Archive for August 29th, 2008
Remember When Labor Day Meant Noisy Beach Parties???
It really wasn’t all that long ago when you could bring an AM radio to the beach for Labor Day, tune in Cousin Brucie and rock the sand dunes! (Remember all of those beach party movies? Can anybody name one? Now, with all of the anti-fun measures that are posted at the beach (no noise, no ball playing, etc.), it’s amazing that you can still go in the water and swim (only between the green flags, please!). Anyway, looks like the 2008 end-of-summer beach look is an iPod or other MP3 pl...
Thanks To Our GigaNET Sponsors
We’d like to say thanks to this month’s GigaNET sponsors: Brightcove: “The 2008 SEO Video Playbook” (free download) Accenture: “The Innovation Dilemma: How to Achieve High Performance through Superior Research & Development” (free download) Peer 1: ValuePro Managed Hosting Plan, $299 per month Interop: Register for a free expo pass — New York, Sept. 15 - 19. Server Beach: By geeks, for geeks Volo Media: Dynamic advertising for downloadable audio and ...
my mom nearly cried
woo hoo!
Automated Phone Polling Using Voice Broadcast & Hosted IVR
Now that the 2008 Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates have all been announced, let’s briefly look at an emerging phone technology in the political polling space. Recently, Carl Bialik at the Wall Street Journal wrote an article and blog post highlighting the use of automated phone polling using voice broadcast and interactive voice response technology for political campaigns. Here are the benefits of voice broadcasting that were mentioned in the article & post: 1. “Auto...
Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 (next release) to be 64-bit Only
It was just announced on the Office Communications Server Team blog that the next release of OCS 2007 (rumored to be called OCS 2007 R2) will support 64-bit operating systems only. Customers who are using 32-bit hardware systems to run OCS 2007 will have to upgrade to x64 systems to install and run the next release of OCS. From Microsoft: As a part of the broad initiative across Microsoft to support 64 bit versions across many of its product lines, the next release of OCS will support 64-bit op...
Dan York: Skype’s 5 Years of Disruption
OK, so it’s the fourth post this week where I’ve referenced Dan York. But over the two years I have known Dan I have to say he is, in my view, one of the most respected authorities on the technology behind today’s communications revolution. Yet he also understands the value of the user experience. In celebration of Skype’s fifth birthday Dan has written the most thorough post yet on Skype’s accomplishments and how it has changed not only his life but also the commun...
peer pressure
Analyst 2.0 - I Like That Term - Thanks Andy
I had to smile when I saw this post from Andy Abramson this morning. The topic was about Yankee Group laying off 20 analysts, which is not a good news story, but Andy captured the essence of what it really means. I wasn’t aware of the news as I don’t have that much day-to-day contact with the U.S. analyst community. For the most part, indies like me are invisible to these firms, but at times like this, I’m happy to be in my shoes rather than theirs. As Andy notes, the economics...
The GigaOM 250 GB Challenge & 5 Tools To Monitor Your Bandwidth Consumption
With Comcast announcing a 250 GB cap on its broadband service and Time Warner trialling a tiered service with limits that range from 5 GB to 40 GB, we’ve decided to challenge people to break those caps. Obviously we can’t verify if someone actually downloads everything they claim to, but we’re looking for real examples of how a heavy bandwidth user could breach either the 40 GB or 250 GB limit. Leave your attempts in the comments. Unless you have a large family that consists ...
Skype’s 5 years of disruption… (Happy Birthday, Skype!)
Five years ago today, the first public beta of Skype launched, and in a blog post today new Skype CEO Josh Silverman celebrates with “Five Years of Wow“. It’s a bit of the “Ra-Ra” celebratory kind of post I would expect from a CEO but ends nicely with this: So, as we celebrate the first five years of Skype, let’s raise a toast to the human desire to connect. Indeed! Skype has done a great amount to help people easily connect to each other. It’s also ca...
now i have a phone number in my parent’s home town
Rogers Spinning its iPhone Story
One of the most interesting things about how badly Rogers handled the introduction of the iPhone in Canada is how it was totally mauled from a public relations perspective. While Rogers was assailed for its ridiculous data plans, the company essentially did nothing to respond. Only when the assault turned into a hailstorm did Rogers finally relent and offer a limited time 6GB plan for $30/month. Clearly, Rogers has learned its lessons if a story in today’s Globe & Mail is any indicati...
Happy 5th Birthday Skype!
Just want to wish Skype a Happy 5th Birthday. Skype has helped make VoIP a household name and has carried more VoIP minutes than any other VoIP software application out there. Well done Skype. I hope you continue to innovate, though Andy Abramson writes today Skype is dropping Skypecasts, a nifty feature. Andy poo-poohs the move when he writes: What’s puzzling though is that Skypecasts are one more example of how eBay really missed the mark with their purchase of Skype. For example, ...
old people and aliens
Off Topic: Why People, Not Technology, Matter
I know this is a technology blog rather than a political or personal blog, but two things are weighing on my mind. First off is Obama’s speech last night. Regardless of your political leanings, his call for people to come together and take action for the greater good was inspiring. The second is Hurricane Gustav. These two events have the potential to reinforce the power that individual people have. For as long as I’ve been paying attention, our politicians have asked little of us a...
Skype for Daleks
Cyprien Lomas: What Skype means to me
On the occasion of Skype’s fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com. Cyprien Lomas is the Director of The Learning Centre in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. I first met Cyprien at the annual Northern Voice blogging conference held in Vancouver. Skype is the communication application that is most likely to work. It ...
SquawkBox Discusses Skype’s Fifth Anniversary
Over the past few months I have been a frequent participant on Alec Saunders’ daily SquawkBox conference call where several of those involved in following today’s communications and web developments will discuss topics of the day. Subjects for yesterday’s call were the impact of the Internet on this years U.S. President campaign and Skype’s fifth anniversary today. Participants included Dan York of Voxeo, James Body of Truphone, William Volk of MyNumo (one of the more suc...
Harry Potter Secrets
Letter to the Editor - Reconsider Skypecasts
August 27, 2008. To whom it may concern. It appears Skype has decided to end all SkypeCast as of September 1, 2008. Skype we believe is an International Company owned by EBay. We your clients, and supporters of your company, are devastated by your decision to stop SkypeCasts. This action, has been a decision that will affect your standing in the industry; simply put it is a terrible decision that affects millions. Letters are already being sent to the International Press and Television sta...
Josh Silverman on Skype’s next five years
Skype CEO Josh Silverman wrote Five Years of Wow, reflections on Skype’s history and promise. About the future… When I think of the future, I think of Skype as liquid communication. Instead of being condemned to a frozen shape like the telephone, it will flow into any device whenever you want and wherever you are. And, like water can turn into ice or steam, Skype can shift its form to match what you need at the moment: from voice to video to IM to SMS to filesharing. Skype blurs th...
Microsoft Sets Sights on Europe With Shopping Site Buy
Greenfield Online, the parent company of Munich-based comparison shopping site Ciao, said this morning that Microsoft would spend $486 million to acquire it, derailing an earlier offer from a private equity firm to buy the company. The Ciao sites operate in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK. For Microsoft, the hope is that the deal will help boost its search business overseas. After the failed bid for Yahoo, Microsoft has been reeling around like a spurned lover ...
world peace and harmony
Michael Bartlett: What Skype means to me
On the occasion of Skype’s fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com. Mike Bartlett is Skype’s Director of Windows Product Management, working from London. Having worked at Skype for over 3 years, sometimes you forget the human power of communication. I had a powerful reminder of it a few months ago. My girlfriend’s father moved to Australia last ye...
Zennie on CNN before #DNC08
Alternatives to Skypecasts
While there has been lots of dismay about the discontinuation of Skypecasts (Skype’s blog posts: here and here), it had appeared for the past several months that the service just did not have the robustness to provide the reliability and quality of service that users would expect. Being a free service, it was obviously placing resource demands with zero revenue potential on Skype developer and support personnel that hopefully can be diverted to bringing feature equality to Skype’s ba...
Skype rulez!
Three big milestones in Skype’s fifth year
Skype’s fifth birthday is 29 August. As we count down, two huge milestones changed Skype’s future in the last twelve months. The bad one happened last month. 29 July 2008 BT buys Ribbit natural monopoly talk for all onlives 1. BT purchased Ribbit. Ribbit is the platform play Skype might have been. They are ready to start scaling. And now they have the money, customer base, telecom core, and international operations to reach their potential. Ribbit seeks to become a nat...
Raving faculty
It’s Going to a Wireless Bonanza…Maybe
Back in the heady days of the dot-com boom, Forrester was among the most notorious when it came to issuing bullish forecasts when it came to e-commerce. It was a great marketing move by because it fed into the frenzy among start-ups, VCs and investors who believed e-commerce was going to destroy their bricks and mortar rivals. Fast-forward 10 years and the wireless Web, and you have a new Forrester. In this case, it’s eMarketer leading the charge with forecasts that wireless revenue is goi...
It’s Going to a Wireless Bonanza…Maybe
Back in the heady days of the dot-com boom, Forrester was among the most notorious when it came to issuing bullish forecasts when it came to e-commerce. It was a great marketing move by because it fed into the frenzy among start-ups, VCs and investors who believed e-commerce was going to destroy their bricks and mortar rivals. Fast-forward 10 years and the wireless Web, and you have a new Forrester. In this case, it’s eMarketer leading the charge with forecasts that wireless revenue is goi...
It’s Going to a Wireless Bonanza…Maybe
Back in the heady days of the dot-com boom, Forrester was among the most notorious when it came to issuing bullish forecasts when it came to e-commerce. It was a great marketing move by because it fed into the frenzy among start-ups, VCs and investors who believed e-commerce was going to destroy their bricks and mortar rivals. Fast-forward 10 years and the wireless Web, and you have a new Forrester. In this case, it’s eMarketer leading the charge with forecasts that wireless revenue is goi...
It’s Going to a Wireless Bonanza…Maybe
Back in the heady days of the dot-com boom, Forrester was among the most notorious when it came to issuing bullish forecasts when it came to e-commerce. It was a great marketing move by because it fed into the frenzy among start-ups, VCs and investors who believed e-commerce was going to destroy their bricks and mortar rivals. Fast-forward 10 years and the wireless Web, and you have a new Forrester. In this case, it’s eMarketer leading the charge with forecasts that wireless revenue is goi...
It’s Going to a Wireless Bonanza…Maybe
Back in the heady days of the dot-com boom, Forrester was among the most notorious when it came to issuing bullish forecasts when it came to e-commerce. It was a great marketing move by because it fed into the frenzy among start-ups, VCs and investors who believed e-commerce was going to destroy their bricks and mortar rivals. Fast-forward 10 years and the wireless Web, and you have a new Forrester. In this case, it’s eMarketer leading the charge with forecasts that wireless revenue is goi...
dad almost found out
Endurance
Ian’s parents
Weekend reading
Skype for email? - can the p2p architecture that works for Skype be applied to email? Skype Emoticons Club - drawing tool for emoticon art. Evoca drops free service. For an annual fee, add Evoca to a Skype conference call and it will record the call, up to 180 minutes. You can download the mp3 or order transcripts. C-SPAN reporters used Skype video to cover spots in and around the Pepsi Center at the Democratic National Convention this week. Jerky video (low frame rate) but added coverage. S...
A look back at Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Tel Aviv
Just wanted to thank the 200+ people who came out to the breakfast I hosted on Wednesday, August 27th on a hot summer morning in Tel Aviv. This was my largest breakfast to date of the more than thirty I have hosted in sixteen cities in three countries and my fourth breakfast I hosted in Tel Aviv this year. The breakfast brought together a wide range of people including a number of (early) early-stage startups to executives from a number of the largest companies in the world. And in between the...
Memo To Comcast: Show Us the Meter For Metered Broadband
Comcast is out telling defending its bandwidth caps and how they are not bad. And how 250 GB transfer is plenty and enough to do whatever we want to do. Of course, in today’s terms that is more than enough, but what happens in the future. Nevertheless, If they are going to put caps, then they need to give us to what I think is an acceptable expectation - a meter. Metered billing needs a meter we can see, use and monitor any time we desire to do so. Water and electric utilities provide th...
Chips Work Hard for the Money, Just Like Everyone Else
Many venture firms shy away from investing in semiconductor startups because of the inordinately high cost and risk involved relative to other sectors, but some firms are still determinedly pursuing silicon by backing wireless chips containing radios that can work on multiple types of networks. The trend is being fueled by a robust market for wireless devices, as well as the increasing number of wireless networks available for specific purposes. The iPhone is a good example of a wireless device...
Ellen Sander: What Skype means to me
On the occasion of Skype’s fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com. Ellen Sander is a screenwriter and music journalist. Skype has for years been an important connection in my life. When I lived in China, it was my line to the outside world. Today in business, my colleagues across the U.S. and I can have conference calls with attendees in excess of what our...
You Can Buy Gadgets Everywhere!
A recent study from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has found that 25% of people would be willing to buy their gadgets from Starbucks, 30% from Ikea, 40% from Bed, Bath and Beyond and almost 60% from Home Depot. “Electronics have become so pervasive that consumers are looking to buy these devices wherever they want,” said Tim Herbert, CEA research senior director, adding, “No [retailer] is safe. If you don’t reinvent yourself, there are retailers looking...
Blogger interviews Julien Decot, Skype’s director of strategy
This is a candid interview of Julien Decot by Jeremy Berrebi. Here are the questions, with some help from Google French-to-English translation. What’s the secret to your success in working at the world’s leading net jobs? Some figures on Skype? Version 4.0 has been released. What are the main objectives? What about the quality of Skype? Is it possible to further improve the quality of voice and video? How will Skype be in 3 years? What is the main competitor of Sky...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.