Yahoo gives up on VoIP and goes VoIP...WebRTC that is...

Yahoo acquired WebRTC technology with OnAir in December.

Yahoo recently acquired OnTheAir, a startup that offers interactive live video over the Web, in a move that shows the company’s commitment to increasing its mobile technology offerings.

OnTheAir, which uses WebRTC technology, is the second key acquisition by Yahoo under the watch of new CEO Marissa Mayer. 

Now, Yahoo announces the ramp-down ofYahoo Voice.

Just learned that Yahoo Voice is shutting down at the end of January. Yahoo! will no longer offer Phone In and Phone Out services to our users, although free Messenger-to-Messenger calls will still be available through your Yahoo! Messenger service.   

Yahoo VoIP direction is clear. From thick clients to Web.

Ads in Facebook call? Who wants that?

Interesting view on why Facebook is implementing VoIP. 


From the story:

There's a few ways Facebook could make money off of this too. It could offer low-cost, off-net VoIP calling services, similar to the way Skype does. This could allow a user to drop to the lowest-cost voice plan and just make calls over VoIP. The cost of data plan overages could make this unattractive, but if a user utilized the service only when connected over WiFi, it could significantly reduce the cost of calling from a cell phone. Another idea could be to somehow insert ads into the interface or a short one at the start of the call. However they do it, this might be Facebook's fastest path to being able to monetize mobile.

The idea of insterting ads with phone calls was trialed in the late 90s, if I remember right. I have a hard time seeing any success in that.

Why  would Facebook not want to connect consumers with businesses with easy to make voice call? A lot easier way to monetise.

Fair enough, you argue that this will get expensive for the mom&pop store to handle all those call. Well, let's put it this way: sure and there are smart folks working to make it feasible...

Why is Facebook doing VoIP?

Facebook has started to offer voice messaging in some markets with apparently plans to offer VoIP too in near future.

The voice messaging is obviously a smart usability enhancement. Rather than typing text, say something.
The realtime bi-directional VoIP is a different animal.

There are some factors for and against full VoIP by Facebook happening in the markets.

Pro:
+ may generate more service stickiness
+ one more modality to communicate, text has been there quite a while
+ Facebook may quite well be so much more powerful that the operators cannot stop it
+ WebRTC is around the corner and as an open technology may steal the middleman position Facebook has envisioned for itself between companies and consumers. The game around WebRTC is evolving to an interesting one

Cons:
- operators are an important distribution channel for Facebook in many markets (but what can they do?)
- questionable use case.  People may use social networking separate from realtime communications and prefer avoiding phone calls

I believe the key driver is Facebook's will to remain between the consumer and businesses.
This is hard to argue against, one needs only to look at Google to understand why.