SkypeSpace
MySpace will be integrating Skype's VOIP service into its instant-messaging offerings come November. The two will split the revenue generated by MySpace users taking advantage of Skype's premium offerings like Skype-out, but it's unclear how that split will be structured. eBay, which owns Skype, is basically hoping that the extra revenue will help make up for the fact that, as it admitted earlier, it overpaid by about $1 billion (said with pinkie finger at the corner of my lips) when it bought the company.
But as the story points out there's very little overlap between Skype users and MySpace members. If 25 million people are using MySpace's IM client, and only 6.7 percent of MySpacers also use Skype and if only a fraction of that use the premium services, then we're not talking about very many dedicated users.
It would be really interesting to see how many people actually use this and how. It's also going to be really interesting to see if this service is adopted by the marketers who are so in love with MySpace and its very attractive user demographic. Let's say I'm a movie marketer (what can I say, my brain goes there by default) and set up a MySpace profile for the flick I'm promoting. Would there be an advantage to my being available on Skype?
I think the answer to that question has to be yes. If you really want people to get engaged and entice them to see the movie you have to offer points of contact for interaction. If voice can be one of those then it's a bonus. The fraction of people who would use Skype to get in touch with you are likely going to be people looking forward to the movie who might be having problems with the page or who have a question about the movie. People who fall in either category deserve to have their questions answered.
It's at least something that needs to be considered as part of a larger customer service/new media maintenance strategy I think. It could be a tremendous opportunity to create another valuable point of contact and could actually add value to a MySpace execution that goes deeper then counting how many people you can get to say, "Thanks for the add!"
