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Twitter Buys Posterous: Point, Counterpoint with Peter Radizeski

2012-03-13T18:14:49Z

Twitter just announced it has picked up blogging service Posterous and as a past user of the service I must say, did find it useful at the time I used it. Before I continue however I'd like to set up a point counterpoint where TMC blogger Peter Radizeski will present the negatives of this deal while I present the positives.

Here are Peter's thoughts:

So Twitter, the micro-blogging platform, acquired a macro-blogging platform, Posterous.
According to the Twitter blog, the key to the acquisition was the staff?
They wanted the talent. How often does the talent stick around after the culture shifts?
Sachin Agarwal, founder and CEO of Posterous, goes from being a CEO to a Product Manager. In some cases, that is okay of Agarwal gets to pursue a passion or a goal he was seeking. If there is an ego, though, that new title will be a killer.
Posterous is a blogging platform. I'm still stretching to see the revenue from this acquisition or the synergy. What does twitter need with a blogging platform?

Here are my thoughts:

Posterous is a great service as it allows users to utilize email to share their thoughts.
Twitter seems to be slowly branching out gobbling up complimentary services and this move fits with this trend.
One big drawback to Posterous is when it is used, people complained to me they would have to click additional links to get to the content.
In other words Posterous was a useful service for me as it didn't force me to shorten my content to 140 characters and now Twitter could merge the services making the experience better for posters like me and users who consume the content.
It is no secret that Twitter needs to grow and becoming more like Facebook through this acquisition is the logical way to do this.
I suggested they purchase Myspace last year but perhaps the timing was bad - this move is incremental and allows Twitter to slowly take the plunge from microblogging to macroglogging and eventually social network

The 7 Wireless Data Cap Losers

2012-03-06T23:08:46Z

We are in uncharted territory when it comes to mobility as this year we will see a slew of productivity-boosting 4G, quad-core smartphones like the Ascend 4D Quad from Huawei which I saw at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. Moreover, while devices get more powerful, we will only want to do more with them and quite often this means relying on wireless networks from carriers.

The only problem is these providers are rapidly running out of bandwidth and this means they have decided the best course of action is to cap users and slow their connections once they hit a certain threshold. Their other strategy is to just charge for bandwidth being used.

This latter method of charging will eventually lead to data use bill shock. This means we can expect to see the viral spreading of news related to parents being faced with a $5,000 bill because their child viewed 2,000 YouTube videos in a month.

There is nothing worse than that nail-biting feeling you get when you try to end that important video call before your carrier starts to throttle your bandwidth

So without further ado, here are the top 7 losers who will be hurt by wireless bandwidth caps:

Cloud vendors – all of them. Regardless of business model, you will soon start to lose one of the fastest growing markets you have – mobile users. The carriers will tell you that a small fraction of users are hogging most of the bandwidth but that just may be because the majority of users have slower devices and/or haven’t discovered the really bandwidth hungry apps which they will rely on in the future. And we know that most users aren’t on 4G yet – when they do migrate they will use more data, more quickly. You want me to name names of companies who will be hurt? OK, Amazon EC2 – as so many other services rely on the leading ecommerce and cloud hosting site as well as Dropbox and of course iCloud.
Desktop sharing companies like OnLive Desktop, GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, etc. Much of the appeal of using these service has to do with working remotely and having the full functionality of being in the office. To some degree, these services actually minimize bandwidth use because if you download a huge photo and view it – you only see a compressed rendering of the photo on your tablets screen. This of course will all change because as screens get more resolution, the amount of bandwidth use will grow.
Video Streaming companies such as Hulu, YouTube and Netflix are obvious casualties – and as more tablets are sold, the problem gets bigger. And yes, video is a huge bandwidth hog.
Audio Streaming Companies like Pandora, Spotify, etc. Sure audio consumes less bandwidth than video but with streaming radio – users have a tendency to just set it and forget it.
Social networking sites to some degree have an issue but for many functions such as tweeting and/or posting status updates which don’t include video, limited bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue. But one has to wonder about how the ecosystem of apps which enrich social networks – let’s say Twitpic for example could feel a slight pinch because users may be afraid to do anything which bandwidth-hungry because they may exceed their monthly allotment of bits. Graphics-rich Pinterest may see some pain as well.
Apple could potentially have a problem as well but the company does seem to be immune to most challenges which should hurt it like the advent of $199 tablets. The challenge for Apple is newer devices tend to have advancements screen resolution – in fact the next iPad is rumored to be called the HD, not the iPad 3. Guess what? All those pixels need to be filled with information and the more pixels you have, the more bandwidth you suck. The same is of course true for Google, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and the rest of the market. Smartphones aren’t immune to this problem either so a Samsung Galaxy Note just went from a device which can straddle the smartphone/tablet market to one which could cause users to go over their data plans more quickly.
Finally, corporations have the most to lose as they purchase all these fancy tech tools for their workers with the expectation of ROI which is usually calculated based on stable metrics. And now users are going to be in a situation where at a certain point, their telepresence calls start to have jitter and latency because they are over their bit allotment for the month. And the issue will be difficult to predict in advance as a Slingbox user could eat up a month’s worth of bandwidth in a week or even a few days.

In short, bandwidth caps may cause great pain for users over time and wireless carriers should be very careful as their policy changes begin to change end-user behavior.

Off to MWC 2012 Next Week

2012-02-23T19:34:46Z

I've got lots on my plate this week before I take off to Barcelona to attend Mobile World Congress (MWC) - which was once called 3GSM. I've got great meetings lined up and I am very interested in seeing what is happening in the world of 4G, white spaces, M2M, tablets and smartphones. Apple won't be there - formerly anyway so I consider this event to be kind of like the anti-Apple confab. Interestingly, all the major events I attend these days are devoid of the iconic Cupertino brand as well. It doesn't seem to be hurting them does it?

Yet face-to-face events like this one are crucial to get the word out and generate buzz around brands which don't have the Apple halo. Companies that will really need to shine this week include Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Google and HTC.

I will be sure to keep you posted as I travel to the show (www.tehrani.com)- you can also follow me on Twitter at @rtehrani. In addition the TMCnet Mobile World Congress news page will give you access to articles written by 100+ TMCnet contributors.

These are some of the MWC stories produced so far today:

Blackberry PlayBook OS 2.0 is Good But Late

2012-02-22T22:31:19Z

It is clear that the Blackberry Playbook OS 2.0 upgrade which includes a first-ever email client needed to be perfect. After all, we have been waiting for this major release since May of last year. Sadly, it isn’t all it should be. It is however much better… The integrated email client is a great improvement over web-based email solutions users were once forced to use. As TMCnet’s Amanda Ciccatelli points out, the new OS allows integration with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and multiple e-mail accounts.

The good news is connecting to a corporate email account without BES was very easy. I just entered my email address and password and it synced up to our Microsoft Exchange Server immediately, filling in the necessary information such as the server address, port number, SMTP port, SMTP encryption and other information I didn’t have to be bothered with. This isn’t generally the case with other wireless devices I have connected to our email. Interestingly though it gave me an error once the info was filled in but on a subsequent retry it worked perfectly.

What is surprising however is the email client doesn’t always seem to be capable of performing real-time email display, meaning if you watch emails come into your PC live and look at the Playbook you realize they aren’t there on the screen.

On two out of three occasions I noticed this problem but on one out of three the syncing was perfect. Hopefully the issue goes away permanently. It is worth noting that a Windows Mobile device I had some years back had a similar challenge from time to time.

Other enhancements have to do with better syncing between your Blackberry smartphone and tablet – great additions to people who can’t live without their handheld RIM devices. In addition, the predictive next word completion and auto correction have improved and there is better productivity and management software as well.

You can even run specially modified Android apps – another major plus for people feeling app envy.

The challenge for RIM in my opinion is this device is good but not good enough to steal users.

Four years ago a tablet that worked seamlessly with a Blackberry smartphone would have been killer but now the appeal of these smartphones has decreased and has been replaced by the public’s desire to have an iOS or Android gadget.

But then again, pricing for the Playbook is less than half of what it once was at $225 for a 16GB version up to $329 for a 64GB version.

And in many ways with two cameras the PlayBook is far superior to the Amazon Kindle Fire which comes in at $199 and includes a year of Amazon Prime service.

But the challenge is momentum is on the side of Amazon in the seven inch tablet race. Moreover RIM not only missed the move to touchscreen devices they also missed the move to the consumerization of IT.

Point being, the entertainment options available to the Kindle Fire – from music to movies make it a better device for users who are looking for more than just a work gadget – something that they can not only use for email but also to watch a movie.

Still, the Playbook is a solid device – and as a corporate tablet is a great choice due to the better security and management options than most other tablets on the market.

The 2.0 upgrade is very good but also very late. And in my experience an OS update isn’t enough to sway market momentum. Especially when for the most part it is a catch up update.

Update Feb 22, 9:09 pm: I am having a tough time getting the PlayBook to sync with Yahoo email. It will sync with Calendar and contacts just not email. I certainly hope this is a Yahoo problem and not the PlayBook but after 25 minutes of trying and rebooting this device it is getting frustrating.

Will Nimble 2.0 take Social CRM Mainstream?

2012-02-14T17:01:00Z

Recently consumer products manufacturer P&G – one of the largest advertising spenders at over $9B announced it will cut its marketing headcount in-part because advertising on Facebook and Google is more efficient. The maker of Gillette and Pantene products is not alone; in-fact the business world is focusing heavily on social media including Google+ and Twitter.

But while it is understood by many web-savvy companies that social is important – how many of them are embracing social CRM? My informal analysis shows the numbers are very low meaning there could be huge room for growth.

That is of course if you don’t ascribe to the idea that it is important for companies to help shape the dialogue about themselves online. More importantly, you don’t believe that tying social media into CRM systems can boost sales and service levels and perhaps even increase productivity.

One person who believes in the power of social CRM is Nimble founder and CEO Jon Ferrara. Around 1991 or so he told me at a dinner that his new company contact management/CRM company Goldmine has lots of potential because, “There is no Lotus in the market.” Ironically, Goldmine did in fact become a major player in the space while Lotus faded from the scene.

Last year Nimble rolled out its initial cloud-based social CRM solution and there are now 30,000 users and 3,000 of them spend almost half their day on the platform. The newly released Nimble 2.0 aims to increase the first if not both of these numbers. In Ferrara’s own words, “Nimble is an integration of social listening and engagement platform, internal collaboration with sales and marketing capabilities of traditional CRM and elegance and simplicity of contact manager rolled into one easy to use system.”

He contrasts the look of Nimble – which is similar to a Facebook page to Salesforce which he says looks like a mainframe screen. Additionally, he believes that while Hootsuite is useful it’s limited because it doesn’t allow you to drill down on specific contacts.

Successful salespeople have always known that information related to a certain prospect could help increase the chance of a sale. In other words, if you know where a potential customer went to college, that information could be helpful in relationship-building which in turn could give you the edge in a competitive sales situation. Although people like to believe they purchase based on objective facts, likeability and/or trust of a salesperson is a major factor in pulling the purchasing trigger.

And one of Nimble’s objectives is to boost relationships by enabling companies to get a better overall picture of their prospective customers.

Ferrara likens Nimble 2.0 to fishing in the social river where salespeople can find a needle in a haystack. By tying in traditional CRM data, a company can ascertain which people on social networks have also downloaded documents from the corporate website. Moreover, companies can also determine who in the social stream is interested in which products.

For a few years now I have swept all my Twitter follow emails into a special folder and I’m frankly amazed at the quality of the follows on this network. Not only do I find numerous related companies I never heard of and are worthy of coverage. Often these follows turn into prospects and sometimes become new customers of TMC.

Tying these follows into a CRM system makes infinite sense if for no other reason than to justify the spend companies are making on social media.

In other words if you are to put aside the passion that Jon and I share for the future of commerce being closely aligned with social CRM, then at least you should be onboard with using an integrated Social CRM tool to evaluate the ROI of the effort your company is putting into social networks.

In using the platform I am happy to report it has proper hooks into a number of social networks including Google+. A number of other social aggregation platforms don’t yet connect to Google+ for some reason. Moreover, although I am a Nimble dabbler, not a frequent user, I find its daily email digest of job changes from my social networks very useful.

Jon also feels his company’s integrated solution is better suited to the world of social-CRM than a CRM system with social bolted on. While this is a logical statement, I wouldn’t count out Oracle, Salesforce or any other CRM vendors as social integration should be straightforward. Sure, some will always do it better and Nimble is a pioneer but that doesn’t mean the CRM world won’t be watching like a hawk and emulating like a cheetah.

Nimble is free for standalone personal users and business and multi-users can sign up for $15 per user per month. At that price it is certainly worth trying.

The Only Way Google can be Successful in Consumer Electronics

2012-02-10T14:25:30Z

Yesterday I detailed how Google IS the tech news of the day and folks, this search leader is ambitious – more so than Microsoft ever was. In addition to a Dropbox killer and massive Google+ growth I outlined in this recent post, the company is also getting into the home entertainment business through its Motorola Mobility acquisition. Specifically Google will release a self-branded line of consumer electronics allowing you to stream music throughout your home.

Google already has a cloud-based music service so obviously there is synergy there but the only way I see this strategy working is by Google doing things differently.

My loyal readers know I am a fan of Sonos – they sell an in-home audio streaming service which integrates with Slacker, Pandora, Sirius/XM, Spotify and even integrates with iOS devices and iTunes libraries stored on computers. In-short, you have access to all your music and favorite radio from any room. But Sonos products although they are great, are not cheap. The company’s Play:5 for example will set you back $399 and the company’s Bridge which you’ll also need adds another $49 to the total.

Sure this is cheaper than wired alternatives but at just over 1,000,000 rooms the company has a long way to go before it becomes the audio equivalent of Apple.

Moreover the palindromic Sonos taps into existing ecosystems – it doesn’t get involved with them. In other words you have the option to pay for the ad-free or premium versions of each radio service you are interested in.

Google execs woke up today and realized Apple’s market cap just surpassed the combined value of it and Microsoft together. It understands the ecosystem is the future. And Google’s strength is selling ads.

What this means is that Google needs to have its own streaming radio station and moreover needs to get into the radio advertising business again – the last time it tried it had disastrous results but I would liken this sort of radio ad model more similar to YouTube than traditional radio advertising. All of this is great news for Google because they excel at on-demand as opposed to real-time ad selling – for the moment.

So what I see Google having to do is integrate radio ads into its music streaming service but more importantly it needs to one-up Siri by speech-enabling all the devices in the house before Apple beats them to it. Remember that in December of 2009, Apple purchased streaming service Lala and at the time I surmised it was to Get Apple into the in-home streaming business.

The race is on.

Back to Google – it obviously would want to integrate Google+ into any of its new offerings allowing users to share the music they are listening to, the programs they are watching, and everything else.

Sonos for its part has nearly-perfected home audio. Google should think about picking them up rather than reinventing the wheel. Moreover, if Google is really serious about this market it should consider an acquisition of Bose – if the privately-held company would consider such a deal. That way it could have an established brand with retail stores which will allow it to go head-to-head with Apple in malls worldwide.

So I see the only viable future for Google in home entertainment being a subsidized model like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It is just unclear if advertising will generate enough revenue to offset the hundred dollars or more I believe the company will have to discount each product to gain the massive traction it needs in the market. As we know, Google hasn’t been successful in retail and Motorola Mobility has had some moments of brilliance in the past but got its teeth kicked in by Nokia, RIM and Apple.

The Kindle Fire model – “we will give you an awesome deal” is the only one I see working here. The question is can the company really monetize this hardware effectively? Time will tell.

Rewards Network, the Social Restaurant Hub

2012-02-07T21:52:28Z

In the last few decades it has become apparent that all companies are for the most part limited by their imaginations. Apple was thought to be a computer company but is now a leader in music, movies and phones. Amazon went from selling books to everything – even its servers are for rent via its cloud-computing solutions. Google went from search to purchasing Motorola Mobility and is well known for being involved in many projects from solar to self-driving cars and the television space.

But an airline? Certainly they aren’t adapting to the new competitive landscape – after all, many of the airplanes we fly on in the US were built in the 1960s when the cloud was defined as an IBM System/360 mainframe.

American Airlines has been a pioneer in loyalty marketing since the AAdvantage frequent flyer program was launched in 1981 and as a result their successful marketing concept spread to many other industries from toys to greeting cards.

The airline took a page from its own book and runs an AAdvantage Dining program which allows members to earn points good for travel and other services. This isn’t unlike agreements AA and other airlines have with credit card companies where a percentage of the money spent is converted to airline points or miles.

The company just announced a new program called the Get Ahead Bonus promotion where participants are eligible to earn 2 American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles on every dollar spent after $75. The offer is good until April 30, 2012 and typically participants would get only one mile per dollar spent. The promotion is actually a bit ambiguous as it also says you can get up to 7 miles per dollar between now and

31^st but let’s stipulate you will get more miles than usual to get us back to more interesting topics.

And the fine print does get interesting as the company encourages you to be social – you are to submit dining reviews between now and March 31st, 2012 to get your extra points.

So here we have an airline who has obviously embraced restaurant rewards and now has found a way to incentivize users to be more social by providing reviews.

The company behind this dining program from American Airlines is Chicago based Rewards Network an organization with over 3.4 million frequent diners according to their website. It was founded in 1984 as Transmedia Network by Mel Chasen and at that time had only 225 members. It has become a major force in Airline loyalty card/ restaurant programs and partners similar initiatives at America West, Continental, Delta, US Airways among others.

I spoke with Megan Flynn, the Senior VP of Marketing at Rewards Network and she told me the company has an open network philosophy – sharing data and reviews with not only their partners but with social networks. She says there will be some announcements soon regarding new content sharing partners.

She likens her company’s service to a “secret shopper” experience where you know the review is from a person who actually ate at the restaurant. You see, the way the program works is it matches credit card numbers to ensure customers get credit for eating at a particular establishment. So the company has not only credit card information but email addresses.

She contrasted this to other sites where reviews can be posted by anyone – there is really no quality control. And the review numbers are staggering – over 50,000 restaurant surveys are completed each week according to Flynn.

To me some natural partners are Google, Facebook and Microsoft/Bing – Yahoo would make sense as well. Google might be a likely acquirer– remember they have Zagat and they also launched Nosh which isn’t that far from the Rewards Network concept.

It’s interesting, Facebook quotes 483 million “active” users – but we know the numbers are fudged (or at least exaggerated). And even if the real number is so big, how do we know if any of them have spending power? I’ve said repeatedly that having a US real unemployment rate somewhere between 18-30M is part of the reason for Facebook’s success. Are these the buyers a restaurant wants or needs?

Then we have the Groupon business model – daily deals emailed to members and as a result the company has a valuation of about $15.5B!

What is the value of millions of members of a restaurant program who actually spend money? In 2010 the members spent almost $700M in fact. We aren’t talking chump change here. Imagine the potential to grow this business as an even more social company where it starts to get the buzz of a Yelp or LinkedIn.

Seems to me Rewards Network is really one of the most underreported stories out there and as long as it can continue to take an industry as stodgy as the airline space and make it social and interactive, imagine the potential it has to transform other markets and industries.

Google: Can it be Everything to Everyone?

2012-01-27T19:33:40Z

Google is the new Microsoft but boy are they faster than Redmond ever was. Part of the reason has to do with the search engine leader’s access to the eyeballs of almost every human on earth via its home page but another reason for the blistering speed of the company has to do with the speed of innovation – which I recently described as (Moore’s Law*Metcalfe’s Law)/Patent Lawsuit Activity.

What we saw happen to Microsoft is telling. As they expanded into market after market like IPTV products like Internet Explorer and their mobile strategy seemed ever changing as did the name of their mobile operating systems. As a result, Apple and Google were able to virtually decimate the company’s mobile efforts while Google has made massive inroads in the browser market with Chrome. They made it safer, faster and simpler and users responded by using it.

Then there is the tablet market which Microsoft invented but never got right. They gave up and Apple not only became the leader in the space, we are still waiting for a real Microsoft response.

But Google is for the first time ever beginning to get serious heat in the press for its recent business practices. The first had to do with the company promoting its own service Google+ at the expense of what many consider to be more relevant result - and more recently for taking their eyes off search.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land had some scathing things to say about the company in an article which tries to determine haw a spam cartoon video made the first page of a Google search for the word Santorum.

It is worth noting that customers tend to be forgiving and after using Google for search for a decade and further using the company’s browser and possibly its operating system on your handset, you aren’t likely to switch to Bing over a few poor search results. But as Sullivan explains, this result which in reality has absolutely no business being in the results based on his analysis shows how something obvious slipped by Google. Coincidentally these search results come right after the company’s aggressive push to become your social networking hub through the Search Plus Your World (SPYW) initiative.

Microsoft has an interesting way of hanging back with its products, improving them incrementally and waiting for the market leader to stumble before they begin taking major share.

It is way too early to say this is happening but certainly the amount of negative publicity Google is getting along with new business practices which are making employees uncomfortable may be a sign of major challenges at the company.

But the reality is Google is doing a very good job of tying Google+ results into its SERPs and if as many believe, social is as important as search then they are being extremely shrewd and will be even more of a force to be reckoned with going forward.

The question we are left with of course is the same… Can Google or any company for that matter be everything to everyone?

While the answer seems like it should most likely be no, it is worth noting that the search giant seems to be paying attention. After all, interesting to note that my search on Santorum just now didn’t return the spam cartoon video but the 11^th result was a link to Sullivan’s article.

Alternion: Manage 220+ Social Connections From one Dashboard

2012-01-27T02:13:25Z

Let’s face it – social networking is time consuming. I believe part of the reason for the meteoric rise in social networking these past few years has to do with a miserable job market coupled with the fact that social is free and people are cutting the cable cord. But even with unlimited tim,e managing video sites like YouTube and Vimeo as well as Flickr, a blog, Twitter, Facebook, email and other networks is a herculean task requiring you to take your mental vitamins.

And if you use social for work the situation gets more challenging as your employer likely wants you to manage social while you do everything else like manage CPC and CPM ad budgets as well as perhaps PR, road shows, events, white papers and webinars.

So any tool which makes life easier is welcomed by virtually everyone and Alternion is such a service as it allows connectivity to 220+ social networks at once. I have been using it today and have found it a great way to interact with a number of the contacts I have on various networks.

What is best about the program is its simple timeline view.

Yes you can use Zite or FlipBoard on a mobile device such as an iPad but if you are sifting through hundreds or thousands of messages at a time – it is really not efficient to use these programs as they sacrifice speed for snazzy graphics. But using them on a tablet is a more immersive experience and more enjoyable.

But back to oddly named Alternion, there is integration with a dizzying amount of networks like Stack Overflow, Strands, Trulia and virtually all email systems you can think of which support POP3 or IMAP.

If I have to give the service room for improvement it is that I couldn’t get many of the services to work. I tried connecting to the Exchange server in my office with no luck. I used the same settings as my laptop even. Likewise for Gmail.

There needs to be an easier process and better explanations.

I imagined the daily real estate listing emails you get from Trulia could be integrated into the system but this is not the case. It turns out if you ask a question on the service you can subscribe to an RSS feed of the answers in Alternion. So I asked a question, spent 15 minutes finding out how to get an RSS feed, entered it into Alternion and it didn’t accept it. It gave me an error.

So in a nutshell, unless you are patient, this service may not be ready for primetime for all 220+ networks. Sure, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter connected as quickly as a couple of rabbits in springtime. But for anything else I had to struggle.

Still, it’s free and useful and will no doubt get better (Alternion developers please read the above carefully) I do recommend the service – as sometimes the fleas come with dog. And I am sure sooner or later the company will add the requisite chemical coated, flea-repelling collar.

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Schedule

2012-01-25T20:49:34Z

One of the most frequent question I get regarding TMC’s ITEXPO which takes place next week in Miami – is with all that is going on – how do you make a decision as to which parts of the show to attend. Truth be told I believe the event and its collocated conferences and educational sessions rivals just about any other tech show in terms of education.

Some of the hot topics to be discussed include not only general communications and technology but 4G wireless, mobility, Asterisk, open source, business video, the channel, cloud computing and communications, HTML5, Mobile Latin America communications, M2M, technology patents, the MSP market, Super WiFi/white spaces and much more.

The following is a list of important details you will need to help navigate ITEXPO East 2012 Miami. I warn you – this is a subset of what is happening. To keep you posted on not only these items but other important events at the show please follow @itexpo on Twitter and turn on mobile notifications – it is pretty simple – just follow the menu below. Twitter also allows you to turn off notifications at certain hours in its settings tab.

Also, please download the show directory/guide (PDF) and read through it before you get there to get the most out of the event.

ITEXPO East 2012

January 31 - February 3, 2012

Miami Beach Convention Center

If you are staying at the Loews in Miami or a hotel nearby the best route to walk is down 16^th street making a right on Washington after a block. Most concierge personnel will tell you to walk down Collins which is longer and if the sun is strong may be a bit uncomfortable.

View Larger Map

Registration counters are located in the Hall B Lobby. This is the section of the convention center on Washington Blvd., closest to the show hotels.

When you arrive, proceed to the registration counter to receive your badge. You will need a photo ID.

SHOW HOURS

Tuesday, January 31

Registration: 7:30am – 5:00pm
Workshops begin at 9:00am
POST POTS Special Sessions: 2:00pm
Avaya Tech on Tap: 5:00pm

Wednesday, February 1

Registration: 7:00am – 7:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 12:45pm; 3:30pm
Exhibits Open: 4:30-7:30pm
Free Networking Reception: 5:30-7:30 on expo floor - Sponsored by Broadvox.

Thursday, February 2

Registration: 7:00am – 4:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 9:00-11:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Networking Reception: 4:00pm
StartupCamp5, featuring keynote by Terry Matthews: 4:45pm
ITEXPO Party on South Beach - Mangos Tropical Cafe: 9:00pm

Friday, February 3

Registration: 7:30am – 2:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 2:00pm
New Mustang Giveaway at 1:45pm – Must Be Present to Win

Updated schedule. Visit the show site for additional details

Keynotes and Special Sessions Schedule: (Open to all attendees)

Tuesday, January 31:

2:00 pm: Special Panel Session:

Post POTS Net Neutrality & the Cloud: From POTS to PANS

============================================================

Rumors of the death of POTS are not exaggerated. To build a new model for the future we have to determine the bottlenecks. Come discuss the impact of the cloud and the migration from end to end to any to any services; about supporting access and quality of service; about Net Neutrality and Privacy.

5:00: Avaya Tech on Tap Workshop and Networking Reception

=========================================================

Kick off ITEXPO East with a special pre-conference seminar and evening networking event, hosted by the Avaya DevConnect Program. Join Avaya and our special keynote speaker Judith Hurwitz, co-author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", as we tackle some of the most challenging technology transitions facing IT organizations today, namely cloud computing and collaboration enablement.

KEYNOTES Wednesday, February 1:

12:45pm: Michael Rouleau, tw telecom
3:30pm: Paget Alves, Sprint
4:30pm: Timothy Wagner, Samsung Telecommunications America

KEYNOTES Thursday, February 2:

9:00am: Rick Whitt, Google
9:30am: Chris Swearingen, Senseaware, Powered by FedEx
10:00am: Dirk Gates, Xirrus
10:30pm: Julius Knapp, FCC
4:45pm: Sir Terry Matthews, Wesley Clover

WORKSHOPS at ITEXPO – Open to All Attendees

Cloud Business Development Workshop

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Larry Dillon and Michael Curry will co-host the first ever pre-show workshops focused towards new business development techniques for resellers, developers and cloud-based service providers.

Asterisk 123 Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Come get a well-rounded and informative introduction to the Asterisk Project. All are Welcome! Whether you are managing a team deploying an Asterisk implementation, evaluating potential replacements for a legacy telephony solution that's on its last leg, or just a general Asterisk "newbie" excited to learn what Asterisk is capable of, then this talk has something to offer you.

Sangoma Vega Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Sangoma Technologies will host a free full day hands-on training session teaching you how to configure and troubleshoot the Vega series gateways for use with IP-PBX and SIP trunking.

Blackberry HTML5 Hackathon

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Join us at the upcoming HTML5 Hackathon to discover how BlackBerry WebWorks takes HTML5 beyond the browser. We'll show you the power and simplicity of the new BlackBerry browser

Ingate’s SIP Trunking Workshop

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Attendees can earn a SIP Trunking Professional Certificate by participating in the Professional Development Program on February 1. Attendees can also earn a Unified Communications Professional Certificate on February 2.

Telecom Reseller Week Presentation Theatre

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Telecom Reseller Week provides you with a forum for you to learn about cutting edge new solutions you can represent, to meet with many new potential partners, and to study proven sales techniques to help improve your team's performance.

MPLS University

Tuesday, February 2 - 1:30pm

MPLS University is a forum for IT and business professionals to bring their questions about network reliability, always-on connectivity, voice, regulatory requirements, security, and cost control. Join us for two FREE live MPLS University sessions at ITEXPO to learn more about utilizing cloud-based solutions

StartupCamp5: Comms Edition

Tuesday, February 2 - 4:00pm

Featuring keynote address by Sir Terry Matthews

The incredibly popular StartupCamp networking event returns. This unique forum is for early-stage entrepreneurs to pitch their communications products or services to a discriminating audience of potential investors, media, bloggers and industry influencers. The event's fast-paced, "ready, set, pitch" format brings early-stage communications companies, developers, industry leaders and investors together to network and validate entrepreneurial pitches in real time.

4:00: StartupCamp5 Free Networking Reception

4:45: Introduction/Event Kickoff by Larry Lisser

5:00: Keynote Presentation by World-Renowned Entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews

5:45: Startup Presentations and Judging

7:00: Networking and Voting

QUESTIONS?

Contact Frank Coppola (203.852.6800 x 131)

Thank you sponsors

Diamond Sponsor:

Digium

Platinum Sponsors:

AudioCodes
Sonus Networks
Sansay
Dialogic
Interactive Intelligence
Netxusa

Gold Sponsors:

abp
Adtran
Broadvox
MegaPath
USAN
888VoIP
Panasonic
snom
tw telecom
Sangoma

I really look forward to seeing you all at the show – it will be fantastic.

Update: My marketing team has a fancier version of this document which they send in emails after you register. It has web links and may be easier on the eyes.

Bain Capital, Romney, Vulture Investing and 15% Tax Rates

2012-01-23T17:35:14Z

A shout out to investors everywhere

I haven’t seen this level of funding in the tech space in years – I would go so far as to say the amount of funding is the greatest I’ve seen since 2000. I don’t believe we are exceeding 2000 levels but it is encouraging to see that investors believe that tech makes a solid investment.

Before I begin with which markets have gotten money, let me make a shout out to the investors in the world. You see, me, everyone at TMC and in fact most of the tech world owes its existence to investors who risk their capital against all odds to make a profit. It isn’t unusual for these investors to hit it big in one out of ten deals – meaning 90% of their investment is washed down the drain.

And because of their decision to be investors we get companies like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora and Google which have made the world a better place.

We are in an unusual time in American history – one in which a potential presidential candidate is under attack for being a successful investor. Mitt Romney was the head of Bain Capital and not only is his firm being accused of being involved in vulture capitalism – he is under fire for laying off workers and also for paying a tax rate of 15%.

There aren’t too many people coming to the defense of Governor Romney regarding the above so this is what people need to know.

Investors are good – regardless of whether they invest in distressed companies and have the moniker “vulture” attached to them. If a company is distressed it is usually because it needs money and is potentially facing bankruptcy. When an investor comes in it is because they believe they can either turn the company around and/or they believe the sum of the parts is worth more than the current market value of the company.

So when the “vulture capitalist” comes in and a company subsequently shuts down – it is no worse a fate than would have faced the company had the investor not put up money to help out in the first place. In the best case scenario the company gets the funds it needs and can do an acquisition, invest in a new factory or whatever it must do to become profitable again.

It is worth pointing out the big payoff for an investor – whether it is a vulture, strategic or any other type is when the company they invest in becomes more profitable than when they first invested in it.

This gets us to Bain Capital laying people off. The primary reason for a company to be in business is to generate increased profit over time. If the business goes south (and remember we are dealing with distressed companies to begin with) or there is an opportunity to close a plant and reduce expense, the business has to do what it needs to do to ensure shareholders make money on their investments. Moreover, closing a plant could be in-part the reason the rest of the company can keep their jobs.

Remember, investment funds only get to stay open if they make a profit and most of their investments will fail. Only a single digit percentage will make it.

This gets us to the capital gains and dividend rate of 15%. I have heard countless people tell me this is unfair but my argument is if these investors are responsible for so much hiring and innovation and most of their investments are lost then why would we want to take this money out of the private sector where it generally gets reinvested into more new companies?

After all – the companies which are invested in rent office space – use contractors, hire people by the hundreds of thousands who in-turn pay all sorts of taxes – they buy massive amounts of equipment which not only helps companies like HP and Dell but they also pay sales tax on these purchases.

And if they happen to sell products or services overseas they bring foreign money into the US which protects our currency from going into a free fall due to our excessive dollar printing and overspending as a nation.

The issue many people have is the low tax rate of 15% compared to what they make. A salesperson or executive for example may end up making less income but paying a higher tax rate of 25-35%. To that I respond –why should anyone pay a higher tax rate than 15% – not why should the investor pay a higher percentage.

In other words while I agree the system may not seem “fair” on the face of it – the solution is to bring the tax rate down on all people not punish the people who fuel this economy.

Just today for example three tech companies put out news of funding and it isn’t even noon yet. Polar Mobile received $6M for its HTML5-based publishing platform, Joyent received $85M in the cloud computing space and TRUSTe received $15M in the online privacy space.

That is over $100M in funding and I would wager virtually all of it comes from money which was taxed at 15%. Moreover, on dividend income which is also taxed at 15% - it is money which is already taxed at the corporate tax rate which is as high as 25%. Meaning the money which comes to investors such as those at Bain Capital has been taxed 40% in total!

I understand the divisive politics of jealousy is effective but if you make your living in any way off the tech ecosystem – you should stop and think for a moment about how lucky you are that this industry is thriving while much of the economy is struggling. Moreover, if you use social networking, tablets, Internet or satellite radio or virtually any cloud service, you can thank private equity and investors.

And this doesn’t take into account the investment in pharma or other markets which produces life-saving drugs and the myriad other industries which receive funding, allowing them to hire and produce great products and services we all enjoy.

Some additional thoughts:

Self-promotional message: Next week TMC the company where I am CEO will be hosting ITEXPO in Miami and there will be great emphasis on cloud computing and communications as well as HTML5. You want to be there.

If I had to choose a Republican candidate I am not 100% sold on Romney – I lean towards Gingrich. Neither is conservative enough for me – but I believe Newt more effectively explains the benefits of conservatism for society as a whole.

Whoever wins – this will be a brutal class-warfare oriented campaign by the left and I truly hope the rhetoric doesn’t distract the nation from coming together and competing with China, India and other countries. After all when you lose jobs in this country it isn’t the fault of the rich guy in the corner office it is because the business environment in other parts of the world is better than the US.

The solutions to the problems the US faces are not going after the people who make the smart investment decisions for their employees and investors but instead to ensure we have a competitive workforce which is flexible and educated with minimal regulations allowing us to make the case to corporations about why jobs need to come back to the US.

How Megaupload Takedown Hurts Cloud Computing

2012-01-22T19:07:24Z

How self-destructive US policies are hurting hiring and industry
One of the biggest concerns regarding the passage of SOPA is that entire domain names could be blocked by federal authorities due to a single offending blog or web page. In this past week, major websites such as Wikipedia and Google engaged in an education campaign in order to have consumers put pressure on politicians who eventually reversed course on their support of the bill.

On a side note – as a conservative – the fact that a Republican, Representative Lamar Smith was the biggest proponent of this bill is horrifying. He should be thrown out of office by his constituents at the first possible chance.

Moreover, any politician who ever supported the bill should suffer the same fate.

But what is even scarier than theoretical web takedowns is actual ones and this week we saw Megaupload removed from the web because it allegedly engaged in activities which promoted pirating copyrighted material. Now if you aren’t a user of the site – and I never have been to my knowledge, you may be led to believe the US government was in its rights to take down a site designed solely to break the law.

But the challenge here is there are many users who used Megaupload for legitimate uses like sharing and storing files. These people are effectively cut off from their assets – and were given no notice this would happen.

Here are tweets from some angry users:

@taenina: #Megaupload was closed by the FBI… Was I the only one who had it for work files? Just get me my files back!!!

@Pattysplayhouse: They shut down #Megaupload. I had backup files of all my personal images up there on that site

@Roatandude: So I had a whole bunch of personal stuff stored in #Megaupload and now its gone. WTF!!! #StopSOPA

@Nicole8angel: Megaupload is one thing that helps me send big files to my group mates when we’re making projects… Bring it back...

Think about this – Megaupload was being used as cloud storage and was shut down because the site engaged in practices the US government deemed to be illegal. Isn’t this the exact same argument outlined above as it relates to SOPA? Yes.

So what we have determined is the government doesn’t need SOPA to shut down websites it deems to be acting in a way which does not respect copyright holders.

But this is where it gets interesting. The insatiable move to the cloud has led to consumers and businesses storing more and more of their files on services from a variety of companies. Amazon’s S3 for example stores terabytes of information and it is a safe bet some of the data in its cloud is not legal – meaning pirated. So should Amazon S3 be shut down? And how about Amazon.com? After all it’s the same company. Likewise for other companies who allow illegal data to be shared. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, YouSendIt, you name it.

Obviously the issue is the degree of infringing data and moreover, what is the purpose of the service? For example, Napster was set up for no other reason but to share illegal music. Pretty clear cut and dry. But Megaupload has many legitimate users as well – so how does a determination get made in terms of the guilt, innocence and due process of such sites and services?

Well a good solution would be courts – but an argument can be made by the MPA that they take too long.

So we are left with what is really a grey area – it is unclear which sites will be future targets in-part because targets are determined by what users determine they want to share. So if millions of users tomorrow decide they want to use a specific cloud vendor for the purpose of setting up a new age Napster to share music and movies, the site could be targeted and taken down – along with the legitimate files stored on the service.

Explained another way, we are in legal cloud limbo. And it is worth stating firmly that the federal government is casting a shadow over cloud-computing – one of the hottest sectors of tech, receiving perhaps the most funding and doing the most hiring. I cannot think of anything more self-destructive for a society looking for economic growth to be doing.

Monkeybars Lets Social Could Cut Out Middlemen

2012-01-20T22:34:48Z

Think of all the ways technology has changed commerce. Most every city for example was littered with photo processing huts and with the advent of sites like ofoto, now part of Kodak and entire layer of businesses between the buyer and seller was wiped out. Likewise, mall owners have seen the pain caused by Amazon and other ecommerce sites. Craigslist crippled the newspaper classified business; Google has massacred all sorts of industries by sucking the life out of advertising profitability and moreover ravaging the direct mail industry.

New distribution models aren’t something we haven’t seen before the advent of the Internet. Think Herbalife, Amway and Tupperware - they all take advantage of a multilevel marketing/sales model allowing sales on a more personal basis.

But what happens if you take the best of live personal product sales and recommendations where an army of people are commissioned to sell a product and bring that to the web?

That is what a new company Monkeybars is trying to find out with the launch of a service which allows purchasing and recommending of various media with the ability to generate revenue if you recommend something which is subsequently purchased by others. It works much like a multilevel marketing model where you could recommend a song which gets re-recommended and so on and all the people get paid along the way. In a discussion this week with company CEO Tom Thimot he mentioned how amazing it would be from a financial perspective if you were the person who discovered a Justin Bieber.

From the perspective of the artist it is a no brainer to work with the site as it doesn’t take a cut of the proceeds – they just set aside a portion of the sales amount for the fans who recommend the content to their social network friends.

So the record labels/distributors are at the most risk with this model. But that doesn’t mean you can’t work with Monkeybars and your current distribution partners – you can.

My biggest concern was the quality of the recommendations – after all if you give someone an incentive to recommend something they could just push anything they find to make some extra cash. Thimot said if users do this, their followers would drop them and moreover they have to purchase the content before they can recommend it which is a safeguard against any insincere promoting.

Interestingly an unintended consequence of Monkeybars is people and even organizations who could take a vested interested in promoting media on their sites in places you might see Google ads today. Just like a manufacturer once dependent on distributors to sell products can now go direct via web ads, Monkeybars allows you to harness the power of devoted followers and those looking to make a career out of promoting your products

I tried the service myself and was able to find a new artist I liked. I think this is a solid idea and can potentially open up a new way of marketing for not only artists and their content producers but perhaps corporations with devoted fans who want to help give their referring customers a financial incentive to promote their products and services.

Middlemen have been cut out for many years – but Monkeybars shows me how social networking can be harnessed in new ways to remove all sorts of layers from current distribution models.

Does PhoneDog Lawsuit Mean a New Twitter Revenue Opportunity?

2011-12-27T19:31:49Z

Gadget review and news site PhoneDog is suing a former worker Noah Kravitz over a Twitter account even though when he left the company he changed his Twitter handle from one which implied company sponsorship (@PhoneDog_Noah) to one which didn’t (@noahkravitz). Kravitz said he had the company’s blessing until they changed their mind after Kravitz began promoting PhoneDog competitor TechnoBuffalo.

As a result, his former employer is suing for $2.50/month per Twitter follower or $340,000 over eight months. PhoneDog says in its complaint that this amount is in line with industry standards but it is unclear which standards they are using.

Kravitz contends that a simple $2.50 multiple per follower per month is not a great way to value a Twitter account. Moreover, he argues the account itself has no value but it is the efforts related to posting tweets and the individual interest in following him which assigns the value. Moreover he says factors like the number of followers, number of tweets, content of the tweets and person publishing the tweets would factor into determining account value.

And this gets us to a new revenue model for Twitter – it seems to me that the company should be able to charge companies for accounts which they control but allow others to access under an umbrella account. This sems like a way to reduce void such problems in the future but it is really as much of an issue of policy as it is control.

Don Reisenger sums up the situation well in his post where he says:

Perhaps it’s best for companies to control their branding before trouble strikes. Rather than allowing employees to use a firm name, companies should forbid the practice. That way, if an employee leaves, the firm doesn’t have to worry about a Twitter changing of the guard.

As social networking permeates corporations expect these sorts of challenges to continue until the courts help determine who owns what. In the meantime there is a big opportunity for social networking companies and startups to help solve these problems in advance with technology.

A few other points worth noting - Kravitz has increased his following from 17,000 at the time of the complaint to 22,000 today and his most recent tweet of 21 minutes ago is telling:

Your "brand", personal or corporate, is very important in the Social Media Age. Embrace contracts, don't fear them. Get it in writing!

Will Microsoft Departure Kill CES?

2011-12-22T20:12:48Z

Can one major defector kill a trade show institution?

It happened with COMDEX – the show got so big that it exerted tremendous pressure on companies to spend more and more money to keep their coveted locations on the show floor. Location – being in the North Hall of Las Vegas was so important in fact that companies acquired others so they could improve their location! And as the desire to be in an important location increased, show organizers decided to increase the sizes of the booths exhibitors had to take in order to remain in important halls. They even had an auction process pitting companies against each other to see who would bid the most for important spots.

And this adversarial relationship resulted in increased pressure in the relationship between the largest US trade show and its partners/exhibitors. As soon as a few big names pulled out, the show more or less imploded.

But poof, just like that it was over. And too bad... I personally had a great relationship with Bill Sell on the management team and as in the nineties when I got my start in publishing, COMDEX was good enough to work with TMC and include us at the event.

Want to know how important the show was? One year a company from Asia came to us and offered us I believe $7,000 in cash to be able to have a table in our booth.

And now that Microsoft has announced it is pulling out of CES, some are wondering if the same thing will happen to this show. The answer is that the show organizers will now be under a lot of pressure from other major sponsors to get more for their dollar. Items requested will likely be more speaking slots, low-priced sponsorships and other sweeteners to keep one major vendor defection from turning into 3, 5, 7, 15, 50.

Yes it is true that the momentum of CES is tough to kill but the big names are a major reason many attendees go to this show and if they are gone then there will be an associated traffic decrease which will mean the remaining players may take smaller booths which will translate into the sense the show is losing traction.

What probably happened in my opinion is CES was under pressure to give less exposure to Microsoft from some of the other players who were vying for the same sponsorships, speaking slots, etc. Microsoft most likely didn’t take too kindly to not being treated as if they were the most important player at the show – they spend a fortune there and the relationship headed south.

Apple pulled out of Macworld the story goes it did so in order for it to have more control over its destiny and Microsoft is making a similar argument. The difference is of course that Apple had retail stores which allowed it to have direct connections with its customers. Microsoft can use virtual communications such as social networks to approximate the same end-user relationship but it isn’t the same.

From my perspective however with the advent of IT becoming consumerized, now is not a good time to leave the Consumer Electronics show. Moreover, with Apple rumored to have a new TV next year which approximates much of what the Xbox Kinect does today, do you want to have a void at this event where most of the media and forward-looking tech enthusiasts will and want to be?

Microsoft for its part can always reverse course – we’ll have to see if they begin to miss CES or if the CE Association makes them an offer (including an apology) they can’t refuse.