April 2008 Archives

I just started using the Slacker website to stream music and I remain very impressed at how good the service is. You are able to listen to a number of predefined stations or make your own. You can also customized existing stations by banning artists, etc.

The service is ad supported but you can choose to subscribe so that you don't have to deal with the ads. If you do this, you also get to save some songs to your hard disk, get support for slower broadband connections and the ability resize your Slacker window.

In addition you can merge your own MP3s into custom playlists you create on the Slacker service.

There is also an associated portable music player which can synchronize with stations you create on your PC.

I have found myself listening to Sirius and Pandora in the past but now I have added this service to the mix. If you like Pandora (and I definitely do) this service is sort of like Pandora but seems to be more flexible in some ways. The user interface is not as nice as Pandora but what it lacks in simplicity it makes up for in flexibility.

Since Slacker is free, I suggest you give it a try

If you are interested to see how the world of ecommerce will merge with virtual worlds, you should check out the Hunter Douglas website as it uses Adobe Scene7 technology to allow some serious visualization. You may be expecting a cartoonish environment but instead you're presented with real looking rooms in a house allowing you to visualize how your blinds will look before you purchase.

Interestingly just last week a friend was telling me she purchased expensive blinds for her house based on a salesperson's promise they would look good. Later she was disappointed when she saw them in her house.

I suppose this sort of technology will increase sales and reduce returns and the percentage of unhappy customers.

Adobe has really done an admirable job of positioning itself in areas of the internet where the static meets the dynamic.

I also think Scene7 technology is worth watching closely as it intersects with virtual worlds to grease the wheels of online commerce.

See also:

Virtual Customer Interactions written last fall by yours truly

Disclaimer: It is worth mentioning the 5-6 times I visited the Hunter Douglas site this weekend, I received an image server error. This could be due to high volumes of users due to the recent publicity of this site.

Are CRM and SFA tools only as good as the data they contain? You bet they are. This is exactly why I invited Dan Hughes the co-founder of Broadlook Technologies on a TMCnet podcast so I could learn more about how the company's innovative technology helps companies benefit the most from their systems.

Hughes says those people who are not satisfied with their CRM systems should consider they may be in a situation similar to buying a nice car and not putting oil and gas in it and expecting it to run.

This is where Broadlook Technologies comes in... As their company's solutions allow you to scour the Internet for information that can help your company be more successful.

And anyone who has ever used a corporate database knows it is always out of date. Tools like those from Broadlook help all companies keep their databases up to date and optimize effectiveness.

Apparently reporting the news is as depressing as watching it. This might explain why CNN News anchor Richard Quest was caught with a small bag of methamphetamine in his pocket.

In case you are curious about this particular drug, Wikipedia has this to say:

Methamphetamine is a potent central nervous system stimulant which affects neurochemical mechanisms responsible for regulating heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, appetite, attention, mood and responses associated with alertness or alarm conditions. The acute effects of the drug closely resemble the physiological and psychological effects of an epinephrine-provoked fight-or-flight response, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, vasoconstriction (constriction of the arterial walls), bronchodilation, and hyperglycemia (increased blood sugar). Users experience an increase in focus, increased mental alertness, and the elimination of fatigue, as well as a decrease in appetite.

Apparently Quest was loitering as he was walking in New York's Central Park in the early hours of the morning when the park was officially closed. A search is standard procedure in such situations.

Although Quest will not be going to jail over this incident we can expect CNN competitors to try to highlight this news in an effort to detract from the news company's reputation.

Picture this... You say something and you really didn't mean it. Perhaps it was that you can see see US troops in Iraq for 100 years or that snipers were attacking you in some far away country.

In the past, you could count on "unfriendly" TV news programs to perhaps play these quotes for a few days after you made them. Some quotes have longer lives of course -- things like "Reading lips and no new taxes," and of course "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

But still -- Until now...It was generally TV that repeated these things for a few weeks or more.

Now it seems Google too has gotten into the act. As of today, they will place quotes above a person's name when you search for them on Google News. For example a News search on April 19, 2008 with the words Hillary Rodham Clinton gives the following quote, "An attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation by the United States."

Google for its part says these quotes are facts and it seems you will be able to search quotes more deeply than ever before. In fact on Google's blog, they had this to say:

As part of Google's mission to organize the world's information, we've been hard at work making quotations in news articles easy to search and browse. You can now more easily keep track of what your favorite politician, actor or sports star is saying. You can even search within their quotes for specific topics.

So there you have it... Your quotes will now live on forever and ever. So just be careful what you say as your great-great grandchildren will likely be able to find  your words as easily as  they find their surgically implanted Apple iPhones of the future.

As icebergs melt, at least two bad things happen. The first is they have less surface area to reflect the sun's rays meaning the ocean receives more of these rays and in turn this warms the earth more than usual.

The second is they change the saline levels of the ocean which could totally change the flow of ocean currents which control the weather patterns of the world. If you wonder why the weather has been getting wacky lately, it is likely because the icebergs are melting rapidly and the oceans are getting less salty.

[Daily Telegraph]

Yesterday's podcast with Digium's CEO Danny Windham is getting a good deal of exposure and a number of people have been commenting on it to me. There is also a related article written by TMCnet's Susan Cambpell worth reading.

For more, check out Digium: Driving Revenue in an Open Source World

See Also:

• PhoneFromHere.com Teams with Digium on Embedded Java Softphone
• 3Com Selects NETXUSA as Value-Added Distribution Partner
• Phybridge Intros UniPhyer Solution for IP PBX and Open Source...
• Critical Links Adds Features to edgeBOX 4.6 Office-in-a-Box Appliance

The only thing better than seeing the world interconnecting with technologies such as SMS, is seeing health care providers taking advantage of the latest gadgets and technology to help curb disease outbreaks and improve prescription compliance.

Case in point is antibiotics which should be taken to completion... There is nothing like a cell phone SMS reminder on a daily basis letting you know you have to take your pills for 10, 9, 8, 7... more days.

One would imagine there is nothing like SMS and e-mail to help ensure we reduce the chance of contagious diseases becoming a pandemic.

TMCnet's Tracey Schelmetic has more on how health care providers are turning to wireless technology to keep us healthier.

One of the latest trends I have noticed is integrating disparate solutions into Google's suite of applications. Just this month in fact, two companies in the communications and CRM spaces have decided working with Google more closely makes a great deal of sense.

Perhaps the company making the largest splash in the Google Applications partnership space is SalesForce.com who just connected it's CRM systems more tightly with Google's applications allowing a completely hosted CRM/office solution.

But it isn't just the CRM companies getting into the act. UC companies too are looking to combine the best of communications with the search leader's hosted office suite of apps.

Case in point is EsnaTech who has integrated their Telephony Office-LinX suite of UC tools with Google to provide seamless interactivity between the hosted and the the communications worlds.

A benefit of working with a company like EsnaTech is that you get UC, even if your underlying PBX is from any of the following telecom equipment vendors: Mitel, Iwatsu, Nortel, AASTRA, Cisco, Avaya, Toshiba. Please check with the company to see what their latest list of supported phone systems is.

What sorts of features does a Google UC solution contain? With this particular one you get the ability to see call logs in Google folders, call recording with Google Gmail integration, click-to-dial from Google Apps (including mobile) and more.

Telephony Office-LinX also has great quality speech recognition as well as mobile UC integration meaning the software actually can track your location based on the proximity of your cell phone's bluetooth signals to determine how your calls should route. In order for this to work, you would need client software installed on various PCs in your office, home, etc.

EsnaTech has been in the communications space for many years -- they were even around even when CTI was popular in the early nineties. Moreover, the company may have the most advanced solutions you have never heard of. It is worth pointing out that although Esna Technologies is more quiet than most, their solutions actually power the communications solutions of a number of other companies who you are likely very familiar with.

Mohammad Nezarati, CEO and CTO at the company had this to say about the company's latest solution, “This is like deploying a full Microsoft Exchange server, Active Directory, and Office Communication server at a fraction of the cost and with virtually no overhead. Our UC platform integrates SaaS technology to enterprise infrastructures. The web-based services of Google Applications also provides a complete cross platform solution. Combined with the cross platform of our Mobile UC client we can deliver UC to any and all environments.”

I spoke with Nezarati a few months back in fact and he beamed with enthusiasm as he explained how easy it was to connect his company's solution with Google's hosted applicatons.

What EsnaTech has done here should not be underestimated. They allow a customer to use Google Applications without sacrificing deep application integration generally associated with in-house software and custom integration.

EsnaTech and SalesForce.com are two companies who have extended the reach and power of Google Apps and now companies can be more comfortable knowing thy can deploy leading-edge CRM and UC solutions even if they choose Google's relatively new office suite of services.

Here are some screen shots of EsnaTech's Google Applications integration:


Click-to-dial functionality from within a Google Application



A received fax comes into a Gmail account



The Incoming Calls Tab in Gmail. Note the missed call.



Voicemail integration with Gmail



UC/Google Gadgets integration

How does a company go from being a leader in the open-source communications space while simultaneously looking to generate revenue? Even open-source purists realize that companies supporting this movement need a way to generate earnings.

Digium, the sponsor and maintainer of Asterisk is actually dealing with both ends of the spectrum as they look to boost their profits and grow. Danny Windham was brought in as CEO about a year ago in fact to ensure the company supports the developer community while simultaneously growing profits.

In a podcast interview, Windham shared many of this thoughts with me about how he runs the company and how Digium looks at the small business market, what sorts of alliances we may see going forward and where he believes open source is on the technology adoption curve.

An special area of interest to me is where Windham and company sees the intersection of open source and Web 2.0. In a mashed-up world the opportunities for developers grow exponentially and allow customers to enjoy breakthrough applications from programmers across the world looking to make communications more effective.

Jamie Siminoff has an interesting post today on his blog where he discusses the dangers of motorcycles and compares the purchase of a motorcycle to investing in a company.

I was a huge motorcycle fan and was ready to buy a Honda hurricane/CBR 1000 when I graduated college. Before I had a chance to do this, a person I knew in the gym hit a stone wall at 70 MPH on his motorcycle and died. The night before his accident we were at the same party and I will never forget the last moment I saw him.

It is not that we were that close but this experience was one of the first times my youth and inexperience intersected with the reality of human mortality.

Since that time, I have decided that a sports car with air bags and anti-lock brakes is the closest I want to get to the experience of being on a two-wheeled machine.

I have had the chance to borrow a friend's bike from time to time and while riding, I find myself thinking more about the potential for an accident than anything else. The last time I rode, I realized as soon as I got off the bike that my forearms ached from holding on so tight.

When I rode in college I just remember the pure enjoyment - with little to no fear.

I suppose I am just past the point where I can enjoy these machines anymore.

Still, I have a deep craving to ride a Ducati at some point. If I ever do, I would probably want to do it when there are few other cars on the road.

There are now rumors circulating that Google will buy Skype. These rumors are not new -- I wrote about this as recently as November 20 of 2007.

But they did die down for a while and have been renewed. I have heard wild claims like the evaluation of Skype is in the multibillion dollar range, etc.

I should mention that I have tremendous admiration for the people at Skype who developed software that tens of millions of people use. I am frequently blown away when I use the software myself and see over ten million people online at one time.

Having said that, Skype is a poster child for IP communications. Certainly not the only one but many think of them as a barometer for the market. Vonage too is thought of as a barometer of the communications space. Sadly, the two of these companies have done nothing to help the communications space these past few years. Quite the opposite in fact.

But Vonage is not the topic of this article... Skype is. And even if free software which sits on your PC has nothing to do with session border controllers, some in the investment community like to lump the companies together.

What this means of course is that to have the healthiest communications market -- and especially an IP communications market, we need to ensure Skype does well.

Certainly this may not be possible. In other words perhaps there is no way for Skype to ever make more money than they do now. In fact, perhaps when Motley Fool writes about just how atrocious the Skype purchase was for eBay I should just accept it. Maybe the company is doing its best and still can't make big profits.

But I am 100% sure that the company's management could do a lot better. In fact I wrote an entry titled What eBay Should do with Skype where I outlined steps the company should take.

Here they are once again:


Some of these things have been done already but for the life of me I cannot understand why I am not  bombarded with ads when I use Skype.  Of course eBay ads should be shown. If we approximate the number of users on Skype at any given moment to be conservatively 8 million, there should easily be 25 million people using the software each day.

There is gold in those connections. By not showing ads in fact, I believe eBay is at risk of shareholder lawsuits.

But for whatever reason, the company has not chosen to embark upon many of the ideas above. Frankly, there is no crystal ball that says these ideas will bring in a billion more in revenue but the cost of trying most of them is peanuts and not doing anything is guaranteed to produce similar results to what the company is now experiencing.

So in my opinion, I think having Skype sold to another company will be good for the entire communications space. Perhaps the company needs a fresh start and some time to try anything and everything that will get the cash register ringing.

Google is a great partner because they have the ability to show ads from the largest ad network in the business. More importantly, they have technology which can recognize spoken words and show the appropriate ads based on keyword.

In a way, we should think of Skype the same way we think of YouTube... An extremely successful multimedia platform with tens of millions of users where ads can be laser targeted.

I should mention that I did reach out to Skype regarding the Google acquisition and they mentioned that they do not comment on speculation and rumors. Of course this was what we all expected.

I suppose the next time I reach out to the company I should ask them about my ideas. Am I way off base? If so perhaps the company could clue me in as I would love to see Skype continue to grow, not only in users but in revenue.

I just stopped by the Tour de Force developer conference put on by Salesforce.com. There is lots of activity here and I was intrigued to see how many partners were at the event.

I got lots of details on the company's strategy and their relationship with Google. I am looking forward to writing about it soon.

Blogged via wireless handheld

Do you remember the past CEO of Cantata, Mark Zionts? He keynoted a past ITEXPO and was head of the company just before it sold to Dialogic. Since then he joined another company which he helped sell and now he is on to a new company called Ortiva Wireless -- where he is CEO.

Ortiva has found an interesting niche in the mobile video streaming market where they focus on optimizing the video experience for end users without requiring them to download anything onto the phone. Unlike a progressive download where the client needs to have extra memory, DRM and a buffer, the solutions Ortiva Wireless focuses on stream live, in real time.

The company has focused extensively on ingesting and analyzing content and subsequently has learned the nuances needed to ensure the client gets the best possible experience regardless of bandwidth. For example if a user is watching a news broadcast and the bandwidth starts to dry up, the software makes the decision that stereo is likely not needed and moreover that the audio is more important than video.

Ortiva is working with tier one carriers at the moment and business seems to be very good according to Zionts. Marc is proud to point out that some of the investors in their B round of funding were actually service providers. In my experience this is usually a good sign as carriers generally understand the market they serve better than others.

The company can also sell to content providers but at the moment the service providers seem to be beating the door down, so don't expect any outreach in other areas any time soon.

There are many organizations looking to be the ad insertion point for mobile carriers and I am happy to report Ortiva Wireless is no different and they can also help carriers insert these ads on a per-subscriber basis.

My take on Ortiva is they are in the right place at the right time as many carriers want the revenue associated with video without purchasing and subsidizing high-end devices. I would imagine the company and this space will continue to expand for some years to come.

In the race to provide the best Unified Communications solution, there are just so many approaches. The various ways to achieve UC are staggering in fact. Companies like Microsoft have partnered with many companies to achieve seamless UC - with special emphasis on Nortel and Aspect. IBM has partnered with virtually all UC players - including Aspect and Nortel while companies like Avaya are thriving by not only offering their own solutions but a bewildering assortment of integration options.

But is it fair for only the largest players to get a seat at the UC table? Of course not… That is why it is worth mentioning I recently met with Jeffrey Cavins, Richard Roberts and Michael Buday from Callwave, the company that makes a variety of UC solutions.

The company has a service called Fuze which is a browser-based UC platform with a nice-looking GUI. The solution has differentiated itself in a number of ways by ensuring their service works on a variety of devices. Just one of these is the Nokia N800 and N810 internet tablets.

So what does the service do? Aside from the usual merging of e-mail, voicemail, etc… There is also high quality videoconferencing and Skype-based conferencing allowing up to about 1,000 people to be on a call at the same time. Furthermore, there is internet fax, media sharing, Outlook synchronization, voicemail transcription, support for Yahoo! and Google mail, find me/follow me functionality, and more.

Perhaps one of the more interesting features is the ability to schedule conferences where participants are called when it is time for the conference to begin. Yes my friends, Fuze could be responsible for retiring the conference call in number and PIN code.

Boy I hope they are successful in this last area as I would be thrilled to never have to dial into one of these calls again.

But I digress… Fuze service is worth considering if you are a small business, service provider or a mobile professional - always on the go.

A Blackberry version is coming soon and the service will soon benefit from offline capability similar to Google Gears. This will allow you to work on the airplane or subway.

In fact Roberts told me, "Accounts will be able to edit/delete contacts, listen to messages, view faxes and text and access their media locker when offline. When they go online, we will sync these changes. The user will need to use the [Adobe] AIR client for this (PC & Mac compatible), but we may be able to take care of this from the web site as well."