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Nortel Web.Alive = Second Life for Business
Rich Tehrani has a very interesting post about Nortel’s foray into virtualized business meetings. Think Second Life virtual world meets business world…
Rich participated in a virtual world demo with Nortel where they showed him web.alive. This business-oriented virtual world looks eerily similar to Second Life, including the 3D avatars, and 3D world but under the covers it sports something else - namely 3D audio powered by DiamondWare 3D stereoVoIP technology. Both Rich and I have espoused DiamondWare’s technology over the years and recently their technology was acquired by Nortel. No doubt Nortel was impressed as well, and this virtualized business meeting world with 3D audio appears to be the fruits of that acquisition.
Rich explains, “I have touted DiamondWare’s patented technology for over half a decade and it is as impressive now as it has ever been. It allows you to have your voice volume increase and decrease as you get closer or move farther away from others. It also allows you to hear people on the left or right when they talk and it seems these people are really speaking from one direction or another.”
Rich goes on to explain that the technology could be used to power virtual tradeshows, as seen by the screenshot above showing what could be a keynote room complete with full Powerpoint and video & telepresence support. Does this mean no more Internet Telephony Expo in sunny Miami in the middle of winter here in the Northeast? Nomore pressing the flesh? Say it ain’t so, Rich! 
Rich seems excited by the technology when he says, “I really feel like Nortel is onto something here. This could just be a short-lived fad but it just seems like there is just so much productivity boosting that can be done with virtual business worlds - it just has to happen.”
Rich is one of the busiest guys I know - a true multitasker, so he’s always looking for the most efficiency in business. Considering how many internal & external meetings Rich participates in, I can see why he likes the idea of 3D virtualized meetings.
I’m a little more skeptical. Reading Rich’s demo, I like the idea of “the room of silence”, the ability to ‘dress up’ to indicate to co-workers that you are an an important meeting with clients (so they don’t interrupt), and the ability for 3D voice is certainly cool & sexy. I’m just not sure these features replace the good ole’ telephone with a WebEx session. I suppose for meetings larger than 6 people, this idea makes more sense, since I’ve been in conference calls where you get too many people talking at once and you can’t tell who is the one talking. The 3D audio with animated avatars could certainly help for larger meetings. Though meeting software such as WebEx allows you to raise your hand to speak. Maybe if I held a few meetings in Nortel’s Web.Alive I’d be less skeptical. Definitely has the coolness factor though.
In any event, check out Rich’s blog for more details, including a plethora of screenshots.
Tags: 3D, business, conferencing, Nortel, rich tehrani, Second Life, virtual, virtual world, web.alive
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Gaboogie
Conferencing is growing and there are so many players in the field. Not much differentiation that I can see. But Gaboogie has at least one differentiator: It calls the participants!
Another differentiator is Dimdim, which states that “When they wanted to share what was on their computer screens they discovered that existing web conferencing products were all either too expensive or too complicated (or both).” Dimdim is free for up to 20 attendees.
I use Freeconference.com and pay for the recording ability. I handed 2 calls off to my podcast folks and it turns out that the call quality was too low. Not good because you can’t re-do a call. Skype is good for one to one call recording (or podcasting) but I don’t have an inexpensive fix for this. Do you?
Tags: conferencing
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Jun 27, 2008
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Logitech buys SightSpeed
SightSpeed is a great video conferencing tool. No software to download. Just plug in your webcam and go. It is based on SIP and offers 30 frame-per-second video with an integrated IM service.
Logitech makes webcams. Apparently to sell more of them, they need people to actually use them. (To use them for more than amateur porn that is). So Logitech bought SightSpeed.
Logitech, a Swiss maker of computer peripherals has acquired video conferencing software maker SightSpeed of Berkeley, Calif. for approximately $30 million in cash. The deal is expected to close sometime in November. [NY Times]
Congrats to
Tags: logitech, mergers, sightspeed, video conferencing
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OctroTalk adds Video Conferencing and Live Streaming to Windows Mobile
A major new version of OctroTalk (see previous write-up), an IM/VoIP/video P2P app just came out. The new version is called OctroTalk 2.0 for Windows Mobile and it now has real time video conferencing with VoIP, File Transfer, Instant Messaging and avatar support. You can even have video calls if you have OctroTalk running at both ends. The OctroTalk desktop version also supports video conferencing.
OctroTalk supports IM/VoIP and can communicate with Jabber, Google Talk, AOL/AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, and ICQ. Might have to compare this app with fring, one of my favorite multi-IM/VoIP applications.
You can also stream live video to the Web. Just add 3001@switch.octro.net to your buddy list in OctroTalk, and make a video call to this buddy. Users can look at what you are streaming by going to http://video.octro.com/ and entering the username as your JID. (Your JID is your Jabber/Gmail ID that you are using to log onto OctroTalk.
Currently, the front camera support is for Samsung Blackjack, and not for HTC phones (HTC hasn’t opened up their API).
Download it at http://www.octro.com/.
To download cab file directly to your Pocket PC or smartphone.
Tags: AOL/AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Octrotalk, p2p, videoconferencing, voip, windows mobile, Yahoo
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Tele-Presence versus Video Conferencing
Andy Abramson writes about how video conferencing from a client company like SightSpeed is better than Cisco’s Tele-Presence. On Sept. 22, Brian Carroll is having a tele-seminar on “Email vs. Phone vs. In-Person Meeting”. Keith Rosen, a respected sales coach, would tell you that, especially in today’s economic climate, nothing beats a face-to-face or a phone call. Keith writes about how Sales 2.0 is diluting inter-personal communications. (If you have ever received an email from someone that using text messaging a lot, you will see what he means).
As one commenter wrote to Andy, Tele-Presence is a richer experience. Well, it should be for equipment that is in excess of $50K per site. Even this price barrier is being removed by companies like WBS Connect leasing out tele-presence rooms for business use.
Another point is that many tele-workers don’t want to shave and dress for video conferencing. There’s no IT guy at the home office to help with the video conference set-up. Messing with the webcam and the software is a pain and when you have so much to do in 8 hours, dialing a conference bridge is easy. Even that isn’t fool-proof as quite a few times stuff has happened to hamper that easy tool.
Maybe the differentiating factor will be personal interaction. When I see couples at restaurants and one or both are on the cell phone, I have to wonder what are they doing. That’s a live person that traveled to meet you. Talk to that person. And the yakking in the car while driving WITH other people in the car. This society is in for a wake-up call and it will come when most of us are too weak to fight back.
You can’t get a human on the phone but ChaCha pays humans to run your Google search while you are mobile. Go figure. Maybe the differentiator to a sale will be the personal touch.
Is travel is mess? Yes. Will virtual conferences replace real ones like IT Expo West next week? No. It’s about the hand-shake; the meals, drinks and ideas shared. It’s about getting a read from someone live. That is not easily replaced. That said, tele-presence as a 3-D meeting experience might work for second or third meetings to go over details or brainstorm or for product demos or training.
Video conferencing like SightSpeed and tokbox can replace phone calls (if we can figure out how to make them on demand like a phone call instead of scheduled). And I need to start replacing some IM and email with the phone. I pay for a landline, a VoIP line, and a cell phone. I need to use it more and the keyboard less.
Tags: cisco, sales, sightspeed, tele-presence, video conferencing
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