Well it isn't like we just started to do video or anything but we have started to have daily broadcasts which are quite good. of course I am biased, so take a look at the TMC Video Newsroom page yourself and let me know what you think.

I came across this interesting article from Rafe Needleman about web 2.0 startups which will not make it through the economic downturn. Here are my thoughts on some of the companies on his list:

Twitter: I agree the company needs to generate revenue and showing some ads wouldn't hurt the business model that much. As I mentioned recently -- I have started to use this service regularly -- but I am not promising I will have time to continue.

Zillow: This site seems to be used by virtually everyone who owns a house -- is shopping for one or is curious to see how much their friends and coworkers are worth. You enter an address and get a home price. Cool stuff -- but at some point it does need to generate revenue. I did see an ad for State Farm Insurance on Zillow today so I am not sure this site is doomed. Then again, I don't know what the site's expenses are.

Pandora: I would be devastated if this one was to die off. The ability to play customized music based on a single song or artist is amazing. I do know the company has agreements with AT&T and Sprint to stream music for a small fee. Hopefully this along with the in-home consumer-electronics agreements it has will keep it going.

Second Life: This one could die off. I could see it happening due to the massive infrastructure costs. Rumor has it the platform will spin off an enterprise offering soon. If so, this will potentially bring in revenue as I believe virtual worlds will play a larger part in future communications.

Skype: Why would Skype go away? I don't get the thinking here. The company is growing revenue and one imagines in a slowing economy, more people will Skype than ever.

Ask: This search site keeps getting better and I try it monthly in the hopes I will like it. I never seem to like it enough to try it twice in a month though. I am unclear about how this site will do but I think it makes a nice acquisition target for Microsoft and even Oracle.

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this article is that companies need revenue models or investors with the deepest of pockets to make it through any slowdown. Remember though that one of the reason's Google has done so well these past years is that they were busy building a search engine and investing heavily while others lost funding and abandoned the market.

In other words, when we come out of this housing/financial storm, there will be a string of new winners in a number of markets that will be really tough to compete with. It happens every time. The question is, will investors have the patience and funds to ensure these companies cross the chasm to profitability?

One of the people with a long history in the communications space is Neal Shact (pictured) -- CEO of Communitech Services. In the past, Shacht has been a distributor in the headset market and has been early in many new markets such as VoIP, call centers and others.

Shact points out it is impossible for customers to know what they want in UC. He mentions the old story that Henry Ford once said people when asked what they wanted in transportation said, a faster horse.

His point: you need a communications roadmap. Don't rely exclusively on your UC vendor to dictate what you want and need.

You want to check out this podcast as it is rife with references outside communications -- and the tie-ins are fascinating. In addition, he has a way of bringing tech and communications together.

I truly hope you enjoy it.

Rumors abound that Russia will soon see the HTC T8290 touch-screen enabled device very soon. The specs are 3.8-inch 800 x 480 resolution display, 802.11g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, GSM and WiMAX radios.

This is probably the phone I recently wrote about being launched in Russia last week. Good stuff and with WiFi, WiMAX and GSM radios, be sure to stay near an AC outlet.

I just hope this phone gets on the Xohm network and that Sprint brings Xohm to Norwark, CT very soon.

More:

engadget
nedge2k (photo credit)

I just splurged and spent a whopping $.99 for an iPhone program called TouchType. The program cures a major iPhone email defect, it allows landscape typing in email.

Really though it is a separate program which requires you to toggle to the program but not back to email as this is done for you. If you have fingers which are thicker than a number two pencil, you will appreciate this application.

Thankfully You can use this program with new emails and even forwards, etc. At first I didn't think you could but I soon realized that if you left an email being forwarded or replied to open, the output of the program automatically imports into the open email. Good stuff.

For the price, it is a must have iPhone application and I look forward to seeing the program improve over time.

Oh and I wrote this entry using the program.

Recenty I heard from old friend Brian Mahony (pictured), the VP of marketing at localcasting (in-home broadcasting) company ZeeVee. Mahony has worked at a number of companies on the cutting edge of technology in the decade in a half or so I have known him. When I met him in the nineties, he was working for Tundo - one of the first IP PBX companies which like so many others, ran out of funding during the dotcom/telecom meltdown. He then worked for a number of IPTV companies including Espial and Netcentrex  which was eventually acquired by Comverse Technology.

Now at ZeeVee, Mahony is about as full of energy as I have ever heard him and he seems to be revved up by the opportunity in front of his company which is becoming the defacto way to broadcast internet-based HD content to all televisions in a home.

What Zeevee does which is different from other approaches is eliminate the premise that a standalone TV box is the answer. In other words, it does away with the notion that you need an internet-connected box on all the TVs in the house. In addition the company does away with the notion that the standalone box should be a computer. In fact, instead of putting a computer in a box and connecting it to the internet, the company's ZvBox connects to a PC in the house and broadcasts HDTV internet video content throughout the home's cable TV cabling. Thus the term localcasting.

Once connected, the user sits in front of the TV with an RF-based remote control

and watches virtually any Internet-based video content. In addition, the customer can use the box to watch locally stored movies and DVDs. This gets us to the next point which is elimination of what Mahony refers to as the digital octopus (pictured) - referring to the tangle of wires and devices which live near your television. Mahony further explains that the new televisions with their wall mounts have become like artwork and many people are not happy with the tangle of wires near their TVs.

The logic of using the PC as the heart of a converged solution is the PC can decode any content on the web. Mahony reiterates it is the best device (as opposed to a standalone box) for streaming television and videos and he is right. I should mention he says this because the PC can decode anything and specialized equipment would have to be constantly upgraded to achieve the same functionality. Basically the standalone box has to be a PC to function properly.

Mahony further explained that many of the networks do not like to have terms dictated to them by cable companies and moreover do not want to share their revenue with such partners. In addition they are yearning to get more internet viewers as these viewers can identify themselves and as such provide a basis for more targeted ads which can mean more revenue.

One network has even told Mahony (he wouldn't say which) that they are now making more money online than they are on cable. This is partly because viewers seem to be more loyal online - watching more episodes and in addition, old content which is posted on websites is generating massive amounts of traffic and generating new viewers as opposed to cannibalizing existing ones from TV.

Mahony explains the box works with all content and various formats such as Amazon Unbox (now called Video on Demand), TiVo, Netflix, iTunes and others. In addition, the company has something called a Zviewer (soon to be released in Beta) which allows all videos to be watched from any PC. One of the benefits of this viewer and this solution in general is menu system which allows access to a slew of content types which are updated regularly and is hopefully easy to navigate.

The system also supports Dolby high quality audio and Dolby 5.1 is in the works.

In addition, the remote allows web browsing meaning all HDTVs now have access to web surfing. So while watching a ball game you could use Picture in Picture or PiP to surf your fantasy sports stats.

The downsides are minimal - it is possible that configuration could be a problem but Mahony says it is pretty seamless and most users shouldn't have a problem. It is also a PC-only solution for the moment. In addition, a cable company or other broadband provider could make a stink about using bandwidth and limit your download speeds. This wouldn't be surprising to me as this box cannibalizes their primary revenue generator. I hope the FCC and politicians are reading and weighing the pros and cons of ISPs throttling bandwidth and in the process reducing the likelihood game-changing technologies successfully get into the hands of US consumers.

Mahony also points out the solution may not be the best for sports as IPTV and cable solutions provide better quality sports than what is available online at the moment.

In addition, you need an HDTV to work with this system but this is a minor challenge as well. Perhaps the last drawback is the price but even though the company feels the $499 price tag may be high for a consumer electronics device, it really isn't. I say this because to get a wired solution which does everything ZeeVee does for such a low cost is a bargain. Sure, we could argue all day about other ways to accomplish what Zeevee is doing but their different approach is also embraced by the IPTV carriers who also repurpose the in-house coax wiring. I consider this a major validation of a well thought-out product.

It is also worth pointing out there is no per-month fee to use this service and the company is purposely trying not to put up any walled gardens, meaning you can access any content for free once you have the box. Still, Mahony does not discount the idea that a lower-priced box subsidized by a monthly fee and long-term contract won't be available in the future. In addition, ZeeVee is in discussions with partners who may be able to provide more flexible pricing terms and other distribution models. I wouldn't be surprised if the networks themselves started subsidizing these boxes.

From my perspective this is a very intelligent and elegant solution to bringing the best of the web to the TV. There are certainly many ways to accomplish something similar but the combination of web access on the TV and the ability to access many types of media seamlessly from any HDTV in your house make the ZeeVee solution a real winner. I can't wait to try it myself.

I downloaded Fring for the iPhone this past weekend and have been testing it over the last few days. My take is when it works, it works very well. When it doesn't -- well, it just plain doesn't.

As you may recall, Tom Keating calls Fring the Swiss Army Knife of VoIP/IM communications.

In my tests I chatted and called a few different people. Sound quality in my home was excellent. Sound quality at TMC was another story. In calls to Tom Keating, about half of them were of acceptable sound quality. The other half seemed like there was a simultaneous fax call on the line. If you are a Star Trek fan, it sounded like I was speaking to a Binar.

In terms of presence, when it works -- again, it works well. I noticed it took a minute or so for presence information to come through. I also noticed when I wasn't in the Fring client and someone sent me an IM, it usually did not go to the Fring client on the iPhone.

In all cases, tests were performed with Skype and as always, I had Skype simultaneously logged in on my laptop and PC.

So for calling, Fring works well. And it should be noted you cannot make VoIP calls over the 3G connection -- a severe iPhone limitation. This is intentional BTW and you can send your complaints about this intentional device crippling directly to Apple/AT&T.

But to make quick and easy VoIP calls over WiFi to Skype and users of other communications software clients, Fring on the iPhone is a great solution. In order for the solution to be better, Apple would have to let the iPhone support multitasking so when you get an IM or call in the background, you could know about it immediately.

See also:Skype on iPhone

Kontron seems to be growing by leaps and bounds in not only market size but expertise. The latest acquisition made by the embedded computer solutions company is the Intel Communications Rackmount Server business.

For Intel this move makes sense as it allws the company to focus more on its chip business and for Kontron the move is logical as well as the relationships the Intel team has are valuable and in addition the new 70-person team has working knowledge of how Intel operates and the relationships needed to be successful.

TMC's Zippy AKA Richard Zippy Grigonis has more detail and is certainly something of an expert in this area.

In a perfect world, a company who decides to control which applications can be downloaded to its devices would have no problem doing so. We live however in a world which is far from perfect and Apple is having serious issues controlling what can be downloaded and what cannot.

Recently the Cupertino-based company decided that a program called Podcaster which allows multimedia files to be downloaded wirelessly should no longer be downloaded to iPhones because as the company says, the software duplicates the functionality of iTunes. It would seem to someone like me who is not allowed to "legally" download the software anymore that this ruling is to protect Apple from a software program which seems superior to iTunes.

After all, it makes little sense to have to plug a wireless device into a PC when you want to download music, podcasts and other files.

I have a theory that iTunes will soon go wireless as well and this move by Apple is a defensive play to ensure the market for wireless multimedia downloads is there when Apple is ready.

But that article will have to wait for another time. For now, Podcaster has turned to Cydia, the open-source iPhone application installer and will focus on installing on phones which have been jail-broken -- referring to the concept of breaking the walled garden locks Apple has placed on its devices.

The question worth asking here is whether the negative PR buzz is worth it for Apple and should they open up? It seems there is a good deal of risk in driving consumers to jail-break their phones. Sure, the user interface is great and there is iTunes compatability -- but in the end, if a strong competitor comes along what will happen to the iPhone? After all, no one likes to be locked in by their carrier or device manufacturer.

See Also: IPhone -Find Those iPhone Apps With Apptism

Many people wonder how well the communications markets are doing in thse tough economic times and while the future is tough to know for sure, I just came across fantastic news. AudioCodes just confirmed its guidance for the rest of 2008.

AudioCodes is a major partner of a slew of communications equipment makers and also supplies equipment to service providers and even enterprises via gateways and other CPE equipment.

In short, AudioCodes is a pretty good barometer for the IP communications markets including contact centers and other subsets of the market such as wireless, etc.