I ran across this blog that had the story “Skype’s New Dawn” written by Jeremy Wagstaff a technology columnist, author and journalist, writing for The Wall Street Journal and the BBC.  What a great ‘angle’ on Skype.

Jeremy writes:

Pretty much everyone I know is on Skype—more so than Facebook—and their investment in it is greater: They had to figure out how to install software, set up a microphone, a webcam, create an account, and maybe even buy credit. More importantly, they can actually estimate its value to them, by counting the money it’s saved them, if they want.

We all know about eBay’s missteps with Skype over the past few years and the software could definitely do with a total overhaul. But now there are new faces involved—including Marc Andreessen, who knows a thing or two—I foresee huge opportunities ahead.

One is a route they’re clearly going to take: the enterprise. That makes sense, but it also means damping down Skype’s huge social reputation, since companies will tend to think of it as at best a frivolous time waster for its employees, at worst a security threat.

And yet since then Facebook and other social networks have. (Taken off, I mean.) Doing, actually, pretty much the same thing. Setting up an account, adding your buddies to it, and then communicating. But the potential of that network was never exploited.

If Skype dovetailed with Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn it could position itself at the heart of social media. After all, it’s probably the only application that most Internet users have installed, loaded and active on their computer. Unlike Facebook et al, Skype is there, right in the moment. It’s the ultimate presence app.

In other words, Skype offers a granularity that other social networking tools don’t: Not only is it comfortable with one to all (the status update message), it’s also comfortable with the one to several (add people to a chat or call), it’s also great at instantly connecting one on one. You can even reach people offline via it, if they have call forwarding enable, or you have their SMS details stored.

No other social network offers that.

Then we might be back to those heady days of 2004-2005 when Skype looked like it was not just going to be the end of ruinous IDD phone monopolies, but that it might herald a new era of networking.

Skype’s Social Web “Pole Position”

I think that Skype has a bigger opportunity than Facebook and Twitter if they leveraged their core product and user base to go after new markets like the Social Real Time Web. I agree with Jeremy above – Skype is positioned in “real” terms.

While all the hype with social networks, social media, social gaming, and social currency goes “supernova”, Skype is actually dominating “real social networking” and “making real money”.  Their installed base number are ridiculous – I’m hearing on track for 800m users.  The product and market opportunities for Skype are intoxicating.

What I Would Do At Skype On Product Roadmap If Asked

Here are some examples of what I would do if Josh Silverman and his team asked me for my advice. I would create a separate product and engineering team (approx 15-25) to go after the emerging social web opportunities. I would pump out at least two new products in six months and introduce them as “beta” to the loyal Skype users and evaluate. The investment in this – a few million.

First product I would do is microblogging – that is bolt on a  social networking component a Twitter functionality (aka microblogging). In terms of shear numbers it would instantly be a force in the market – a real-time player.  For example if Skype converted only converted 10% of their installed base then they would be bigger than Twitter (number of actual twitter subscribers).

Second product I would rollout is “real tele-presence”. I would go hard around the notion of Skype TV and compete against Cisco which has no offering for the common web user. Many are saying that Cisco’s Telepresence is pure luxury and a fantasy for mainstream users. To me Cisco Telepresence is the PictureTel of our generation – it’s super cool and high end, but irrelevant to “real web users”. Skype TV is a killer application and that product alone is a complete game changer. Skype could bring telepresence to everyone not just “wealthy enterprise” CEOs.

Those two projects would set the agenda for a Skype emerging tech market strategy. All in all Skype needs some serious product strategy/thinking on the new emerging opportunities (not just their base business). The cost is very small in the scheme of things.

CEO Of The Year – Skype’s Josh Silverman

I am very bullish on Skype now that they are out from under the corporate BS of eBay.  I’m keeping an watchful eye on Skype, and I really like the people in that company. Recently, Mark Pincus received kudos for being CEO of the year. Not to take anything away from Mark (I’m a big fan of his and his team), but Josh Silverman really could have had that honor.

In terms of CEO’ing Mark Pinkus definitely kicked ass. Mark nailed it on the product and market side. In terms of CEO’ing he really just “held on to the wheel” while the “thermal” of his industry pulled him. Mark held on and didn’t make any mistakes.

In contrast Josh Siliverman did more CEO’ing and was multidimensional. Josh had to do a ton this past year.  He ripped Skype out of eBay, dealt with lawsuits and behind the scene investor bickering and in-fighting, kept his team jamming, recruited Marc Andreseen and a set of world class investors, grew his user base, and setup as a private independent company. That is some hard work and some serious CEO’ing. The question that remains for Skype is:  can Skype nail the product side for the emerging social web.

Skype is part of a new era in networking (and social media) – and Skype is in the leading position.

Can they introduce new game changing products?

Update:  Josh Silverman posted his opinion on video on GigaOm here

Josh Silverman: How Video Changes Everything