Over the past few days I’ve received a bunch of emails from readers wondering what’s up with Yahoo Voice in light of the moves by eBay and Skype.
Some question if Yahoo will be abandoning Voice due to the advertising relationship with eBay now and eBay’s deployment of Skype Me in eBay listings. Not.
Others wonder why the Macintosh client has been taking so long to come to the surface? Soon, I hear. Very soon.
Still others wonder at what point Yahoo makes Voice ad supported, reducing even further the costs that Yahoo has published, making it like email? Don’t count that one out, but don’t hold your breath.
I’m suspecting those questions will be answered rather quickly based on some intel I’ve been gathering over the past few weeks. From what I know their Mac client is likely more of a July release as they keep improving it. “Rock Star” Jeff Bonforte had a major hand in Gizmo Project, which is hands down the best VoIP application on the Net currently. His efforts there have carried over so I’m betting the Mac client, once it comes out, rivals and even surpasses Gizmo. I’m also expecting to see tighter integration with some of the other Yahoo communications services too.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Yahoo, in their quest to always offer something that does it better, figures out a way to out do the Skype Me button too…..