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I wanted to alert my readers to some exciting news happening at TMC. As you likely know TMC is among a handful of media companies growing at a time when the media landscape is in dramatic decline. As you might imagine this growth is primarily online. Over the last decade and especially in the last few years we have focused on building online communities (Channels and GOCs) for customers who sponsor these areas as they rapidly attract focused decision-makers from around the world.

The visitors who come to these communities benefit from a massive amount of free content which helps them make informed purchasing decisions. For example people looking for products in Call Recording, Smart Data Centers, IP communications, HD Voice, Fixed Mobile Convergence or Next Generation Communications can come to the respective communities focused on these topics and have access to hundreds and in most cases thousands of TMC written articles detailing the news in their specific area of interest. Our business model is straightforward; aggregate massive amounts of focused and quality content using custom-built content targeting technology - make it relevant and pertinent so as to attract the right readers who need this information as they research the products and services they are looking to buy.

For our sponsors, these communities allow them to rank high organically on search engines to get their message out to a focused audience while simultaneously being able to measure the traffic to ensure they can justify their spend to the sales and executive management teams.

Basically, this suite of communities replicates the trade show model online and just like a trade show that attracts more attendees as the exhibitor base grows; the 120 monthly sponsored communities on TMCnet attract a massive audience which in turn attracts more sponsors.

In short, I am very confident we can continue to provide free quality content in all the areas we enter. Meaning while other media companies are beginning to charge for their once free content and many others are reducing their editorial teams, TMC is adding to its editorial, sales and marketing teams as we have a model which works exceptionally well for our readers and sponsors.

We are growing our team as we enter a slew of new markets with our business model of providing laser-focused content - backed by over a decade of proprietary content targeting technology; essentially building targeted online communities which rank high on search engines as they attract large amounts of focused traffic.

Here is my quote from a press release we put out today mentioning the hire of a brand new position - VP of Business Development. Matt Weiner is filling this position and his background of working for Penton and Yahoo! make him a good fit for the position."Over the last decade, TMC has invested in the technology and people necessary to build a next-generation media company which creates communities online, in-print and in-person," Tehrani continued. "By providing our audience with top quality news, training and information, we have attracted global purchasing decision-makers to our communities. As TMC's global communities have increased in size and quality, they have attracted hundreds of advertisers and sponsors who receive regular measurable results for their marketing and SEO budgets. Our future strategy involves continuing to build communities which draw large amounts of targeted traffic as we continue to connect buyers and sellers -- and adding Matt to the team is an integral element of that strategy."

Aside from Matt, we have added a number of other positions and just as importantly we continue to ink partnership after new partnership as we enter new spaces where we leverage our community building engine in combination with the thought leadership of individuals and/or corporations in new markets.

Thank you for continuing to support our rapid growth - thanks to our readers and existing and news sponsors - we look forward to helping all of your companies grow with ours.

Speaking with Sprint's Wayne Ward you come away amazed at the potential ahead for wireless carriers in the burgeoning machine-to-machine or M2M space. Just what exactly is M2M? It is simply machines communicating with machines. Quite often this interaction is to satisfy the needs of a person, corporation or system - for example when an automobile senses a mechanical problem and signals the manufacturer for a wireless diagnostic which determines the car needs service and subsequently alerts the driver.

In other cases sensors communicate with backend systems which perform some action as a result of the conditions where the sensor is located.

Wayne explained the opportunity in M2M and moreover that human subscribers in the wireless market have reached saturation with most of the growth coming today from switchers (churn) and prepaid users. He said emphatically on a recent phone call, "The M2M market is wide open."

If there is one thing which is happening faster than change in the communications space it is the pace of convergence. Social networking widgets on televisions, cars which sync with music players, phones with GPS, PCs which double as home entertainment systems, photo frames which can receive MMS photos, there seems to be no stopping this trend.

The consumer, business, wireless and wireline businesses are converging as well and to respond to this new landscape, Sprint has rolled up a few of their existing units into a new Emerging Solutions unit to specifically focus on M2M and mobile computing.

The M2M category alone is massive and Ward is right to be enthused. These are just some of the markets touched by this technology: remote monitoring, asset tracking, fleet management, telematics, automation and control, automated meter reading, smartgrid, point-of-sale/ATM and wireless routing.

Sprint has had many challenges lately such as massive customer churn and general customer dissatisfaction. To fight back, the company is obviously looking at new markets such as M2M and the company touted its relationship with Amazon's Kindle as a major step forward in a new market. While the amount of money being made from the Kindle so far is not great, it is certainly a huge account you didn't want to see go to AT&T. Well, Amazon did leave Sprint for AT&T recently and one reason for this move was the need to access the GSM as the Kindle goes global.

Update: Here is an official statement and clarification from Sprint on the matter:

The Kindle DX will continue to operate on Sprint's network -- existing Kindles currently in use or already in the sales pipeline will still be powered by Sprint. We continue to enjoy a great relationship with Amazon. Though we are disappointed in their decision to work with AT&T for their international version, we understand their international strategy.

A consistent theme on our call was that Ward wants to see M2M getting pushed by other carriers as it grows awareness and the market. Just as the push-to-talk market grew more quickly when new players entered the market, he expects the same thing to happen in M2M.

He then explained how Sprint's various networks can serve the company well in the M2M-based world of the future. Often thought of as a liability in the world of wireless voice the combination of iDEN, CDMA 1xRTT, CDMA EVDO and 4G is a benefit in this new machine-driven world. The reason is, each of these networks has various advantages in terms of speed, performance and/or cost and subsequently the broadest array of networks is best in this new world.

I mentioned the Kindle is not a massive moneymaker and that should get you wondering about this market - can it generate serious revenue for Sprint and others? Ward says the old models of ARPU, subsidies and churn go out the window with M2M and instead there is a much lower ARPU and a small or nonexistent subsidy. What you get instead is a healthy customer lifetime value and higher profit margins. Why? Well, one reason is there is no human interaction as machines deal with rate plans and other issues without using customer service reps.

So what does Sprint's Wayne Ward want to see? Among other things, more M2M adoption which will lead to cheaper chipsets which will lead to even more adoption. He tells me there is lots of business in the pipeline and his company is talking with enterprise customers and their supply chains as well as chipset vendors, module vendors, 3^rd party application vendors, software developers, healthcare companies, VCs and many others.

To me the potential of this new market is massive. Coincidentally, I recently decided to purchase a GPS device because it could connect to the internet and I pay $10/month to keep it connected. What does Ward think about M2M's potential? He summed it up nicely by saying, "There are billions of machines we can assign an IP address to and wirelessly enable."

To stay up to date on the rapidly growing M2M space be sure to attend TMC and Crossfire Media's M2M Evolution Conference and visit M2M Evolution online.

A fascinating bit of reporting from the Wall Street Journal confirms some things that many in the communications industry already knew and some things we didn't.

1. eBay doesn't get Skype - this is as obvious as it gets.
2. The current Skype Management and investors don't want to deal with Niklas Zennstrom or Janus Friis
3. Mike Volpi, past Joost CEO wanted to change Skype's underlying technology to SIP - knowing this would upset Skype's founders Zennstrom and Friis - Coincidentally about five years ago at ITEXPO Niklas Zennstrom was giving a keynote and at the end of the presentation Andy Voss, founder of Session Border Conrol company Sansay asked why Skype doesn't support SIP. Zennstrom replied accurately that there are far more Skype endpoints than SIP endpoints.

What amazes me the most about this situation is that to all the people who understand Skype, there is a tremendous amount of value in the company and it is worth fighting over tooth and nail. To those who don't understand it - eBay for example, there is limited value.

This story keeps getting more interesting.

In the last two weeks I drove (well I was in the car anyway) for more than 1,500 miles meeting with tech companies in Montreal, Ontario, Massachusetts, Rochester, NY, Los Angeles and San Diego. The last stop on my latest trip was at CTIA where I saw dozens of companies from around the globe.

Most of my travels involve learning about companies in the communications and technology space and often advising them on how they can be more successful. Sometimes I get to see some very innovative solutions which I can't share at the time for a multitude of reasons (embargos, etc) and other times I get a firsthand look at things which I share as soon as I can. In many cases, companies ask me about TMC's experience in helping companies with their thought leadership, branding and lead generation activities.

As CEO of a media company which builds online, in-person and print communities for millions of global purchasing decision-makers each month, I have an unusual role of also writing about many of the companies, products and services I see. What is fun for me is finding new ways to bring buyers and sellers together. Buyers want to quickly learn about which products they should consider before purchasing and sellers are looking to sell as much as they can while spending the least amount in doing so.

It is an amazing place to sit because extremely often I see industry-changing technology which languishes because an engineer sets the marketing budget and has the corporate communications skills of sheetrock. Remember, I have an engineering degree so I feel I am uniquely qualified to beat up my brethren. Then there are the companies I visit where their products shouldn't be accepted for free, yet they sell in volume and make massive margins because they are able to communicate the benefits properly.

Then there are a slew of "Hail Mary" companies which have really cool products but no business model to speak of. Sometimes I can convince the founder of such a company to modify their offerings to actually make money but other times the companies die on the vine because they think they know best - after all, I just meet a thousand companies plus like them a year - what do I know?. Sometimes though the amazing happens and they  get purchased by a Google, Cisco or Oracle and thus the "Hail Mary" designation.

I am thrilled to act as a trusted advisor on PR and marketing issues and I figured it is unfair for me to only share information with people I choose to visit and subsequently I spoke on a webinar a month or so ago about hosted SEO which was well-attended and generated lot buzz in the industry. So many companies wonder about search engine optimization and what the trick is to ranking high. While there are lots of factors to consider, the basic premise is to write lots of content which people want to read and share with others.

SEO consultants get paid to help companies rank higher and in some cases they can boost a company's search rank for a while. But in the end, steady and relatively large amounts of content are what companies need to generate to rank high on various terms.

I could go on about building communities and improving SEO for hours - I am truly passionate about figuring out how to instantly bring a group of people with similar interests together on a single web portal. Coming from the world of magazines, it used to take TMC six months to build a mailing list and in many cases you really needed 18 months to do it right. Oh and did I mention you had to mail at least half a million subscription offers and it would cost you about $400,000 at a minimum to rent lists, print and mail your subscription forms? To show you how much things have changed, TMC has been involved in projects in the past few months where we built communities on new topics which are up and running and attracting hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of a few weeks. It is truly amazing to see how media has evolved through the use of news-generated, laser focused community building.

Again, these topics are a major passion of mine and something my team at TMC has gotten great at focusing on. The next webinar I will speak on takes place Thursday of this week, October 15^th at 12:00 PST and on it I will discuss how you can partner to boost your search engine marketing. I look forward to seeing you there. Be sure to register now so you don't miss it. As a reminder, you can view the archive if you aren't around at this exact time. Just be sure to register. Also, be sure to bring any questions you have. I look forward to answering them this week.

I have been meaning to thank my tech vendors for a while - the companies which allow me to be as productive as possible on the road. I am going to be brutally honest and not sugar coat so brace yourselves.

Verizon EVDO - without this gem of a service I am not sure where I would be. I am able to upload 30Mb files in rapid-fire fashion as I perform video interviews worldwide. Moreover I am almost always connected to this service when there is no WiFi alternative. Amazingly, it is often faster than hotel broadband!

iPhone - Thank you Steve Jobs for reinventing the way a wireless phone works and in the process producing an environment where developers flourish providing applications which make the world a better place. In the interest of being honest, the lack of Flash support and multitasking for non-Apple apps is upsetting.

Verizon MiFi 2200 - All that you love about Verizon with the benefit of WiFi access.

Boingo* - A lifesaver when you have a few minutes to log onto a foreign WiFi network and don't want to establish an account. I have tested it worldwide and am happy with the service.

Dell Latitude E6500 - What an amazing laptop when it comes to battery life - but when it comes to Dell's ControlPoint Connection Manager which manages the wireless connections, this is the buggiest piece of crap I have ever used.

iGo AC power Adapter - they make a small and light adapter allowing me to power-up in the car and plane but it has lots of problems when it stops working from time to time. This is my third one in about five years and I am pretty fed up with its finickyness (Yes, I know that's not a word).

Plantronics** - I use this company's headsets in my office, on the go and even a stereo Bluetooth headset when I am in the need for great sound without wires. The company has solid products that are a pleasure to use. This was not always the case. They have evolved nicely over the last eight years.

CellPoint Flamingo Headphones* - Flamingos are the best wired headphones I have used from the perspective of staying in the ears. They are virtually impossible to shake out regardless of what you do.

Brookstone NXT flat-panel speaker - just plug it into a laptop or phone and play music from this device the size of stack of 25 postcards. It chews through batteries fast but packs the most sound for its weight and space.

Macbook Air - Great for presentations - people love this thing. The downside is it is finicky and I still haven't figured out how its keychain works.

Glance Networks* - One of the best services for screen sharing around... It doesn't have all the bells and whistles but is dead easy to use.

Targus Rolling Laptop Case - It works well, and takes a beating - carrying everything in this blog entry and more.

D-Link DWL-G730AP - This little gadget turns any wired connection into a wireless hotspot/access point. It works flawlessly and has been a pleasure to use.

Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones - they work great but are too pricey and should at least let you listen to music when the battery dies.

TomTom Go 740 Live - this GPS unit is not especially small or easy to read in the sun but it does let you connect to Google search and gives you real-time traffic alerts for $10/month. During a massive rainstorm it rerouted me twice in an hour and saved me precious time. It is a good, not great product which has proven to be more and less accurate than an equivalent Garmin unit. Its graphics are far inferior to Garmin. Also the connection with the base unit is flaky and not reliable.

Skype - Lets me talk to and see my family on the go - likewise with coworkers and colleagues. I hate when someone I don't know too well sees I am online and wants to have a lengthy chat discussion. Just because I am online doesn't mean I am not in a meeting, etc. Presence is not always accurate especially for me as I am always online. What I am saying is - hey, how about asking if I have a moment? Pretty please.

Google - Do I need to explain? I must search 100 times a day at least.

Remote Desktop - Microsoft Software which has saved my life allowing me to be as productive as possible on the road by "pretending" to be in the office. It hangs one out of a hundred times or so but otherwise it is great.

There is probably more but this is enough for now. Time to get back and put some of this tech to work.

The FTC has a new rule on disclosure of paid blogs/reviews with an $11,000 fine per offense so * denotes a free product/service and ** denotes some free products.

I applaud the FTC on this great idea which should reduce conflict of interest and wonder if they will move forward to ensure financial rating agencies, other government agencies and elected officials will have to play by the same rules as bloggers. I would love to know which laws are influenced by lobbyists and gifts on corporate jets for example. I am looking forward to seeing this happen but am not holding my breath.

Anantha Ramu of Acision spent some time discussing his company's initiatives in the world of mobile broadband. A new product the company offers allows carriers to tailor the mobile network based upon the value of the individual subscriber. By using it, carriers can ensure that at peak times, a low-value customer does not suck up all network bandwidth at the expense of high-value customers.

In addition, Anantha explained his company has a solution to gracefully allow carriers to handle 4G messaging while integrating with 3G messaging systems. He contrasts this to newer entrants in the market who come at it from a 4G/SIP-based approach which doesn't mesh well with legacy 3G solutions. Check out the video below for more.

Attendees shake off black swans and come to the show in large numbers

The results are in for ITEXPO West 2009. This is the second year in a row where some major black swan event took place the day before the show kicked off. Last year it was Lehman collapsing which sparked fears of a depression. This year it was wildfires and news media that hyped the incident in a manner which led many to believe the whole state was on fire.

Still, with significant headwinds, the total attendance was up 3% from last year - due to increased buyers in the exhibit hall.

Of the 6,109 in attendance, those from the enterprise comprised 28.5 percent. Service providers accounted for 26 percent. Resellers/integrators constituted 31.8 percent of attendees and developers/manufacturers made up the remaining 13.7 percent.

Thank you all for attending and also thanks to all the companies who hosted dinners and receptions. Andy Abramson and his team hosted a great "wine dinner" which coupled some of the best food you'll ever eat with a discussion of the wines being served based on his personal experience. Here is a video.

The 20^th ITEXPO which began on September 1, 2009 was nothing if not full of buzz and industry news thanks to Skype has been a news-generating machine.

Video clip of the ITEXPO Keynotes



I have rarely seen any company in fact generate so much news I, the unofficial news-generating machine of the event. It is as if the company came out of eBay hibernation and unleashed an assault on the blogging and reporter communities.

Skype Gets Sold

As ITEXPO opened, news of Skype being sold broke. Ebay received $1.9 billion in cash from a group of investors including Netscape and Ning founder Marc Andresen and the value of the company currently works out to $2.75 billion. As a side note, I think I may have been the only person who thought the eBay purchase of Skype for a super-high valuation of about $4 billion in 2005 made sense. What I didn't know at the time was that eBay wasn't going to try to integrate the companies in a serious manner. Yes, it is still shocking to me that the company says there were no synergies between Skype and their core business. Just showing ads for auctions should have generated huge amounts of revenue for the company. Then there is this list of items - most of which were never were acted on. Another option I suggested was to show Google ads on Skype which I predicted could have grown the bottom line by billions.

JoldID

By now it is well-known that the technology which gives Skype its P2P smarts is actually being licensed by JoltID Limited, a company in control of Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, two people who left eBay on not quite the best terms and are currently suing the auction leader and if they win they could shut Skype down.

At ITEXPO, the talk was that the Skype acquisition was at a high valuation because there were some behind-the-scenes discussions about the outcome of the lawsuit. Joe Nocera of the New York Times sums up my thoughts about Skype from the show quite nicely.

Since that time Joost said they are removing Mike Volpi from his role as chairman. Joost was also founded by Friis and Zennström and the conflict seems to have been caused by his roles both at Joost and private-equity firm Index Ventures, one of the firms involved in the Skype purchase.

Folks, the last time we had this much excitement in communications was when someone hacked into Paris Hilton's mobile device.

At one time Zennström mentioned to me that before the idea to build Skype he considered launching Joost and that there wasn't enough bandwidth at the time so he started a VoIP company instead. He further mentioned he can see a time when Skype and Joost would integrate with one another. It is unclear if that will ever happen now. In fact the only thing which is clear to me regarding Skype these past weeks is that nothing is clear.

Digium, Shoretel PBX Connectivity

But perhaps that isn't 100% correct, for while the world was digesting the news of Skype being acquired, the company was busy integrating with PBX vendors. At ITEXPO in fact Skype announced Skype for Asterisk Software and shortly thereafter, Shoretel was first to market with Skype for SIP interoperability.

No Extras Credit

But the Skype gift of September news is far from over as last week the company decided to nix its Extras program, leaving many developers hanging. Some like Stuart Henshall had some pretty harsh words to say about the company's developer relations and prominent blogger Om Malik was not far behind.

More recently, Michael Arrington wrote that Skype is looking to embrace developers in its next generation platform.

Out of all the news coming from the largest IP communications software company in the world, I think this last bit is the most mystifying. You see if I were to devise a way to anger as many developers as I could I wouldn't have to think - I would just duplicate what Skype just did. Bloggers, developers and everyone else seem determined to point out how incompetent the company's developer relations are.

At a time when developer programs are all the rage, how can Skype be such a disaster in this area? It is pretty mystifying actually and a massive opportunity missed.

It reminds me somewhat of the missed opportunity the company had with integrating with eBay and rolling our more revenue generating services over the past few years.

Conclusion

In terms of positioning, there are few companies like Skype -- they are still on a massive number of desktops and the software is migrating to the mobile space quite quickly. This soap opera is far from over and as this month has progressed I have found myself watching less and less TV as just keeping up with the day-to-day news at Skype has proven to be quite entertaining.