Mac[adamia] nuts

Paul Graham writes:

'In 1994 my friend Koling wanted to talk to his girlfriend in Taiwan, and to save long-distance bills he wrote some software that would  convert sound to data packets that could be sent over the Internet. We weren't sure at the time whether this was a proper use of the Internet, which was still then a quasi-government entity. What he was doing is now called VoIP, and it is a huge and rapidly growing business'.

Well ain't that the truth. A travel company that I have dealings with is now using Skype to save on it's phone bills. Yesterday, I grabbed a headset to experience first hand 'if it did just work' and the QoS was excellent. Infact it's better than our BT landline that keeps cacklin' and cracklin' like some poorly tuned radio thingy; even after numerous engineer visits – 'must be damp in the line mate'. What this means in the long term for the telcos I'm not sure. Even Peter doesn't have the answers.

What's of interest here (if anyone's still reading) is that the afore mentioned travel company can further reduce it's overheads and pass these savings onto their customers. They are an online company – 'no we don't produce a brochure' – so this new use of technology, combined with the website's use of RSS feeds backs-up their claim to really deliver the best of both in terms of quality and price. Now all I have to do is convince a couple of the crew to blog and I'll be happy as a pig in shit.