browser plug-in that works with Skype 4.0, the latest version, that turns any phone number on the Web or search result into a clickable Skype call. In order to use the feature, you need to pay the normal SkypeOut rates.
The idea Skype is playing with is to make those calls, or at least some of them, free to consumers. Instead, a Yellow Pages company would buy up the calling minutes in bulk and either offer it as part of the fees it charges businesses to list their numbers in its directory or charge the businesses on a click-to-call basis. How they decide to price it will probably vary depending on the type of businesses being called. Lawyers and plumbers, for instance, would be more likely to pay for phone leads on a click-to-call basis. For other businesses, the Skype feature would act more as a retention strategy.
Click-to-call ads have been tried before, but this turns the actual phone number into an ad. Click it, and you call the business you were looking for, and the call is paid for by either the business or the Yellow Pages partner. The $32 billion Yellow Pages industry is quickly moving to the Web and Skype has the ability to light up any business phone number found on the Web.
Presumably, the Yellow Pages partners would only pay for numbers in their directories, so Skype would have to come up with a way to indicate which calls are free and which ones are not. And there is no reason to limit this to local calls. As people continue to use Skype increasingly for free long distance calls, making money from local calls might be the key to getting to that $1 billion in revenues.
this is MUCH more interesting…
http://adage.co...ticle_id=136075
Skype’s stock went up today on news of a new business model. Oh wait, you can’t say that yet.
This is great news. Perhaps they have listened to Martin Geddes, head of strategy at BT Design, who recently shared some interesting thoughts about telco business models for voice services.
Martin concludes that the money doesn’t have to be in new end-user services but can be in upstream services, optimizing how we connect, interact and transact, lowering the cost of sales and delivery.
Video: http://bit.ly/MwESn
Always enjoy your posts. Very informative.
I noticed when I have been calling New Zealand with Skype I get a short message. “This free call provided by Yellow Pages.”
Seemed a bit strange because even though the calls are “free” I do pay a monthly subscription to Skype.
Well its free because you dont pay a per-call charge, rather you just pay for keeping skype service alive through its subscription! (and this way you could call multiple times on a clickable phone number with just a fixed subscription amount, hence its free)
hope that helps…
I hate it when companies get impatient and loose focus. “The $32 billion Yellow Pages industry”, why don’t they try the $1trn + telephone market where they already have 450m customers? They should focus more on mobile and landlines.
Your mouth should focus on deez nuts.
srsly
WALL STREET INFLUENCE ON CORPORATE WORLD
Big public companies have long been shills at the beck and call of Wall Street investment bankers. EBay’s acquisition of Skype is a perfect model for the abuse.
http://pacificg...morals-and.html
my guess is that mark cannon of yell group is the unnamed visionary.
I dont get it . . . unless skype can provision these “call tracking” numbers cheaper than callsource or even the phone companies themselves . . . whats the point for YP companies?
remember, the majority of the time the customer will end up picking up the phone and call anyways.. . so these calls will go from pots -> skype -> pots . . . since the small business probably has good ole phone on the other side anyways. .. .economically there is no way skype can provision these numbers AND connect them at a cost lower than phone companies.. .
call me stupid. . . I dont get it
For one, yellow pages would be able to track much more closely the number of calls that they are driving to their listees, which has value. Also they are making customers more engaged with yellow pages: you can call without ever actually leaving the site.
I dont get it . . . unless skype can provision these “call tracking” numbers cheaper than callsource or even the phone companies themselves . . . whats the point for YP companies?
remember, the majority of the time the customer will end up picking up the phone and call anyways.. . so these calls will go from pots -> skype -> pots . . . since the small business probably has good ole phone on the other side anyways. .. .economically there is no way skype can provision these numbers AND connect them at a cost lower than phone companies.. .
call me stupid. . . I dont get it
Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.
Thanks, very informative post
i suspect most of these bussiness will already have toll free numbers. that would make these links a new way to place calls put i do not see the revenue going to skype unless they find a way to get a cut from the reverse charges to the toll free numbers(pehaps they already do)
so do you know the numder?
These aren’t “new” business models at all, just using old models of affiliate marketing and the old infomediary model (gather user data and sell it). Please make the title more accurate unless you are going to identify a business model that’s never been done before.
this is very old news, and the local search industry have been talking about this 4 years ago.
Palore was also trying to do something similar with their browser plugin, but decided to stop it. They also included ad-sense inside the ‘bubble’ layer that opened when the user was hovering on the phone number.
Click-to-call was widely tested on superpages, local.com, amazon a9 and other local directories
Local search is just still not making it up to the huge expectation it had been so much lauded – as the next biggest growing vertical in online advertising.
Anyone following Skype’s plans for local search should visit http://blog.con...tonce.com/?p=98 as well. ContactAtOnce! is a young company that has been very successful at helping vertical search websites implement something similar and they have some very informational posts about Skype’s local search plans.
Just letting the singles in those 400million they can use Skype on Sweetr.net to find a date!
We do this with our customer engagement service Sitofono since 2007. http://www.sitofono.com
this is awesome , this skype new business model is worth. And i have always been using skype local business directory.