Archive for October 10th, 2008
DNCL - Canada’s Answer to the Scourge of Telemarketers
Been trying to get this out all day - just one thing after another. This post is more of a public service announcement instead of the usual trail-blazing thought leadership you find here - but still of interest, at least to Canadians! So, we finally have DNCL - our Do Not Call List - to keep those pesky telemarketers away. This just came out about two weeks ago, but it really only popped into my mind yesterday. It’s funny how I spend most of my time with emerging technologies and follow...
An Ifbyphone New Features Update
Over the past few months Ifbyphone has released a number of new features. Here’s a list of some of the goods: Smart Conference Calling: Set up instant or scheduled conference calls, and optionally set the system to call out to conference attendees rather than waiting for them to call into the conference. All conference attendees and their statuses can be monitored on a live dashboard by the conference host. Store Locator: Route calls into a single phone number to the nearest regional or...
Mystery Mobile VoIP Technology Available Next Month?
An almost decade-long effort to bring an unknown wireless broadband technology to the U.S. is set to bear fruit next month in Florida after XG Technology Inc. scored a $375 million infrastructure deal backed by a secretive Swiss billionaire. Earlier this week the Financial Times said Sarasota, Fla.-based XG scored a $375 million deal from an investment firm owned by Johan Bohman to start deploying XG’s low-power wireless base stations. So far I’m taking this story with a heaping gra...
Ultimate Ears — Very Sweet …
Talk about a sweet sounding and feeling headset! Ultimate Ears’ Super.Fi 4vi is designed for the iPhone and features voice integration with in-line microphone and control button. (But it still worked great on other phones — like the BlackBerry Curve.) The Super.fi 4vi incorporates the same speaker technology and sound signatures used in their custom personal monitors, which are used by some of the music industry’s top artists. The phones deliver detailed bass...
Sequoia Capital to Companies: Think Cash Flow
I won’t add much more to Om Malik’s truly scary report, Inside Details of Sequoia Capital’s Doomsday Meeting With its Companies. Of the hundreds of companies in Skype’s ecosystem (termination suppliers, API developers, embedded hardware, IP licensors, mobile, payment), which ones lack a year’s cash in the bank and a positive cashflow? Of those at risk, can Skype help them survive the tough times? As markets get mean, will Skype be able to cheaply buy talent and ...
The Dow???s a Brat
We’ve all seen parents unwisely offer treat after treat to a sullen child to stop him or her from misbehaving in public ??? may have even done it ourselves. The brat grabs each gift, quiets down for a few minutes, then has a fresh and louder fit to extort another gift. No reason to stop as long as the gifts keeps coming. Before the opening of each of the world’s markets each day, the central banks offer a new bunch of gifts to investors. Sometimes the markets even go up for a few ho...
Triple Play Moving to Quintuple Play?
If you thought the “triple play” offered by cable and phone service providers was pretty cool, it’s time to think again. Various providers now are looking at ways to bundle not just TV, phone and the Internet, but also a home’s security and control systems into a great, big package that is being called the “quintuple play.” For the service providers whose quadruple plays currently include digital television, internet, phone, and wireless, the fifth servic...
BT’s 21 Century Network Is So…Last Century
Ready for a little Friday humor? Well there’s this British carrier called BT that’s spending £10 billion ($17 billion) to build out an all-IP network that would handle the massive influx of converged data, voice and video traffic coming over the next few years on one network. They’ve been trashed and mocked, as so many visionaries often are, but they’ve kept on building, with the goal of finishing the network by 2011. Only they apparently didn’t build it to talk t...
BlackBerry Storm on Its Way! Look Out iPhone 3G!
Let the holiday season smart phone wars begin!!! Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced its BlackBerry Storm – with its new tactile touch-screen — that will be exclusively available on Verizon Wireless in a couple of weeks. Both RIM and Verizon Wireless are expecting the Storm to seriously challenge Apple’s 3G iPhone as the hottest gadget under this year’s Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush. With a look similar to Apple’s iPhone, the Storm comes with a 3.2-i...
For News Corp, MySpace Offers Hope
Earlier this morning, Rich Greenfield, the scary smart media analyst at Pali Capital, slashed his price target on News Corp to $20 from $27, citing big concerns over slowing advertising revenues for newspaper and television stations. And since this is a global problem, there is little room for News Corp to hide. He is forecasting a 1.5 percent decline in revenues for News Corp.’s newspaper business, a 9.5 percent decline in its TV revenues and a 7.8 percent decline in revenues at its film...
Is Moving to Canada That Bad?
In the wake of Sequoia’s “RIP: Good Times” meeting earlier this week in which warned its start-ups to batten down the hatches, one of the CEOs attending the meeting was quoted in the L.A. Times as saying: “I didn’t come away thinking that the sky is falling or that I have to move to Canada, just that these guys are taking this seriously.” Given how the U.S. financial system is imploding while Canadian banks are seen as among the world’s soundest, movin...
Truphone appoints new CEO
Truphone today announced Geraldine Wilson as its new chief executive officer. Geraldine was the former Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo!’s European mobile division. Always nice to see a female CEO being appointed… to you know, “break the good ole boy network.” Yeah, I know, that phrase has been done to death lately by Sarah Palin. truphone is a very cool VoIP app that works on many mobile phones, including the iPhone. In fact, they were one of the first to o...
Mithras Capital — Who Are These Yahoos?
In times of trouble people like to revisit what they know, and what could be more familiar than the ever-present effort to get Microsoft and Yahoo together at last? Mithras Capital Partners has floated a proposal that Microsoft buy Yahoo for $22 a share, or 74 percent more than its closing price on Thursday. According to Reuters, Microsoft could then unload Yahoo’s Asian assets and recognize $3 billion in savings, making for a total deal cost of $10.3 billion. Since the plan seems crazy, ...
Understanding why Network Neutrality is Misunderstood
When I read Geoff Daily’s most recent blog posting, I realized that his misunderstanding of network neutrality came, in part, from a lack of appreciation of option value. [Here’s my previous post on Geoff’s take.] Now, let me declare right up front, Geoff is a great guy, and a true friend. He has the energy of any other half-dozen Internet activists. He organized the remarkable “Camp Fiber” gathering in Lafayette last Saturday, which I had the good fortune to attend...
Sequoia’s Message to Start-ups
It’s been all over the blogosphere this morning (GigaOm, Om again, Bear, Alley): Sequoia Capital is worried. They have given advice to all their portfolio companies. Here’s some of it: The Good Times are Over! Cut spending. Cut fat. Preserve capital. Focus on quality. Reduce risk. Make sure you have one year’s worth of cash. If you have a product, reduce expenses around it and boost sales. If the product is ready, cut the number of engineers. Be brutal when it comes to marketi...
IMS isn’t Killing It
In a discussion on LinkedIn, it seems that IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) isn’t killing it in terms of measuring up to the hype. According to Ericsson, an IMS proponent and vendor, “IMS is defined by 3GPP/3GPP2 as a new core and service ‘domain’ that enables the convergence of data, speech and network technology over an IP-based infrastructure. It is the operator choice of control and service logic for primarily IP/packet-based person-to-person communication but also for p...
Call for Speakers: The Social Media Jungle: Leveraging Social Media for YOU (and your business)
I’m looking for a people who would like to be considered discussion leaders at The Social Media Jungle: Leveraging Social Media for YOU (and your business), taking place on November 13th in Melville, New York. In the few weeks since I decided to host an event, the landscape has changed. Friends are now worried about losing their marketing budgets for next year, others are worried about their jobs. The effects of the economy are weighing in on just about everyone. So I decided to re-cast w...
Pic>1kword: The art of Zina Saunders
I’ve used these images only with the artist’s permission.By her request, I am delighted to declare that these pictures arecopyright Zina Saunders 2008. Here’s a link to the artist’s blog. Check out her non-political work too, e.g., her portraits of overlooked New Yorkers. A hat-tip to . . . sorry, I was unable to reconstruct who’s Web site led me to Saunders’ work. Whoever you are, thank you! Technorati Tags: JohnMcCain, 1kwords” rel=”tag”...
Blog ‘Til You Drop
During a job interview several years ago, a newspaper editor asked me about my challenges as a reporter. I responded that I was really focused on writing well as opposed to simply writing fast. I went to explain that I had always been able to pump out stories (aka quantity) but that it was also important to spend the time to provide insight (aka quality) and perspective. In today’s fast-moving world, this approach is even more important for newspapers scrambling to stay viable. I’m ...
Carriers, Apps face off at OpenMobileSummit
How open is open? Skype’s Jonathan Christensen will be on a panel at the OpenMobileSummit. Open access for apps to carriers is on the menu. I’ll be there, along with folks from AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone, Verizon, Google, Amazon, AOL, Yahoo!, Nokia, RIM, Qualcom, Sun, Symbian, Funambol, Mozilla, Intel, Disney, MTV. $100 off if you register with "SKYPEJ". The $300 early bird pricing ends Friday midnight. tags: skype, openmobilesummit, even...
Skype to FCC: Mobile carriers blocking Skype is proof of closed networks
Skype asked the FCC to support unfettered customer freedom following statements at CTIA’s conference last month. CTIA and Sprint retorted with balderdash and Skype’s Christopher Libertelli sets them straight in this short, direct letter. Emphasis mine. October 8, 2008 Electronic Filing Chairman Kevin J. Martin Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street, SW 12th Street Lobby, TW-A325 Washington, D.C. 20554 Re: Ex Parte Presentation; RM-11361 D...
VoIP Startup EQO Slashes Workforce by 65%*
EQO Communications, a communications company based in Vancouver that made waves at Demo 2006 and raised a total of $13 million in two rounds of funding from GrowthWorks, BDC Capital and Ventures West is rumored to have cut nearly 65% of its work force — reducing the number of employees from 35 to 12. The news was reported by Techvibes, a Canadian startup related publication. I have called their marketing manager for a comment but had not heard back at press time. When it launched, we wer...
Event: Breakfast with Jeff Pulver and Friends in Minneapolis on November 20th
On Thursday, November 20th I will be in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and hosting another edition of Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and Friends) at Sandy’s Place, at Best Buy, 7601 Penn Ave., Minneapolis, MN from 8-10AM. Readers of my blog are invited to join us. To RSVP, please visit this event on Facebook. Everyone attending this breakfast will receive a “Personal Social Networking Toolkit as described below: — Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Fac...
Venture Firms Pull Back, But Not for Long
Venture firms are sounding the alarm over what this current downturn might mean for their portfolio companies — and it’s not pretty. While it’s true that great companies are built during downturns, it’s also true that plenty of entrepreneurs are going to be shut out of any sort of financing for the foreseeable future, all as their personal wealth dwindles and banks decline to offer home equity loans or other lines of credit. We’ve already reported on how the res...
Qwest Brings Land Lines into the 21st Century
Today, Qwest Communications launches an Internet portal that allows users to access and see what’s happening on their home phones. Dubbed qHome, the service allows users to see who’s calling their home phone, listen to voicemail, forward messages, manage their contacts and place a phone call, all from the Internet. Users of Windows Live Messenger can also tweak their settings to get an Instant Message when someone calls their home phone. For those of you who still have land lines, t...
My Jazinga Review
Ive been trialing Jazinga for a while now and have waited for the most recent updates to get this review done. Im really enjoying using it, and its become my default telephony system. I use that word loosely, since I work solo, and am not exactly a typical PBX user. I dont have anyone to transfer calls to, but there are many other features that make my life better and my work day more productive. Before sharing my thoughts about Jazinga, I didnt realize the most obvious thing about Ja...
UBS Turns Sour on Advertising, Even Online
It has been a summer of discontent for publicly traded Internet companies, whose shares have nosedived in tandem with the broader market. And the group — led by Google and Yahoo, both of which saw double-digit declines in the last month — is not going to be dancing in the streets any time soon. Or at least that is what Ben Schachter, Internet analyst with UBS, thinks. In an astoundingly sobering note to his clients this morning, he cut his estimates on his entire portfolio of covera...
New Speakers Announced for NewTeeVee Live!
Our big NewTeeVee Live conference is fast approaching — Nov. 13, just a month away! — and we’ve got a sizzling hot line-up. Check out the newest additions to our speaker list: - Alexis Rapo, who heads ABC.com - Michael Buckley, breakout star of web show “What the Buck” - David Verklin, CEO of Canoe Ventures, the new interactive advertising joint venture from the cable companies - Ben Ling, recent high-profile hire at YouTube and head of product management for all ...
Subscribes
Archives
-
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- November 1999
- January 1970
Sipy...
-
News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.