Archive for September 19th, 2008
ITEXPO Live Video Streaming!
This blog entry will show live video streaming (via my Windows Mobile 6.1 phone’s camera) of various ITEXPO events, including keynotes, receptions, and of course the exhibit hall. I’m going to broadcast starting at 3:30pm PT (6:30 ET) when Skype’s Johnathan Christensen and Microsoft’s Xuedong Huang and Sonus Network’s Vikram Saksena will be keynoting. So if you couldn’t make it to ITEXPO, you’ll at least be able to see the keynotes in just a few hours. I...
Thanks for Making Mobilize 08 a Success
We put the debut Mobilize 08 conference to bed yesterday evening after a long day full of interesting conversations, smart panels and most importantly, forecasts for the future of the mobile Internet. Indeed, the reason we wanted to host Mobilize in the first place is because we saw a parallel between today’s mobile Internet and the wired Internet of the mid-90s. Back then, I had a courtside seat to the changes unleashed by the introduction of the Netscape browser. Today, the emergence of Ap...
Gaboogie Wins Red Herring Canada Top 50 Award
Gaboogie has just won the Red Herring Canada Top 50 award in the category of Communications based on our Lypp Conference Call application. We would like to thank Red Herring Canada for the recognition and all of our supporters and clients for making this possible. The company continues to grow organically and we are very excited about what the future holds. Thanks again to all who made this happen! Erik Lagerway - President Gaboogie Canada Inc. ...
A Twitter Tease
There’s big news from Twitter today in a blog post entitled “Changes Afoot”. Could it be a new business plan? A way for Twitter to generate revenue and justify the private equity it’s received. Could it be a corporate version of Twitter (a la Yammer) where it could make some dough-reh-me? Nope, it’s a new design. The ironic part is if Twitter hadn’t done a blog post, I probably would have never known it had a new look given I use Twhirl and TwitterDeck as oppo...
With Microsoft in Sight, Cisco Buys Jabber
Cisco said this morning it would buy instant messaging service Jabber for an undisclosed amount. The deal is another move by the networking company into the collaboration space — this time highlighting the importance of presence awareness and interoperability in collaboration. It follows nicely with Cisco’s buy of PostPath earlier this month, as well as its WebEx acquisition. Cisco CEO John Chambers has been pretty vocal in its desire to go after three hot markets: collaboration, vi...
Virtual World Marketing That Works: My Top 3 Tips
So last year, most people decided that marketing real products in virtual worlds like Second Life doesn’t work. Since then, however, I’ve come across some avatar-driven advertising campaigns with very impressive numbers. In Gaia Online, for example, users grabbed over a million virtual copies of a Toyota Scion; in Second Life, a promotion for the IMAX screening of the latest “Harry Potter” movie was credited for boosting the movie’s ticket sales online. Why do c...
Being Paranoid is O.K.
When I worked on Wall Street, maybe you have experienced this too - a number of my work “friends” were paranoid about losing their jobs even thought they were miserable. Many of our lunch meetings centered on sharing the office gossip which contributed to even more paranoia about the state of our jobs. Ironic as it was, in the end no one who was part of our regular conversations ever made a move on their own out of the company. They moved only when they were fired. Even after seeing ...
Microstaq Raises $12.5M and the Profile for MEMS
Earlier this month, eight years’ worth of semiconductor development culminated in a DEMO God being awarded to Steve Booth, co-founder and VP of marketing at Microstaq. And his 15 minutes of fame are about to get a repeat performance. On Friday, Microstaq, which supplies an energy-efficient valve for air conditioning units, is expected to announce a $12.5 million funding led by Good Energies, a New York investment firm focused on renewable energy. The second round of funding for the Austin...
Fonolo - Top Pick by Judges at Mobilize
Here’s another very good news story from another colleague, and this one is closer to home. Fellow Torontonian Shai Berger, and his company Fonolo made it to the list of companies presenting at GigaOm’s Mobilize event this week in San Francisco. It’s ok if you’re doing a double take here. Turns out that Mobilize and the IT Expo are the same week, and a number of people split their time at both shows. I saw Shai several times during the Expo, and wished him good luck when ...
BroadSoft’s Mashup Contest - Thomas Howe Takes Top Spot
Call me a homer, but I think it’s great news to hear that colleague Thomas Howe took top prize at BroadSoft’s voice mashup contest. Readers of my blog will no doubt know Tom, and I’ve spent a fair bit of time with him this week at the IT Expo. I actually had an advance copy of the press release on Wednesday, and Tom didn’t know he had won until I told him later that night. Whoo hoo. The press release was released yesterday, but I haven’t had a chance to post until n...
eBay Stumbling Away from StumbleUpon
eBay has received a lot of grief for its acquisition of Skype - most of it focused on the fact it wildly over-paid ($4.2-billion). To some extent, you could argue Skype was a strategic move because eBay was looking for a way to roll out communication tools to buyers and sellers. The same, however, cant be said about StumbleUpon, which eBay acquired last year for about $75-million. Then and now, there doesn’t seem to be a strategic fit with eBay and StumbleUpon, which lets people randomly...
Michael Robertson responds
[A letter by Michael Robertson.] Phil, Thanks for the post on Skype Journal about my letter to Skype pointing out the hypocrisy of demanding that the wireless carriers open up their network when Skype will not open their network to receive calls from others. You don’t address the core issue about Skype interconnecting with other networks and seem to make excuses about why it’s not possible or safe. These protests had no validity 5 years ago when peering was an issue with the major I...
Mobilize: Launchpad
Judging the Launchpad startups. Here’s the end-of-the-day portion of the show that many of us have been waiting for all day: the Launchpad, where a dozen startups get a few minutes to convince us they rock. Here are our lovely judges. All four scored each presenter and one offered a comment: Ryan Block, Editor, GDGT.com Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners Nagraj Kashyap, Sr. Director, Qualcomm Ventures James Kendrick, jkOnTheRun 1). Pinch Media: How to make iPhone applicatio...
ASUS PC-free Skype desk videophone, coming October
Nobody invited me to the Skype London 5th Birthday Party where you might have seen the preview of the ASUS AIGuru SV1. Standalone device, connected directly to the network via wi-fi or ethernet. A good writeup. Photo gallery. Draft news release below; product name and specs subject to change. Taipei, Taiwan, September 18, 2008 – September 18, 2008 - ASUS today unveiled the AiGuru SV1, the world’s first Skype Certified™ videophone dedicated to unlimited video calling over the ...
Mobilize: The VC Panel
We’re rounding out the panels with a gathering of VCs. Venture funding for mobile has been energized by the iPhone App Store and other recent developments, but what are the opportunities for a venture-backed big-time success between mobile apps, mobile web efforts and various business models? Here are my notes: Matt Marshall, Editor and CEO, VentureBeat: What are the most popular iPhone apps and what are you seeing in new companies? Matt Murphy, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Bye...
Fonality Targets Call Centers with Advanced Call Center Features
I met with Fonality CEO Chris Lyman at ITEXPO and he gave me a demo of HUD 3.0, which includes some very advanced call center features. HUD 3.0 now not only displays the queues, but it lets you drag-and-drop individual queues off the main HUD client onto your Desktop allowing managers & agents to focus on specific queues of interest. The new version features important statistics such as abandonment rate, ASA (average speed of answer), and more. You can see all of your agents in a particular ...
The Carrier Panel: Strategies To Keep Mobile Data Growing
GigaOM Mobilize conference — Carriers panel Without carriers and their data networks, mobile applications wouldn’t be possible. So let’s show them some love, says Chetan Sharma, of Chetan Sharma Consulting, the moderator of the panel. The consensus is that mobile data is becoming more important to carriers and it’s growing every year. The next big challenge will be getting content to devices. Russ McGuire, Sprint Michael Woodward, ATT Wireless Frank Meehan, Hutchinso...
ITEXPO West 2008 Best of Show Winners
It’s been a great ITEXPO - perhaps the best West Coast show we’ve had, especially when you consider the economic turmoil. It’s worth sharing the companies and their products that were just awarded “Best of Show” at TMC’s Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. Best Service Provider Solution Ring Carrier TelcoBridges IntelePeer Best Large Enterprise Solution Instant Solutions MobileMax Best SMB Solution 8×8 Quintum Epygi Best ...
Mobilize: WiMAX for the Renegades, LTE for the Incumbents
GigaOM Mobilize conference: Broadband wireless debate Alright so we wouldn’t exactly call the wireless broadband standard WiMAX hip. But it’s gaining traction by the alternative disruptive companies and carriers, while competing standard LTE (Long Term Evolution) is being taken up by the dominant cell phone companies. That’s a general overview of the theme of GigaOM’s “Broadband Wireless Debate” panel at Mobilize. Clearwire’s Chief Strategy Officer S...
Mobilize: Money and Friends: Social Networks Panel
GigaOM Mobilize conference: Mobile social network panel For the mobile social networking panel, I thought it might be helpful to condense the various remarks each speaker made to sum up their particular social network’s take on mobile. Not to say the panelists weren’t talking to each other as well, but I think their individual insights are valuable aside from the conversation. Noelia Amoedo, VP Mobile, hi5: General take: Mobile is about self-expression. “For many of our us...
Facebook to Integrate with Mobile Address Books?
At the GigaOM Mobilize conference just now, Chamath Palihapitiya of Facebook just gave a little indication of what’s next on the company’s product roadmap. Palihapitiya, Facebook’s VP of Growth, Mobile and International was serving on a panel about mobile social networking, when an audience member commented that a phone’s address book is essentially its owner’s social network, Palihapitiya replied, “That’s a great observation. Stay tuned.” Faceboo...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.