London-based Cominded has launched its first product, named Yabb, after a year in development. Yabb reminds me of a community like Twitter (text-based microblogging) or Seesmic (video-based microblogging), but this time with voice calls made over Skype. So think ‘VOIP microblogging’.
Users import their Skype contacts, then are asked to allow Yabb access to Skype. The idea is to find a conversation topic of interest to you on the Yabb site, pick someone with interesting thoughts who has joined that topic then send them a call request by asking them to Skype you. By integrating with Skype’s API, Yabb allows you to then call people over Skype. While you wait for a call, you can join other topics, add your thoughts and send more call requests. [Update: I hadn't previously realised this, but Paul Sweeney points out that Yabb is less disruptive than one might think in that you can't send voice messages to people who aren't in your Skype contact list. This means nos 'voice spam but also less ability for this to go viral maybe].
Yabb will work with with Windows, Mac OS X and Firefox and displays your Skype settings on the site to show your online status and receive calls via Yabb. Users need to ensure Java is enabled in Firefox (it’s enabled by default).
Founder Paul Birch told me Yabb is going to be about re-inventing the ‘art’ of conversation. He is hoping there will be more potential adoption of Yabb than video-blogging systems like Seesmic since most people are happy to talk, but not everyone wants to appear on video. (Yabb is built on Ruby on Rails and is hosted by EngineYard).
You lost me at Skype.
If it was a Seesmic without video, great. Cracking. But comon? How can people put money into things like these?
BTW, the “You lost me at Skype” was not directed at you Mike : )
Geoff - As I understand it Cominded has no venture money, only their own, Paul Birch being co-founder of Bebo and all…
I’m lost aswell. Why would someone want to use this service?
Surely any community aspect is lost as soon as teh conversation is taken onto skype.
At the moment I can go to a forum, have a conversation about a topic, and if someone interests me I can email / IM them.
As far as I can work out, this is all Yabb is trying to do…
BTW I have updated the post with some new info (see Update).
I guess you guys are missing the point: the idea would be to connect interesting people to each other serendipitously over skype.
The failure of traditional social networks is that you don’t meet someone new and interesting because they are just an aggregation of contact lists.
This is the fundamental problem that paul is trying to solve. Imagine if i could go online meet someone interesting, have a skype call and then meet up. A siggnificantly valuable online interaction which results in a tangible offline one. Sounds like a perfect vision to strive for.
I was at the Yabb launch last night and can see it has some value, but so far I don’t see a convincing application for it - the example topics aren’t very inspiring. What did strike me was the potential for it be a micro-consulting platform. As an expert in a particular topic, you declare a value on your time ($ per minute) and invite people to engage you in that area. This would be especially attractive for small start-ups who can’t afford to bring in a consultant on a daily rate, but requires focused expertise on particular areas - they’d effectively have a group of people on-standby for when they were needed. Similar idea to Google Answers (rip) but with richer interaction.
A few points to make as yabb founder:
1) There is no need to import your Skype contacts to use the core elements of yabb. However, you may choose to do so.
2) We believe there is something ‘magical’ about human 1 to 1 voice conversation. Text has strengths - but yabb’s view is that people spend too much time on the web writing stuff already - we are offering an alternative.
3) Skype has a very large and active user base. Yabb will help existing Skype users to get more use and benefit from Skype.
4) We love feedback - Ideally we need it from people who have used yabb. We need to know from people what needs improving. We plan to iterate our feature set fast.
sounds interesting (and different) good luck guys
So thanks I got access to Yabb today. After waiting near on two years for co-minded to release a product I have to say I was a little underwhelmed.
That said everything works on my Mac with Skype’s API import. The conversation element is confusing. I cannot see why I would go back there currently. Skype tried this and it failed, so I am not sure why Yabb will be any different.
As for funding, well Paul has his own money and if he didn’t he would not have got funding in the UK for this idea. Not because the idea is good or bad - I’ll give it time before making that call - but soley because UK’s VC/Angel community are pants.
Would a UK VC have funded Twitter, YouTube, Wordpress etc the answer is no. Would any UK VC have put $29m into Wordpress - Maybe but only because it was an obvious investment with very little risk.
Paul is lucky in that his brother has built Bebo and he gets to bask in the halo effect and luckily he has his own money to waste on his ideas. I’ll continue to use it for a while but feel that it will go the same way as pownce. i.e an early surge of interest followed by a damp squid.
Now looking at the product itself. Where is the support for hatom (conversation thread), XFN (friends), hcard (profile). Twitter supported these from day one.
Bottom-line good luck Paul, I’ll keep an eye on Yabb but it doesn’t excite me and if all else fails maybe a deal to include a white label version for Bebo.
Mike I like your writing but do you REALLY think TCUK makes any difference for UK companies on the global blogosphere!?
I think it would be better to have you write on TC.com and write about UK companies there. So companies like Yabb would be reviewed by you but would be read by a 600k+ audience instead of a
an audience of 4k.
I would prefer to see you write directly on TC.com as do the aussies Duncan Riley and Nik c.
“Close TCUK” - Thanks for the kinds word about my writing. However, having fought *long and hard* to have a brand like TechCrunch take an interest in the UK, Irish and wider European Web2 business, I think it would be nice to give it a little longer than the mere five months since the relaunch (Sept 07) before shuttering it. And as you’ll notice, some posts - like Yabb - end up going on the TC.com site anyway, put there either by me or by the team there (if they beat me to it, as in Yabb’s case). I would also say that our UK/Irish audience is appreciating this blog as a way of having a conversation closer to home about the issues tech startups face here, without having to wade through a lot of un-informed comment from US-based commenters, as they would have to were everything just posted to TC.com. Just my two cents.
I know this is not relating to the article but rather to the last three comments; Mike you are absolutely right, keep it Tech UK/ Europe. There are enough Web 2.0 blogs focused on the US or coming from the US, we need one English speaking blog for Europe.
Keep up the good work.
I have to agree we hear more than enough US based opinion on Tech, Its nice to have a voice for it here.
About yabb, I signed up and was at amiss to work out what it was ( maybe I’m just stupid) it took me a while to work out that it was a thread /topic service that integrated with skype and that you could ask people to call you on skype.
Yet it wasn’t clear what it was about which turned me off a bit.
I just couldn’t find an about or mission statement and had to wait until i read this to really understand what you were trying to achieve.
Like I said maybe i’m just stupid but i think it would help.
It sounds like an interesting idea for networking.
About yabb, I signed up and was at amiss to work out what it was ( maybe I’m just stupid) it took me a while to work out that it was a thread /topic service that integrated with skype and that you could ask people to call you on skype.
Yet it wasn’t clear what it was about which turned me off a bit.
I just couldn’t find an about or mission statement and had to wait until i read this to really understand what you were trying to achieve.
Like I said maybe i’m just stupid but i think it would help.
It sounds like an interesting idea for networking.