SkypeFind 담당자 인터뷰 분석

아래 글은 이번에 론칭한 Skype3.1의 SkypeFind를 담당하고 있는 Sten Tamkivi와의
인터뷰 내용이다. 모두를 번역할 수 없어서 일단 내용을 복사해 놓고, 개인적으로 중요하다고
생각하는 부분에 대해서는 필자가 번역한 내용을 덧붙이도록 한다.
(번역한 부분 및 개인 의견은 파란색으로 표시되어 있다. 아래 질문에 보면 SJ로 시작하는데 이건 Skype Journal의 약자입니다)

이 글의 원문 위치는 아래와 같다.
http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/2007/02/sten_tamkivi_on_skypefind_roll.html

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SJ. What does eCommerce have to do with SkypeFind?

Sten Tamkivi: eCommerce is a unit inside Skype that deals with this kind of purchase, like SkypeFind, that has activities outside of the telecom-like services space. SkypeFind is one of the first big launches for us. It is a business listings system that enables users to share the businesses they call and what they think about those businesses. If you search for a haircut in London and don't find what you need, you can use SkypeFind also to ask from your contact if they have any good suggestions.

SJ. It looks like "asking your friends" means putting a note into your mood presence.

That's right.

SJ. Why do you think people want a SkypeFind kind of a feature?

We see it as a very natural building block on top of Skype as a communication app. If you use Skype for calling, especially SkypeOut for calling, you have to store your phone numbers somewhere. Why not share that with the rest of the contact list? Why not share it with the 171 million registered Skype users? We see it very much like a missing piece in the whole picture.

(스카이프를 이용해서 전화를 거는 사람은 자주 거는 번호를 자신의 연락처에 저장을 하는데, 자신의 연락처 중에 다른 사람들과 공유할 가치가 있는 사업적인 정보를 SkyeFind를 통해서 공유하고 평가하는 것이 가장 큰 특징이다.)

Because we are doing it very tightly inside the Skype client, that adds to the usability and the likelihood that people will input.

There is a very interesting social aspect we added to this. For example, if you are searching for a sushi place in Tallinn, and you have me on your contact list, then places I've suggested or rated well bubble up in the search results. So in the search results you get listings that are suggested or rated well by the people in your contact list that you already trust. So this is something that differentiates us as well.

SJ. So there is actual value in having friends that contribute to the network.

Exactly.

SJ. This is very wiki in flavor. Has this been influenced by Skype's internal wiki?

I think philosophically there is an overlap with wiki. With any wiki, not just our internal wiki. Yes, people can edit any listing they see, with small exceptions. You can't change the phone number of a listing that has been entered by someone else and you can't change other people's comments. But if you see a typo in a company name or you know the address, you can add these things, even if you didn't create the listing.

(필자주 : 원 저작자가 올린 Linsting에 대해서 다른 사람이 수정할 수 있는 점이 Wiki와 같지 않냐는 질문에, 리스트의 핵심 정보인 전화번호와 다른 사람들의 평가는 수정할 수 없고.. 해당 business의 주소, 웹사이트 등의 부가정보를 수정할 수 있다는 점에서 Wiki와 비슷한 측면도 있다는 설명)

SJ. What are your business goals for SkypeFind?

Yet to be worked on. Right now SkypeFind is a pure and unmonitized service. So all the content is user generated, there is no advertising model involved, and there are no business listings. We are looking in this space as well. However, we have decided that in case we bring in commercial content to SkypeFind, then we definitely will separate it visually and mark it clearly as something different from the user generated or social content.

(SkypeFind는 어떻게 돈을 벌 수 있을까? 가장 쉬운 방법은 이용자가 아니라 business를 소개하고 싶은 회사/개인이 비용을 지불하고라도 SkypeFind의 일정공간을 구매하는 것이다. 현재 베타 상태인 SkypeFind는 이용자가 직접 올린 정보만을 대상으로 하고.. 향후 광고를 게재하게 된다면 UI를 완전히 분리할 것이라고 한다.)

For now, we decided to start with a zero record database and see how it picks up with our user base. We strongly believe in that content getting there.

There was Forrester research quite recently about consumer behavior on the Internet. It said a whole quarter of U.S. consumers have used a commenting service or rating service or participated in discussion boards around the businesses they use. So I think people have a drive to share their experience and share their ratings and bash somebody who has been bad and praise somebody who has been good to them. If we give them a very simple and integrated user interface to do so, they will.

SJ. Right now, the directory is just of businesses. Have you looked to expand to cover other things?

Around Skype there are a number of directories already, if you think about things like Skypecasts - a directory of events. We might do something with bringing other types of listings together, but for now SkypeFind is focused on businesses and we try to do that part very well.

SJ. Are there any features you wanted in this first release that you didn't have time to get in?

Not really. We wanted to get a very simple neat version out there and listen to user feedback, and see where we can improve. So we are all ears right now.

If you look at the Internet phone or IM applications, no one has done something similar before. It's a learning process for us as well.

(이번에 넣으려고 했으나.. 넣지 못한 기능이 무엇이냐는 질문에 현재 모습만으로 충분하다고 한다. 일단 다른 VoIP 소프트폰이나 IM에서 이런 기능을 찾아볼 수 없다는 자신감으로 가득 차 있고.. 베타 서비스 기간 동안 이용자의 피드백을 통해서 기능 개선을 및 추가 기능을 구현할 수 있다고 보고 있다.)

SJ. eBay integration. Right now in SkypeFind I have to identify a business by a unique phone number. In the worlds of eBay or Amazon, the vendor is just a user ID in a specific context.

Right now SkypeFind is intentionally focused on phone numbers, as you can see the logical connection with SkypeOut. We are planning to add Skype user IDs to make people happy or support people who have brought Skype into their business as a communication tool. You are aware of Pay-Per-Lead, something we are doing with eBay and other partners. Even though SkypeFind and Pay-Per-Lead are different products, we can see them coming together sometime in the future.

(SkypeFind에서 웹서비스 업체에서 주로 이용하고 있는 ID에 대한 통화에 대한 지원 계획에 대해서는, 일단 현재 수준에서는 의도적으로 PSTN 번호만 지원할 계획이라고 합니다. 일단 SkypeOut 통화를 발생시켜 매출 증대에 기여할 목적도 조금 있는 것 같은데.. 향후 ID로 전화를 할 수 있도록 할 계획이라고 합니다.

Pay Per Lead의 개념에 대해서는 여기를 참고하시기 바랍니다.)

Some of the SkypeFind Community Guidelines language is vague. For example:

"You should not submit comments or keywords or any information that is unlawful, offensive, abusive, indecent, obscene, racist, discriminatory or menacing or which does, or is intended to, cause annoyance, inconvenience or worry, or which is fraudulent or defamatory"

I'm sure lawyers got involved, but the concern is that the definitions of these terms vary by locale. So it is difficult to enforce and to be fair. There are some things that are broad about it. For example, if I say a restaurant's service sucks, and it costs them business that would be annoying and inconvenient to them and might worry them about lost business. So would literally violate your terms.

This is not really my area. But the right direction to think about this is the Wikipedia space. There are many parallels. So if someone bashes your restaurant on a wiki you can go and correct it, it can go back and forth for a while, then you can report the concern to Skype which is a functionality we have included. There should be enough layers of protection.

(이 부분은 누군가에 의해서 SkypeFind에 등록된 리스트에 대한 평이 좋지 않아서 또는 누군가가 의도적으로 악평을 게재해서 해당 업체에 피해를 줄 수 있는 부분에 대한 대책을 요구했는데, 이용자가 잘못된 정보를 직접 수정하거나.. 또는 스카이프에 우려(Concern)리포트를 보내는 장치가 되어 있다는 설명입니다.

여튼 이 부분에 대한 정답은 없는 듯 합니다. 이런 서비스를 고민하는 분이라면 이 부분에 대해서도 고려해야하겠네요..)

I only saw western languages in the system. Will you be supporting non-western languages as well?

Character set wise, we' re ok right now. As anything we do in Skype, we localizing.

Are you doing anything to expand the statistics, the metadata generated by the system? For instance, indicating popular tags or popular searches or hot spots in the world, and exposing that back to the users?

We have that data coming from the system but no decisions about exposing that.

(SkypeFind에 등록된 데이터는 스카이프에서 운영하는 서버에서 관리합니다. 대부분의 스카이프 서비스가 P2P 방식을 통해 사용자 로컬 PC에 저장되는 것과는 달리 서버에서 관리되니까.. 이용자의 사용패턴, 즉 어떤 태그가 인기가 있고.. 어디가 검색이 많이 되는지 등에 대한 메타데이터를 스카이프가 수집해서 비즈니스에 이용할 수 있을 것입니다. 스카이프에서는 아직 메타데이터를 계속 수집할 계획이지만.. 이용자에게 이 데이터를 노출시킬 것인가에 대해서는 결정한 것이 없다고 하는군요..)

Is there some way for me to have some link on a web page to my entry in the directory? Or a review-my-site link?

Right now there are no permalinks you can launch.

(자신이 등록한 SkypeFind의 리스팅에 대해서 자신이 모아서 관리할 수 있는 방안, 예를 들어 permalink 등을 제공할 계획은 당장 없다고 하는군요..)

Where does the data live?

It is a server based solution, as opposed to peer-to-peer.

Are there any plans for a web version of this?

Technologically it is quite simple, however as you can see the social part, or the relevance brought in by your contact list is a big part of the value here. So taking it to the web and making it anonymous would lose that part.

(현재 SkypeFind는 스카이프 3.1을 통해서만 등록/조회/수정이 가능합니다. 어차피 관련 데이터가 스카이프 서버에서 관리되므로 스카이프 웹에 해당 정보를 노출하는 것은 기술적으로 문제가 되지 않겠지만, 스카이프 Contact List(연락처)와 밀접한 관계가 있기 때문에.. 당장 스카이프 웹에 SkypeFind 서비스를 론칭할 계획이 없다고 하는군요..)

What are your plans for an API (programming interface)?

I know we have some plans. The keyword "API" is on our roadmap but I haven't looked at that functionality yet.

(다른 스카이프 서비스와 마찬가지로 SkypeFind에 대한 API를 외부에 공개할 계획은 가지고 있지만.. 당장 실행하지는 않을 것 같습니다.

이게 공개된다면 다른 서비스 사업자로 이 정보를 바탕으로 다양한 부가 서비스를 개발할 수 있을텐데.. 아쉽네요.. 공개되길 기다리면서 압력을 넣어야죠..)

What do you hope to learn in the next thirty days?

Probably a lot about people's activity. Is there a growth in listings in a way we expected? Does it disperse somewhere geographically? Do people add new content or review what other people have already added? And naturally all the other business statistics behind that, like how many clicks on the call link we get.

I think that's the start. Probably we'll see comments on blogs and coming directly to Skype in our discussion forums. I think we're quite open to see what happens and what users think.

Who came up with the magnifying-glass flower icon?

Our designers, our creative folks.

How are you spreading the word on SkypeFind? Is having the tab enough?

Yes, I think it is, for the searching reason. It will be integrated into other places in the Skype client. For example, if you have a SkypeOut contact on your contact list, then you can add it to become a SkypeFind listing. Also we can embed it, for example, when you finish a call with a business, we can immediately ask if this call is to a business and do you want to rate what happened on that call.

(현재 SkypeFind는 Skype3.1의 하나의 탭으로 서비스되고 있습니다. 리스트를 검색하는 기능을 놓고 볼 때는 탭 기능 만으로 충분하다고 생각하고 있습니다.

향후에는 연락처에 등록되지 않은 곳으로 전화를 걸고 끊었을 때.. 해당 번호를 리스트에 등록할 것인가에 대해서 이용자에게 즉시 요청할 수 있는 UI 정도는 고려하고 있다고 합니다. 예를 들어 내가 Skype를 통해 피자헛 신사동 지점에 전화를 하고 끊었는데.. 이 연락처를 SkypeFind에 등록할 것인가를 묻는 창이 뜨고 내가 정보를 입력해서 간편하게 등록할 수 있게 만들어 준다는 것이죠..)

How often will that tab be updated?

Due to very early beta, we don't automatically update it. It updates when you change the country or if you right-click on the tab. Statistics on the bottom will update as well.

(trying an update...) Alex is in Hawaii. It also shows he added a place near me in the Bay Area. That's information I didn't think about from before.

Your default country - the "where" field - is derived from your profile. It defaults to your local stuff. I travel into London a lot so I've been checking what kinds of good restaurants are in London.

Where are you based?

I'm from Estonia.

How long have you been with Skype?

I've been with Skype since summer 2005, about one and a half years. I started off as the general manager of Estonia, then I took over global operations for Skype, and since late last year I've worked more closely with product. I've dealt a bit with devices and about two weeks ago I joined the eCommerce team and took the GM role here.

Does eCommerce include the Skype store and the partnerships that go with that?

The devices and hardware stores are a separate topic. The eCommerce team deals with Skype extras and personalized stuff.

Between the extras and SkypeFind, we're seeing more things being built into or bolted onto the client. What other things would you like to see added to the client if you had all the time and money in the world?

Client real estate is something we think is very precious. Because one of the main drivers behind the success of Skype has been the simplicity of the user interface and the ease of use. So we consider very very carefully what we do in the client and what we don't want to do.

It's very tough to throw something out there. Think about Skypecasts. That big, colorful directory of Skypecasts is something we're keeping on the web. It turns into a client part only when you're participating in a Skypecast and the listings appear as in a conference call.

Probably that's a good example of what we want to do with the client. To be very sensible and see that we don't bloat it with different types of new features but keep it usable.

I was looking for tapas and realized I wasn't getting listings for Spain and France, just for Spain. Same thing for companies wanting to list in more than one country. Have you looked at a country called the Internet?

Not the Internet, but yes, the discussion is going on around if and how we execute on this for businesses that have a Skype name but no physical address.