Skype Prime: Something for the BPO Industry?
eBay property Skype has launched a new service that allows called parties in the Skype system to earn money. This new service is called Skype Prime and is undergoing a public beta now.
In short, it enables paid Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls. You can charge other people for calling you either a one-off fee or by the minute. Conversely, if you are the caller, you can call experts who charge for their services, and you can then pay the fee and access the expertise that the other call party provides.
Ever since Skype came out, and especially since SkypeOut was launched a bit less than three years ago and Skype first moved into the paid products space, you have been asking for this kind of feature, in addition to our free voice and video calls. “Skype is great for free high-quality voice and video, but every once in a while, I’d like to charge for my calls.” I’m happy to finally see us rolling this out, and I’m sure it will enable a whole new range of businesses. So nothing will change in our free global Skype-to-Skype calling, but on top of it, you can now have paid calls if you want.
Wow! This is definitely an easy way for anybody to setup a small call center or business process outsourcing (BPO) enterprise. Payments can be received using Paypal making is easy to setup. Here are some possible ideas.
- Contract Web Design Services. Skype for a web page or a quote. Design, construction and creation. There is always some demand for this.
- Contract Multimedia and Creative Services. Video, audio, picture and graphics creation, editing and manipulation services. Even making of small VTRs and commercials might be useful to some prospective customers.
- Language Service. Documentation and language services including translation, validation and training. Want to learn English cheaply? Imagine all those Korean and Chinese nationals willing to pay good money for this.
- Concierge Service. Need to find or get something quickly? Just Skype me.
- Small Time Technical Support. Specialist phone support for open source projects is something that can be considered. It might even help defray some of the hosting expenses of a small open source project. Of course, this can apply to regular technical support like application and operating systems troubleshooting.
- “Kung Ikaw ay Nalulungkot at Walang Maka-usap” Services. We all know what this is
Unfortunately, Paypal-in is currently not available in the Philippine yet. This is definitely something some enterprising people can capitalize on. There are definitely more business ideas we can ride on the Skypeconomy. I bet that one of the main beneficiaries of this will be the Underground BPO Industry.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:04 am
[…] Previously, I had a blog about the release of Skype Prime Beta and its potential as a BPO enabler. Now, Techcrunch has an article covering other developments in the distributed booking space (with other players).. Real world services become much more efficient when paired with Internet-based search and booking platforms. Today, event venues, hotels, airlines, restaurants and other businesses can build their own booking applications with software from various vendors. And OpenTable has done a good job creating a bookings portal for restaurants. Skype Prime and Ether are two good services that let phone-based vendors book, charge and perform their services online. […]
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
To help skype prime users advertise themselves new service called http://www.primeskype.com/ was build. Now primeskype is a beta and provide only directory for skype prime users, but it will grow and will excellent web 2.0 service for online consultants.
Visit http://www.primeskype.com/