Archive for October 3rd, 2008
Nokia Unveils Its First Music Phone — 5800 XpressMusic
Turning up the volume on what could be a music phone war, Nokia has unveiled the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, a mobile device for music that brings innovative new features to the mass market. Delivering on Nokia’s vision to provide the best total music experience possible, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be among the first devices to support Comes With Music, Nokia’s service that offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog. When it comes to music phones, ...
Thanks to Our GigaNET Sponsors
We’d like to say thanks to this month’s GigaNET sponsors: Accenture: “The Innovation Dilemma: How to Achieve High Performance through Superior Research & Development” (free download) Volo Media: Dynamic advertising for downloadable audio and video Peer1: ValuePro Managed Hosting Plan, $299/mo Ki Work: Take control of your online business Brain Keeper: Collaboration that works Rackspace Hosting: Experience fanatical support Acquia: Commercially supported Drupal Sun Microsystems: I...
Wii Speak Channel: Think Skype for the Living Room
Nintendo held a media summit here in San Francisco yesterday, and while the biggest buzz was centered around holiday games and the upcoming DSi, I’m way more excited by the announcement that a Wii Speak Channel will launch this November. I’m calling it “Skype for the living room.” The Wii Speak peripheral, a multidirectional “community microphone” with a reception radius of up to 12 feet, was mentioned this summer, but only in relation to the upcoming online...
Get Your Early Bird Discount for NewTeeVee Live
Our big NewTeeVee Live conference is fast approaching, and you’ll need to act fast if you want to snag some tickets at our deep-discounted rate. Special Early Bird tickets are only available through this Sunday, October 5th. Buy now and save $200 off the regular ticket price! The show is lining up to be bigger and better than ever. Confirmed speakers include: Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix Jesse Alexander, writer and producer for Heroes Fred, the multimillion-play...
Loose Ends - Skype and the Great Firewall of China, VON/Virgo Deal, Oz/Nokia Deal
I don’t get paid to blog, so when I’m busy with consulting work, I fall behind on the news. There is always interesting stuff going on, and before the week is out, I wanted to quickly draw attention to three stories of note. These are all of interest to me, but it’s way too late to post about them. So, for the laggards out there, here are three items you might want to explore further. 1. Skype - China/censorship/privacy - you get the idea. Wow, this is an interesting - but not ...
The Bailout Passes
Watching this legislation to bail out Wall Street and banks clear the House has shaken my faith in true capitalism. I thought Wall Street was good at one thing: making and managing money. But like the folks in Washington D.C., most of them are just incompetent. With this headline from The New York Times I’m reminded of the Holiday Inn Express ad below. Need I say more? Anyway, if you’re looking for sharp, incisive and understandable commentary on the current credit crisis and the n...
Privacy on the Web? No, Thank You.
For all the outrage over the Chinese government spying on Skype users, when it comes to privacy, consumers value the talk rather than walk the walk. We often don’t want the inconvenience that security requires (sometimes even re-entering passwords is too much), which can be a difficult line to walk for entrepreneurs seeking to entice users to their online services. Jason Devitt, founder of mobile bill tracking software maker Skydeck, told me recently that the company dropped its requireme...
Mobivox leaves freemium services behind
So your free users never become paying customers? What should a smart business do? Fire the freeloaders! Refocus on the profitable customers. Mobivox did exactly that this week. After studying user behavior, data showed conversion from free-to-fee was near zero, and nothing would change that. Mobivox will devote the freed up resources to enhancing services for its commercial clients and to building up its Mobivox PL voice application platform. Kudos to Mobivox’s new management for an adul...
eComm — call for speakers
The next eComm conference is scheduled for March 3-5, 2009 in San Francisco. If you represent or know of an innovative company or idea in the personal communications space, then this is the event to be at, and you can find details of the call for speakers here. Posted by Martin Geddes at 04:07 PM Comments: (post your comment) Enjoy Telepocalypse? Then try Telco 2.0™: Making money in an IP world ...
Windows Live Messenger Back in the VoIP game!
Ok, now my head is getting dizzy from the number of times Microsoft Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger has had outbound VoIP-to-PSTN calling (2006), then pulling outbound VoIP calling (early 2008), and then putting it back in. Also, I believe it was 2004 when the Messenger client used Net2Phone before they pulled the plug. Well, apparently outbound PSTN dialing using VoIP is back in! Windows Live Messenger has now teamed up with Telefónica to offer VoIP services. Previously Net2Phone and V...
Canada’s Do Not Call System Good but Flawed
Canada’s much anticipated Do Not Call system (aka The End of Telemarketers) finally launched earlier this week as two million people registered during the first 60 hours. The response was so enthusiastic that the Web site, which is operated by Bell Canada, crashed. And while people who managed to register their telephone numbers should be pleased, it does not mean the end of telemarketers calling you. This is because the exemption list seems to be a mile wide and a mile deep. It includes:...
Skype & the Cost of Playing in China
If you’ve ever seen a Mafia movie, you know that playing nice with the mob is like having the tiger by the tail. It is no different for companies who do business in China, whether on their own or through partnerships. The latest one to experience the downside of this is eBay’s Skype, which has been taking some flack for privacy breaches in the region. Citizen Lab, an Internet research group at the University of Toronto, released a report that shows text messages of Chinese Skype u...
Sprint Might Unload Nextel to Latin American Carrier
The Wall Street Journal says today that Sprint may have found a few private equity buyers or a Latin American carrier to take its Nextel network off its hands. The paper names Cerebus Capital Management and NII Holdings, a carrier with operations in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Chile, as bidders for the Nextel iDEN network. NII also operates an iDEN network. The paper says other private equity firms have expressed interest as well. However, the deal to acquire Nextel’s assets faces...
eComm 2009 Call for Speakers
Perhaps the most informative event I have attended on behalf of Skype Journal was last spring’s eComm 2008, held in Mountain View’s Computer Museum. Three days of speakers who covered a wide range of subjects on the Emerging Communications Space.Organizer Lee Dryburgh has been putting together a repeat for next March, In order that participants can intermingle more often outside the event itself, Lee has moved the location to the San Francisco Airport Marriott. And he has just issued...
The Story Behind the Story: How a Canadian cracked the Great Firewall of China
As a four time graduate of the University of Toronto, I am glad to see the atmosphere for investigative research is thriving at my alma mater. A researcher at their unique Citizen Lab, “focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics”, is responsible for uncovering the TOM-Skype security breach that has had widespread coverage. Globe and Mail reporter Matt Hartley has obviously gone to the lab for an interview with researche...
The .com Domain is Becoming Irrelevant
It used to be that if you didn’t have a .com domain, you pretty much doomed. It was the global standard when establishing a presence on the Web. It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that having a .com domain is becoming less important. Part of it has to do with the fact it’s so difficult to come up with a half-decent .com domain, which forces companies to invent silly monikers. The other reality is it’s now possible to not have a .com domain without missing a beat. T...
who’s coming to the skypeover?
(first, in July) (then early September) (October) (and it continues…) (all of this with audio conferencing) (now imagine a skypeover with multiparty video) tags: skype, skypeover, sleepover, skype survivor, sleep, party, fun, conferencing Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype. Follow Skype Journal on twitter ...
Storage Startups Turn Cache Into Cash
Other than the availability of bigger boxes (or clear, plastic ones) it’s hard to point to big changes in the way we store our stuff. Shifts in data storage are similarly mundane. But like the physical storage industry, which has seen slight innovations in recent years, business-class data storage is quietly making its own incremental improvements — with support from venture capitalists. Enterprise storage companies raked in $237.7 million in venture capital during the first half o...
Cisco to Buy EMC? Don’t Hold Your Breath
There has been a rumor rustling around Silicon Valley for a number of months that Cisco Systems is on the verge of acquiring EMC. Such a move would make a lot of strategic sense for Cisco, but this rumored mega-merger of technology giants may have to wait for the U.S. economy to recover before becoming a reality. If Cisco were to acquire EMC, it would have an enormous impact on the technology landscape and etch in granite the combined company’s role as the hub around which the res...
Lenovo Celebrates 16 Years of ThinkPad
Lenovo is celebrating sixteen years of continuous ThinkPad innovation (most of them of course under the Big Blue of IBM) with — what else? — a sale. Lot of fun to look at the “Legends of ThinkPad” to see some of the amazing feats this little gadget has been through. You can take your choice of “melted,” “sunk,” “crunched,” “trekked” and “stolen.” Actually some stuff you won’t believe! And of course there a...
SMB Phone Systems Expands Microsoft Response Point Offer To Alberta
As many of you already know, I have been building up a PBX equipment vendor and interconnect specializing in Microsoft’s Response Point small phone systems. I have done a number of Response Point installations (many more since that post) in the Lower Mainland and my customers seem genuinely happy. With this in mind I decided to expand into Alberta. “SMB Phone Systems” now has installers and sales personnel in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. I have a long list of referral cu...
Twitter’s Killer App
I just bookmarked (aka Instapaper-ed) a really interesting New Yorker article about the U.S. presidential election that someone posted on Twitter. If I hadn’t seen it on Twitter, I never would have heard about it, let alone read it. Being able to access this kind of information is, by far, the biggest reason I like Twitter. Getting access to interesting stories, trends, blog posts and ideas is Twitter’s killer app. People who provide these 140-character gems on a regular basis are ...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.