Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
CTO
| VoIP & Gadgets blog - Latest news in VoIP & gadgets, wireless, mobile phones, reviews, & opinions

Social Networking

Facebook Livestream Users >40,000 users for Skype & Project Spartan (HTML5) News

July 6, 2011

Facebook Launching HTML5 Skype App?

July 6, 2011


I've griped for awhile about the lack of VoIP or video calling within Facebook and even pointed out some 3rd party Facebook VoIP "kludges", but none truly gained much traction. Well, tomorrowtoday, Facebook will be making two huge announcements. The first is that according to various sources, Facebook will be announcing  browser-based Skype video calling. The second is that Facebook will be announcing the release of Project Spartan, which is the codename for a an entirely HTML5-based platform, with the specific goal of reaching mobile users and in particular mobile Safari on the iPhone and iPad platforms.

Social ENUM Platform Enables Facebook & Twitter Phone Calls

June 27, 2011


ENUM resolves phone numbers into a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or IP addresses. It's basically "DNS" for phone numbers, mapping a person's phone number to the person's IP address on the network for routing the call over IP over a carrier's network. ENUM offered the promise of a single point of contact for all communication devices, that has largely been unfulfilled. Now, with the exponential rise of social media networks, people are starting to self-identify themselves with their Facebook username or Twitter account ID more than their phone number.

Facebook and Google Eye Skype

May 4, 2011



I recently griped about the lack of native VoIP on the popular Facebook website. It's such an obvious lacking feature, that one has to go "hmmm... Why don't they have VoIP?" Surely, they must be secretly developing VoIP. Well, what if Facebook has been in secret negotiations to leverage Skype as the primary VoIP vehicle on the Facebook platform?

Facebook VoIP?

March 18, 2011

VoIP on Facebook hasn't gotten much attention, partly because Facebook doesn't natively support it. Sure there are paid third-party apps like the $1.99 Facebook Messenger app for the iPhone (renamed to Fone). However, it's only for the iPhone and doesn't work on PCs. Facebook has become the central place to interact with friends and family, share photos, IM, post comments, so why hasn't Facebook added VoIP support?

Yes Facebook lets you communicate via IM, but why not VoIP? Facebook leverages XMPP (Jingle) for chat, as does Google Talk for both IM and VoIP.

Hoot.me Wins SMS Voting Contest at StartupCamp3 at ITEXPO

February 9, 2011

I was at ITEXPO East in Miami and got to see some cool companies demoing their products on stage in front of hundreds of people. At the end we got to vote using our cell phones and SMS. Competition was tight, but in the end Hoot.me pulled out the win with their tutoring/study application that directly integrates with Facebook. You can invite friends to work on calculus problems for instance - including calculus symbols like the differential and integral signs.

TELTUB + Google Voice = $5 Unlimited Calling to U.S. & Canada

January 17, 2011

TELTUB is offering unlimited free calling to the U.S. and Canada for $5/month. Their gHome product takes a user's Google Voice account and converts it into a SIP-based VoIP service which can then be used as a cheap home phone-line using a SIP analog telephony adaptor (ATA) and your broadband connection. Users can use their own standard VoIP adaptor or order a pre-configured one from TELTUB.

Disqus Down

January 7, 2011

Tried to post a comment on a TMC blog but it appears Disqus is down. In the field where I would type my comment was the Disqus logo. I then tried to moderate a comment from the Dashboard and got this:


By the way, "Sorry, we're undergoing temporarily maintenance." isn't proper grammar. Should be 'temporary maintenance".


Social Networking 2.0 Brings Businesses Into the Fold

January 5, 2011

Social networking exploded in 2010 resulting in Facebook social networking traffic surpassing Google search traffic. What's the main difference between Facebook traffic and Google traffic? Facebook is about sharing content with groups - family, friends, and co-workers, while Google is a solo affair with individuals reading interesting stories and finding out information. People naturally want to build associations and connections with other people, which is why social networking has exploded.

ProtoSphere 3D Virtual World Combines Microsoft Lync, VoIP, Collaboration, & Social Media

December 20, 2010


ProtonMedia's ProtoSphere combines Microsoft Lync, VoIP, collaboration, & social media features to bring a 3D virtual world to life, enabling the enterprise to more easily interact and collaborate. One of their competitors is Avaya's (formerly Nortel's) Web Alive, which I wrote about back in 2008. Both products feature a 3D virtual world targeting the enterprise. Think Second Life virtual world meets business world.

I interviewed Ron Burns, CEO of ProtonMedia to learn more about their fascinating solution.

Tom: Talk a bit about what your solution does.

Ron: In our 3D environment you're in the room and you're moving the data around with other people.






Featured Videos
Featured Events