How about the keynotes, which, as heard though the grapevine on many occasions, were an impressive, yet cohesive collection of industry thought leaders, each considering how customer expectations and customer experience are shaping the market. Sonus CEO Ray Dolan, Siemens Enterprise CMO Chris Hummel, and ShoreTel CEO Peter Blackmore were even more closely aligned in their conviction that these factors have driven Unified Communications to an inflection point, where UC is no longer a nice-to-have addition to your business communications capabilities, but a must-have in an age of accelerating communications.


(Rich Tehrani introduces the opening keynotes)

One of the most exciting new elements was the M2M Evolution Battle of the Platforms, which featured demos from a number of innovative vendors looking to capitalize on the automation movement. The overall winner was Digi International, which has embedded its software with most of the sensor processor companies. “All of the platforms are indicative of the way the M2M industry is growing and matching to specific ,” explained Crossfire Media’s Carl Ford. “Many of the winners referenced partnerships with other companies, and what everyone had in common was a commitment to supporting their customers’ needs.”  (I should point out a great article by Tony Rizzo, who spoke with ThingWorx, one of the companies that has partnered with Digi: You Aren't a Real M2M PLayer if You Don't Know ThingWorx.

Speaking of winners, one of my favorite activities during ITEXPO is the collaboration among TMC’s editorial team around Best of Show candidates. As always, the competition is strong, with vendor after vendor making a strong case for its products. This year in Austin was no different, with the focus (see my comments on the keynotes above) being an enhanced and more efficient customer experience. I’m pleased to recognize out latest group of ITEXPO Best of Show winners, and look forward to yet another evening of exciting debate with our team in Miami (www.itexpo.com).  

• Best Enterprise Solution: ShoreTel's 13 Unified Communications and Sonus' Harmony Session Manager
• Best Service Provider Solution: Commetrex Corporation's Smart FoIP and UNSi's Same IP Failover (SIF)
• Best SMB Solution: AVer Information's HVC310 Video Conferencing and Fonality's Web Client
• Best Cloud Solution: DoubleHorn Communications' Integrated Applications and Processes Platform (iAPP) and Nuvio's NuvioIQ
• Best Mobile/Wireless Solution: Bottom Line Solutions' Mobility Marketplace and Matrix ComSec's SETU VGFX
• Best Contact Center Solution: HoldFree Networks' Q-Free
• Best Development Tool: Evangelyze Communications' SmartSuite UC Application Platform and Inventive Labs' Voice Elements Platform
• Most Innovative Solution: Conexiant's MultiAlert E911 and Vitelity's MyScribbit
• Best On-site Launch: AudioCodes' 420HD IP Phone for Microsoft Lync and Entreda's Unify

Each of these companies deserves credit for bringing a new level of product innovation and expertise to market, but, I want to focus for a moment on one winner, in particular, which I believe is on to something big.

We’ve all seen the success of online shopping – nearly every research firm has offered predictions as to how rapidly the e-commerce market will grow in the next three or four years.  Emarketer, for instance, says that, by 2015, 90 percent of consumers will be doing some portion of their shopping online. Already today, two of my five neighbors do their grocery shopping online. The drivers, of course, are that online shopping is faster, easier, more efficient, provides access to more products, allows for easier price and product comparisons (including between different retailers), and can often more cost effective.

So why shouldn’t IT departments have an easy online shopping experience for their corporate technology needs?

DoubleHorn Communications believes they should, which is what it is looking to bring to the market with its iAPP cloud services marketplace, which currently boasts Rackspace, Amazon Web Services, and Acme Packet, among others. The idea is that businesses should have easy access to communications services, allowing them to quickly adapt to changing needs, without having to go through lengthy acquisition processes. The idea, according to CEO Tab Schadt, is to ensure businesses have access to the best solutions with proven interoperability – he says a key requirement of inclusion will be proven interop with other vendors.

By the end of the year, Shadt says he expects v2 to be released, which will include a Service Sherpa that uses a set of sophisticated algorithms to determine what products or components businesses will need based on the criteria they enter.

The idea that business communications can be purchased and provisioned as easily as you can buy a new iPad has the potential to disrupt the sales models for many communications vendors, especially once the services element is added to the equation.

I look forward to seeing many more great new products and soltuions in Miami, January 29-February 1, 2013.

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Syspine's ITEXPO VoIP Offer: Buy One, Get Two Free, including Microsoft Response Point - Feb 01, 2009

ITEXPO - It's On! - Feb 02, 2009

Broadvox and Ingate: SIP is Here to Stay - Feb 01, 2011

It was quite the week, thanks to Mother Nature, who decided to knock out power in the Minneapolis hotel, and then returned Thursday evening with a band of storms stretching from Massachusetts to Texas, shutting down LaGuardia airport in the process. 

Those distractions aside, the seminar series, which began the previous week in Dallas, has served as an eye opener to more than a few businesses in each city, thanks to some eye-opening statistics regarding SIP adoption and both hard and soft benefits that can be enjoyed.  The greatest “A-ha moment” was during a discussion of just how much time employees waste on administrative tasks every day – finding and reaching the right people, scheduling, dealing with redundant or unnecessary communications, etc. – and how much of that time SIP-based UC can recover.

Naturally, in order to enjoy maximum benefits of any technology, you have to deploy it properly, which, in the case of SIP, may mean including a session border controller at the enterprise network edge to help mediate between the different flavors of SIP and manage traffic, including prioritization and security.  After all, despite being an internationally recognized standard, every vendor puts a proprietary spin on SIP, creating an inherent difficulty in making a connection between two SIP endpoints. 

If your business hasn’t yet developed a migration strategy for moving from your legacy communications system to SIP-based UC, the next two sessions in Boston (tomorrow, July 31) and New York (Thursday, August 2) are your next opportunities to not only understand why SIP has become the de facto protocol for enterprise UC, but also why you can’t afford to wait. 

The simple explanation is this:  The market, including your customers and your competitors, are going IP.  If you don’t want to be left behind, you will do the same. 

Join Sonus, Arrow S3, and Level 3 – along with TMC senior editor Peter Bernstein – to see the proof in the pudding.

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Innovation on Display: ITEXPO Austin - Oct 12, 2012

Syspine's ITEXPO VoIP Offer: Buy One, Get Two Free, including Microsoft Response Point - Feb 01, 2009

Broadvox and Ingate: SIP is Here to Stay - Feb 01, 2011

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Every time I saw it, I confirmed my decision to wait for the thunder to come in order to trade in my BlackBerry, rather than escaping early on the ferry to Steve Jobs’ iLand. It’s a decision I would take again.

But, what I also wondered as I watched the two top American wireless carriers boast about their new networks, was are they neglecting what may well turn into a key customer segment for them – the Baby Boomers?

We dedicate a tremendous amount of editorial real estate to interactions with customers once they have purchased products and how to retain them. Yet, we sometimes neglect the fact that, in order to offer quality customer service and care, we must first acquire customers. There is customer relationship development to be done before any CRM can happen.

Which brings me back to the Baby Boomers. Those of us in the tech world know LTE, 4G, WiFi, Droid, App, and all the other terms and acronyms that go along with today’s mobile services. But unless you follow the space to some degree, you’re not going to know what they are.

So, when I saw this Saturday Night Live skit poking fun at Verizon, I thought back to the first 4G commercials. How can you sell a product when your buyer doesn’t know what it is? How do you build a relationship and turn a prospect into a buyer when he doesn’t know what you are selling or how it will help him? Here’s the SNL skit: http://tmcnet.com/59101.1.

Yes, more smartphones and tablets are being purchased by younger generations, and to a large degree, they are much more in tune with the latest tech trends and language than their parents. Which is precisely why mobile operators must focus on those parents, making sure they understand what the latest technologies mean to them. They already see what their kids are doing with their Motorola RAZRs, the younger, more exciting siblings to the originals many parents are still using. But they don’t have use cases to which they can relate.

So, operators have to find those use cases and approach this market segment with them. It might be about keeping in touch; or it might be about playing a role in their kids’ education; or it might be about following local sports organizations; or it might be about avoiding long lines and creating the best possible amusement park experience.

It could be just about anything – but they have to be depicted as simple, personal, logical use cases, not as chilling acronyms and eye-glazing tech lingo.

The fact is, at some point – the sooner the better, so operators can reduce spending – we’re operators will seek to shut down legacy networks completely. But, not until the strong majority of legacy subscribers have voluntarily migrated to newer technologies. Anything else would be damaging. In order for that to happen – before operators can shut down their legacy networks – they will have to convince Baby Boomers they want to be on LTE networks.

But, they can’t do it by creating an “old person’s nightmare,” as SNL referred to the scenario. Rather, they need to understand that in a BYOD world, where devices, services, and applications are all very personal, so, too, must be customer relationship building, retention, and acquisition efforts.

The theory extends to all businesses. By building the right pre-sale scenarios, providing the appropriate education, and setting the appropriate expectations, customer relationships begin at a much higher level and, even when challenges arise, they will be more likely to be tolerant as they are overcome. Furthermore, beginning the relationship building process in advance of the actual sale is likely to have a positive impact on overall revenue.

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Got In-flight WiFi? Hipmunk Knows - Jun 29, 2011

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For those of you not in New York – or Cheesehead country – why not host your Super Bowl party outside on the deck or patio? You don’t have a TV there? SunBrite TV has the answer. I sat downwith Tom Dixon, SunBrite’s vice president of marketing at CES to talk about something all sports fans and any other entertainment enthusiasts should want – outdoor TVs.  

According to Dixon, SunBrite is the only company in the world that builds, designs and assembles TVs specifically designed for permanent outdoor use. “Others refabricate their indoor TVs by adding an outdoor shell,” he says.

The problem with that is they aren’t entirely resistant to the elements. SunBrite’s units are designed to stay outdoors, rain or shine, without any negative impact. In fact, Dixon claims SunBrite units have been kept outdoors in Florida conditions for five to six years, remaining in perfect working condition.

Most of what the market has seen in the way of outdoor TVs has come in commercial deployment scenarios – Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, installed SunBrite’s Signature Series in its common areas. But Dixon says there is a trend now where homeowners are looking to invest more in their homes, which often is reflected in upgrading their outdoor living spaces, such as installing outdoor kitchens. Outdoor TVs are a compelling and complementary product for enhancing the outdoor living experience.

The Signature Series currently boasts a respectable 46-inch diagonal model, but the company plans to introduce a full line ranging from 32- to 55-inch models, and eventually a plus-60-inch model that promises to be the world’s largest outdoor TV.

The units include an internal cooling system that protects them from overheating in warm climates, and the Signature line has been tested to -20 degrees Fahrenheit (as long as they remain plugged in to provide a minimal current to prevent damage). The Pro series includes a heating element and has been tested to -45 degrees. The cabling system is housed a rubber-sealed compartment that is UV and salt resistant, ensuring the wiring is also protected in all conditions.  In fact, Dixon says marine deployments are becoming increasingly popular.

While the picture quality is comparable to today’s indoor TV sets, naturally, you’re going to pay for the environmental protection that will allow the units to remain outdoors. The 46-inch sells for $2,995. So no, it’s not your standard Samsung or Toshiba TV that you’ll mount on your living room wall. But, for anyone who wants to exponentially add to their outdoor living environment, it’s a very reasonable price point.

So, fire up the grill, fill up your coolers, and have a Super Bowl tailgate right on your own deck without missing a single snap.

For all of TMCnet’s CES coverage, visit our CES News page.

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Maybe you’ve even installed a VoIP system to help reduce budgets.  Maybe you haven’t.

Either way, there’s a good chance your phone system, be it IP- or TDM-based, isn’t allowing you to remain as competitive as you would like.  You don’t have the collaboration capabilities you need; or you aren’t able to support the needs of your mobile workers, who increasingly find themselves on the road more than in the office; or you haven’t found a way to bring video into your workplace effectively; or you haven’t been able to make use of all your communications devices; or you don’t know how to integrate social media into your infrastructure.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.  While we in the media have been talking about these and other capabilities that fall under the broad Unified Communications umbrella for years now, and there are quite a few businesses that have successfully incorporated these features in their daily operations.  But, the fact is that making the right decision isn’t as easy as it might seem and the majority of businesses have yet to make the jump.  There are countless alternatives to choose from and an awful lot rides on making the right decision, which means many execs are out there scratching their heads, asking questions, like: 

• What exactly is Unified Communications?
• What UC functions are most important?
• What are the different UC deployment options?
• Can we use our existing equipment?
• What is required for UC operation?
• What is the timing for a UC installation?
•  And of course, how quickly can we achieve ROI?

There are countless options out there in terms of vendors, each with its own strengths – and drawbacks.  The challenge business executives are faced with is how to cut through the marketing language and colloquialisms and get to the heart of the matter, which is understanding what they really need in a UC solution.

Once they’ve accomplished that, they can move to the next phase, including narrowing down the potential suitors to find the vendor most suitable for their operational and fiscal needs.

Along with Marty Parker, from UniComm Consulting and UCStrategies, and TMC’s Peter Bernstein, who has more than 30 years of telecom industry experience under his belt, I’ll be hosting a vendor-neutral UC Webinar tomorrow, Wednesday, November 30, that will help businesses answer their questions and understand just what it is they should be looking for in a Unified Communications system.

We’ll not only look at different deployment and platform options, but also many of the popular UC applications, to help business managers get to the next phase of the UC decision making process.

Register for "Five Questions to Ask Before Making Your Unified Communications Choice" today.

Incidentally, Marty, Peter, and I will be joined by IntelliCom Analytics’ Frank Stinson on Thursday, December 15 at 2:00pm ET for the second in this series of UC Webinars, Choosing the Right Unified Communications Vendor.

I look forward to hosting you for both events, and to helping your business navigate the murky waters of the Unified Communications selection process.

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Innovation on Display: ITEXPO Austin - Oct 12, 2012

Why You Should be Paying Attention to Unified Communications - Jul 30, 2012

Syspine's ITEXPO VoIP Offer: Buy One, Get Two Free, including Microsoft Response Point - Feb 01, 2009

Broadvox and Ingate: SIP is Here to Stay - Feb 01, 2011

Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

When it was first introduced, the iPad was predicted by many to become a laptop replacement.  While many use their iPads and other tablets in lieu of their laptops in many situations, the prophecy was far from accurate.

Think about it:  As you head off for the office each morning, how many devices do you bring with you that will soon connect to your corporate WiFi network?  Very likely at least two, if not more.  You have your tablet along with your iPhone or Android or other WiFi-enabled smartphone, and you likely have a laptop either with you or waiting for you at the office.  And depending on your corporate policies, you may even have separate business and personal smartphones.

Instead of replacing existing technology, the mobile explosion has, instead, brought supplemental devices into corporate WiFi environments, with users looking to have the most convenient devices for every situation.

It’s not a bad situation, since it allows users to be more proactive and efficient in their activities, ultimately leading to increased revenue.

But, for IT managers, the onslaught of WiFi-enables devices can be a headache, as they now have to deal with a multitude of devices – different platforms, different brands, some corporate owned and some personal. 

From managing authentication and permissions, to installing and updating applications and corporate resources, to deploying appropriate security measures, to simply ensuring proper design and deployment of WiFi networks, IT staff can have their hands full in today’s mobile mayhem.

The number of WiFi devices in corporate environments is only going to grow – in addition to an iPad, you’ll start seeing more and more Android tablets, perhaps some BlackBerry Playbooks, even some Amazon Kindle Fires – and who knows what else.  And let’s not forget the imminent launch of the iPhone 5, which is sure to bring new users to with wonderful world of WiFi.

Knowing this, IT staff and managers would be wise to have a firm handle on how to effectively manage this influx of WiFi devices and the ensuing traffic they will bring to corporate WiFi networks.

To get started, I invite anyone who has a role to play in deploying or managing WiFi networks to join me for a Webinar designed specifically to address the BYO wireless device party we’re all a part of.  I’ll be joined by Keyur Shah from Aruba Networks, which specializes in enterprise wireless infrastructures, and Keith Broadbent from Carousel Industries, a technology consultant and integrator experienced in helping businesses assess and deploy the right technology for their needs.

I look forward to seeing you for the event, Tuesday, October 4, at 2pm EST.  Register here. (If you’re not able to make the live event, be sure to register for the archived version.)

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Got In-flight WiFi? Hipmunk Knows - Jun 29, 2011

Sports Illustrated iPad Version a Winner (Finally) - May 20, 2011

To Read or Not to Read (on Your iPad) - May 04, 2011

Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

In fact, Ruest, who spent two years on a 50-city tour talking about virtualization, defines cloud as a combination of seven virtualization technologies:

1. Server virtualization
2. Storage virtualization
3. Network virtualization
4. Management virtualization
5. Desktop virtualization
6. Application virtualization
7. User state virtualization

Today, while many IT managers are still trying to understand how to effectively bring virtualization and cloud technologies into their businesses, one of the big changes is that they are now available to businesses of all sizes.  Not unlike other groundbreaking IT and communications technologies, virtualization was once available to only large businesses with IT departments capable of handling installation, configuration, and management of complex virtual environments.

But today, even small businesses have access to “cloud in a box” technology, which includes everything a business needs to implement private cloud infrastructures, eliminating most of the deployment challenges that have traditionally kept virtualization beyond their capabilities.

A private cloud in a box should include (at a minimum), all the components to create a private cloud with redundant nodes with automatic failover, should one node fail.  Once the server pod is installed on the network, businesses are ready to virtualize, with a few simple configuration steps – but without the need to understand the complex tools and architectures that create the private cloud.

With such cloud in a box solutions, virtualization and private cloud is being delivered to any business looking to simplify its IT infrastructure and create new business efficiencies, without requiring IT staff to understand how to deploy and manage all the elements of a cloud infrastructure, including remote storage, hardware clustering, host server configuration, and more.

“There is real value in virtualizing,” says Ruest, “but you need a paradigm shift, where IT must adopt the mentality that resources are shared across all applications and all hardware must become a single resource pool.”

For more information on the It’s Your Cloud series and additional resources on implementing private cloud technologies in your IT infrastructure, or to track the latest developments in private cloud computing, follow @IYCloud on Twitter. Upcoming dates include Denver, October 4^th and Chicago, October 5^th.

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Depending on your business, you could easily have answered yes to any of these, or a number of other buzzwords that top headlines today.  If your business is located in Silicon Valley, however you answered the question, TMC wants to know.

As part of our ongoing mission to bring our readers the latest tech news and information, and to highlight the companies that are driving innovation in the tech world, our team will be at the San Jose Marriott, July 18-20, hoping to talk tech with as many of you as we can possibly fit into 30 hours spread across the three days. 

Many key members of our editorial team – including CEO Rich Tehrani, executive editor of our IP Communications publications Paula Bernier, and Carl Ford – will be on hand to talk about the latest trends driving the market and how they are impacting your business, and film video interviews (check out one of the many videos we filmed at last year’s San Jose event below).

A typical experience will include a 30-minute briefing with TMC’s editors and executives, a video interview that will be posted on TMCnet (you will also be able to leverage the video content on your own websites, of course), food and beverage while networking with other industry executives, and getting industry perspective from the TMC team.

We still have a few openings available on all three days.  For more information and to schedule your meeting time, please contact Jaime Hernaez from our customer service team (203-852-6800 x217 or jhernaez@tmcnet.com).

We want to hear what you have to say – so do our readers.  Come tell them next week in San Jose.  I hope to see you there!

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Interactive Intelligence's Enterprise Cloud Comms Panel at ITEXPO - Feb 01, 2011

Innovation on Display: ITEXPO Austin - Oct 12, 2012

Got In-flight WiFi? Hipmunk Knows - Jun 29, 2011

Need an Education in Video? Business Video Expo West 2011 is Your Experience - May 03, 2011

Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

It’s a great feature, especially for kids, who can easily see what’s on, move the cursor to their progam of choice, and push SELECT to go to the channel (audio changes as the cursor is moved from block to block in the 3x3 grid set up to make optimal use of the screen’s real estate).

The drawback is it wasn’t customizable.  There are typically more than nine news programs showing, and often more than nine sporting events, making the feature a little less effective than it could have been.  It wasn’t as much of an issue with kids, as all their favorite channels were available in Quick View.

Cablevision has now upgraded Quick View, adding customization of channels and the ability to create Quick Views for different family members or different themes.  It’s fairly intuitive to set up – you can set up a Quick View for your kids, one for each family member’s favorite channels, sports, news, movies, and basically any category you choose to create.

The different Quick Views can be easily accessed though one portal (channel) – the same screen that includes all the customization features.  Now, users can easily see what’s playing on their nine favorite channels in any category.  This can be quite useful, eliminating the need to move to each channel individually to see what’s currently being shown – or having to scroll through the programming guide, which, considering the number of available channels, can be a cumbersome chore.

Cablevision has certainly tried to create an easy way to personalize viewers’ experiences – a must considering the alternative options for video content delivery, including several online sources that continue to increase in popularity.

But, it’s not a feature I will be using much, at least not until they make Quick View an enjoyable experience.  Yes, the features provide the customization users expect today.  But, both access and setup are painfully slow – at last check, it took more than a minute for the Quick View screen to load.  By that time, users can easily surf through all their favorites.  And setting up multiple Quick Views took more time than any human being should have to tolerate.  I set up one for my kids – they loved the original iO TV Quick View (which is still available through the Quick View menu, but with only one set up, the service bypasses the menu and goes directly to the one customized view I’ve set up for them).

“Some Quick View this is,” I mumbled under my breath – or so I thought.  My children followed with, “They should call it slow view,” and “No, they should call it ‘Takes a million years to load view.”

You’ve done something wrongwhen kids complain about their user experience.  Great concept, but it needs some serious work, Cablevision.

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That said, as nice as it sounds, I don’t know if the concept of WiFi-everywhere is a true necessity – a convenience, perhaps, for people who are in a never ending contest to gather more Facebook friends and Twitter followers than everyone they know. 

Still, there are certain places where WiFi availability is much more than a convenience, allowing users to conduct business away from their desks and offices.  In fact, in some instances – like airplanes – the lack of WiFi on flights has become the polar opposite of convenience.  Travelers are stuck in an oversized sardine can and presented with several hours with which to be productive.  But alas, no WiFi.

For the mileage whores out there – those who stick to the one or two airlines with which they have accumulated massive points or miles – there is little recourse, though they do gain the benefits of flight awards and elite status.  But, for those who are more flexible with their choice of airlines, there’s an easy way to choose you airlines, thanks to Hipmunk. 

Looking past the goggle-wearing rodent mascot that first catches your eye, Hipmunk provides a simple interface for checking which airlines offer WiFi-enabled flights, based on your departure and arrival airports and dates (the previously mentioned mile mongers can even select their preferred airline to see which flights will have WiFi).

Search results can be sorted by a variety of factors: price, duration, departure/arrival time, non-stops only.  The default sort value is Agony, a combination of price, duration, and number of stops. (click on the image to enlarge)

Users can select each leg of their trips, then are presented with a summary of the selected flights and one-click access to the selected airline’s website for purchasing tickets – yes, the selected itinerary has already been selected.

While in-flight WiFi may not be a necessity for everyone, there’s a good chance anyone who has experienced it will be shelling out to Gogo repeatedly.  And for those travelers, Hipmunk offers a convenient mechanism for choosing flights that will allow them to stay in touch and remain productive, whether via email or Facebook.

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Where are your customers? In two places whose parallel growth is no coincidence – mobile devices and social media.

A very recent show of power by social media comes from the Great White North, where rabid hickey fans anxiously – and in futility – anticipated a Stanley Cup title from the Vancouver Canucks. When the team was bested in seven games by the Boston Bruins, riots broke out across the city, creating significant damage and a mess to clean up.

When a new day dawned, a Facebook event calling for citizen action in helping the cleanup effort reportedly netted more than 11,000 followers, with more than 1,000 rallying to erase much of the evidence of the previous evening’s unfortunate devastation. The event organizer posted: ““Once the embarrassing rioting has ended in Vancouver, let’s all show the world what Vancouver is really about by helping rebuild and clean up so it is better than it was before.”

And throughout the day, many of them posted updates and posts via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites:

“Papa Glenn on way with garb bags and big van for garbage Let's clean up our beautiful city.”

“Just saw a 4-yr-old boy with a cast on one arm helping to clean. Now that’s what Vancouver is all about.”

“Getting word that everywhere is pretty close to clean. Let’s not leave anything. Let’s be able to eat food off the streets tonight!”

That the city was able to be cleaned so quickly is a testament to the pride and determination of the people of Vancouver. That the event was able to be coordinated to such scale within hours is a testament to the power of social media, which is why businesses can ill afford to ignore it.

Now, take that power and combine it with mobile advertising, which is steadily increasing and predicted to eclipse $26 billion by 2016 – equivalent to total online ad spend today – according to ABI Research. Among the most obvious channels for delivering mobile ads – and one that is already being leveraged by many smart businesses – is social media. Whether via Twitter or Facebook, customers are already receiving ads and offers directly, often directly to the mobile devices they use to access social media sites. Furthermore, in addition to direct access to customers by way of Likes, Friends, and Followers, there is the added benefit of pass-through advertising, when customers post those same ads and offers to their Facebook pages or retweet them.  Suddenly, you, too, can have access to 11,000 or more potential customers within a very short period of time.

Social media has become an almost unstoppable presence for a number of reasons – the same reason businesses must give it an ear – and a mouth.  It’s a binding phenomenon, often brining users with like interests together, ignorant of geography and technology. People engage in social media (just look at the numbers). It crosses the social barriers traditional advertising have often struggled to overcome, relying on interpersonal relationships to create links. It’s simple, quick, and cost-effective. It’s measurable – with the right technology businesses can easily determine the effectiveness of their social media efforts.

To learn from the experts in the field of social media and to find out how your business can leverage this vast resource in both inbound and outbound capacities, join us for three days of Social Media and Contact Center sessions at ITEXPO West in Austin, Texas, September 13-15, 2011. Our panelists, including representatives from Avaya, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Mzinga, Nuance, SugarCRM, and many others will discuss not only the strategies your business can implement for generating interest via social media, but also the technologies available to enable your customer service organization to react quickly to social media-based feedback and create customers for life. For more, visit www.itexpo.com.

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Innovation on Display: ITEXPO Austin - Oct 12, 2012

Got In-flight WiFi? Hipmunk Knows - Jun 29, 2011

Interactive Intelligence's Enterprise Cloud Comms Panel at ITEXPO - Feb 01, 2011

Need an Education in Video? Business Video Expo West 2011 is Your Experience - May 03, 2011

Broadvox and Ingate: SIP is Here to Stay - Feb 01, 2011

Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

Just got a new Verizon iPhone – the monthly plan is a ripoff. It should be illegal. (83 characters)

Called Cablevision about a bad STB – they had a tech out in 3 hours. Awesome service! (85 characters)

Twins had their first baseball game. Caught their first ABs on my BlackBerry. Terrible video quality. Should have gotten the Evo. (129 characters)

Dinner at SUSHISAMBA Miami Beach. Best meal I’ve had in a long time. El Topo roll is amazing! Can’t wait to go to the one in Vegas! (131 characters)

Whether positive or negative, one tweet can say a lot about customers’ experiences with products and services. Social media has transformed how we interact with our friends and families – as well as our colleagues in many cases. For the hundreds of millions of social media users, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social tools are a way of life, largely because they are able to easily communicate their thoughts to large groups of friends and followers in seconds, from wherever they are, thanks to the availability and ease of use of these services on mobile devices.

Most users don’t necessarily see their social media activities as a feedback mechanism for businesses – they are merely looking to share their experiences with their contacts. But, because of the inherent pack mentality that pervades human decision making, social media has the potential to be the most significant tool for influencing behavior we have experienced.

As such, every business must develop a social media strategy for discovering customer sentiment as it is spread through cyberspace – and for reacting, when appropriate, to develop appropriate action plans and leverage experiences to provide better overall service, especially where they see trends building.

The great thing about social media is it’s a two-way channel. When a business recognizes negative sentiment, it can engage customers directly to begin a resolution process. Likewise, when customers exhibit satisfaction, their experiences can be leveraged to determine more specifically what created their heightened level of satisfaction to deliver that same experience to others.

TMC’s Brendan Read recently interviewed Vinay Iyer, vice president, CRM Marketing at SAP, who noted that, “140 characters are not always enough to resolve a problem. The response – using the customers’ preferred channel – is only the first step towards the resolution of the problem. The solution might be achieved through various conversations with the customers, via phone, chat and appointments.”

Verizon could quickly contact its customer to ask if she would like to speak to an agent to see if there is a more cost effective plan that would accommodate her needs.

Cablevision could ask for more detail on the service call to help determine which of its crews might be used as training examples.

Sprint could respond to its subscriber with an offer to upgrade to a new device. Likewise, RIM might be able to suggest alternative BlackBerry devices that are more suitable for the user’s needs (before it loses more of its market share to Apple and Android).

SUSHISAMBA could offer a coupon to help ensure its Miami guest actually does visit its Las Vegas location. It can also use similar comments to determine which menu items to keep and which to replace.

The key, regardless of the nature of the business, is to develop social CRM strategies that include monitoring, analysis, and customer engagement – and the technology to implement those strategies and integrate them into their traditional CRM systems and activities. 

There are many factors that play into how businesses should introduce social media into their environments, including an understanding of customer behavior, knowing what tools are available for monitoring and analysis, integration into existing workflows, and best practices for building communities of customers and social media marketing.

All of these will be key topics of discussion at ITEXPO West in Austin, Texas, September 13-15, when the thought leaders in social media and social CRM convene to help business leaders understand the social media phenomenon and how they can put the consumer trend of providing instant feedback to work for their businesses. 

Find more information at www.itexpo.com, and make your plans now to turn your customers’ insatiable thirst for sharing experiences into a revenue generating opportunity.

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I actually downloaded the app some time ago, just to see what their iPad version looks like, but deleted it almost immediately when I found I had to pay for each issue.  I then went back to the App Store and read the countless comments ridiculing SI for its practice.

One has to imagine app usage was significantly lower than what SI was+ hoping for, and it has now switched to a free model for print subscribers – smart move.

It took a while for it to become available, but the SI app delivers a much friendlier, much more attractive experience than does ESPN.

Part of it is purely a function of the footprint of the print version – it fits nicely onto the iPad, whereas the oversized ESPN takes up several screens for each print page, which leaves an awful lot of white space in many articles and creates a very cold and unsatisfying experience.

SI provides friendly navigation controls at the bottom of the screen, allowing readers to quickly return to the cover, the table of contents, a scrolling end-to-end display of the issue, and even a link to SI’s online news and scores (though the MLB scoreboard didn’t seem to be working correctly).  ESPN’s navigation isn’t nearly as intuitive and takes a while to figure out – but it does offer a nice secondary scoreboard app, ScoreCenter.

SI has also added some interactive elements to its e-issues, again creating a more enjoyable experience.  On its Faces in the Crowd section, which highlights a selection of amateur athletes each issue, it allows readers to tap each athlete’s image, triggering the associated copy at the bottom of the page (see image below).


SI started off on the wrong foot, adopting an all-paid model initially, but now that it has stepped back from that approach, it has brought a rich, electronic experience to its subscribers – on that other publications would do well to emulate. 

Personally, I still prefer the feel of print, but having the electronic edition at least lets me go back and look at the images from UConn’s NCAA basketball championship run anywhere I am.  As much as I love gadgets and technology, this is one space where I’m still old fashioned, and perhaps will be until I am forced to change.  But, when I do, I know one publication that has done wonderful work with its electronic edition, which comes as close to the feel of print as any electronic document I’ve seen. 

Sports Illustrated: 1
ESPN: 0

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Enter HTML5.

The most talked about feature – thanks to Apple’s continued refusal to Flash enable the iPad and iPhone – is the ability to embed multimedia elements using tags. 

Anyone with an iDevice knows well the frustration that comes with not being able to properly view pages or play content due to a No Flashing policy.  HTML5 offers a way around this dilemma – and other iRestrictions – as Playboy has proven, building a Web app that allows users to subscribe to its full archive while circumventing the App Store.

While media playback and animation have drawn the most attention, but benefits of HTML5 go run deeper thanks to the flexibility it brings to Web apps and independence from plug-ins that require installation and updating, and are an excessive battery drain.

“Many people focus on the video and flashy graphic elements (or rather the lack of Flash) when they talk HTML5,” says TMCnet Web director Scott Bouchard.  “The real power behind HTML5 lies in the tools it will provide designers for building powerful Web-based applications.”

To provide an ongoing forum for discussing those applications as they materialize – and the technology behind them – Joe Mazzeo, founder of the Crossfire Group, has started a new HTML5 blog.

“This blog is dedicated to those seekers with a passion to actually read and learn about those technologies that will bring the future of the Web to fruition and radically alter our lives,” writes Mazzeo.

His readers will be those looking for answers to the many questions still surrounding HTML5.  How will HTML5 revolutionize user interfaces and enhance cloud-based services?  How will services be delivered using HTML 5?  What is the migration path to HTML 5 and what are its limitations?

Joe’s mission is to develop a continuing dialogue with the HTML5 community to answer these questions and more. 

If you are looking to become part of that dialogue, you should also block out July 27-28 on your schedule and book a trip to the Kimmel Center in New York, for DevCon5, the HTML5 developers conference.

Mazzeo predicts dramatic change for the application world as standards-based browsers and HTML5 mature, creating a new bar for Web developers everywhere.

“The shackles are about to come off and the Internet is going to enter a new era of dynamic interactivity the likes of which we’ve only experienced with custom made high-end software,” says Bouchard.  “It’s like the ultimate open source software.”

Follow the HTML5 blog for the latest information on the next generation of Web development tools, and register today for DevCon5 to make sure you don’t fall behind in what will be a rapidly and fundamentally changing space.

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Publicly, Sony appears to be handling the devastating attack on its network reasonably, working with Debix Inc. to offer one year of identity monitoring to its subscribers, vowing to locate the cyber criminals responsible – a group known as Anonymous – and promising to relaunch its network with the most sophisticated security protocols available to prevent a repeat incident.

This is all well and good, as these are all steps toward resolution we should expect.  The question is, does it matter, or has the damage been done and will Sony see its market share decline as a result?

While it’s reasonable to expect that new security measures will prove difficult to breach, consumer confidence, on the other hand, is a fragile commodity these days, and it’s not unreasonable to expect a significant number of Playstation owners trade in their hardware in favor of Microsoft’s Xbox platform. 

One factor that can help head off a major defection, of course, is the cost of the systems and games.  Considering a new system will cost a minimum of $200 for 4GB without Kinect, and around $400 for the 250GB version with Kinect, most owners are likely to think long and hard before switching over.  That’s not even factoring in the cost of replacing games, which run between $40 and $60 for popular titles.

New purchasers, on the other hand, who already will likely be drawn by the allure of Kinect, will likely find the Xbox a more appealing option due to a natural lack of faith in Sony’s ability to secure their personal data.  For those who haven’t experienced Kinect, it is a remarkable achievement, though one that takes a little getting used to.

What is even more likely, however, is that Sony, as well as Microsoft and Nintendo, will see a significant decline in software downloads, and game discs will fly off the shelves in much higher numbers, as consumers will be hesitant, at best, to return to downloadable games.

For Sony, which was on its way to eliminating disc-based games on its portable systems, hoping to drive downloadable games through its PSP go handheld, will have to reconsider that model.  I expect to see PSP go sales plummet.  At least with the Playstation 3 console, owners have the option to purchase game discs or download them – with the former seemingly becoming once again the more popular option, at least in the near term.

Ultimately, while Sony will suffer from the breach of its network, the bigger hit will be on the gaming industry as a whole.  Consumers won’t quickly forget this incident and will be reluctant to return very quickly to downloading games.  Looks like it’s time to increase production of game discs once again – I’m sure retail stores like Game Stop won’t object.  It does quite well selling used games – another factor that can well hurt the overall gaming industry.

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