Google and Skype in Davos

Recommended by Alex Rollin of the Peer Producers weblog at http://peerproducers.discursives.com/2006/02/world-economic-forum-with-google.html

This is an excellent webcast session from the recent World Economic Forum with leaders from Google, Cisco, Skype, and William Gates III. I highly recommend watching it. Here's the text, to catch your interest.

Available via http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Annual+Meeting+2006#27

Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Skype lay out their next big thing — The CEOs of four major technology companies discussed at an Annual Meeting session the next generation of technologies that will drive the global economy. Whether it be voice net or game learning, the panellists agreed that the digitalization of everything is changing business structures.

A second broad trend identified was the extension of the transition from transaction to interaction. People’s worlds are being transformed by the parallel transition from computing to communication via the net.

The third trend the panellists discussed was the business model that creates a product out of something that is for free, building a network of users along the way. Successful businesses are then able to add value and get users to become paying consumers. This is particularly the case with Google’s sponsored links, or peer to peer voice service, Skype, which allows users to call landlines and cell phones for a fee while users may call each other for free. (http://peerproducers.discursives.com/2006/02/world-economic-forum-with-google.html)