Dialogic's Video Marketing Manager Martyn Davies recently sat down for an interview with TMC's Marisa Torrieri. She started off by asking him for some idea of the scope of mobile video.

"It's a huge area," Davies said, "covering handset functionality, network capability and over-the-top services." As he explained, in handsets, "you often have the ability to play and record and store video," especially on high-end phones like Nokia and Apple, and sometimes edit video. In 3G networks you have the ability to do video calling, that is, "connecting a video call between two handsets, or handset to a video gateway."  

Davies said over-the-top services is where a video stream is sent from some kind of video server over an IP transport, and gets displayed on the handset, normally in a browser using something like Flash or Real Player: "We call that over-the-top because the video data arrives via 3G data or Wi-Fi, and it's outside control of the operator."

Sometimes the operators provide their own over-the-top services, like TV channels, and in the jargon they call this "on-deck," meaning that the service is within the operator's own network and platform.
 
Torrieri observed that in that case, video applies to standard feature phones as well as smartphones.

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A recent survey of call center supervisors and managers by UK analyst firm ContactBabel had participants rate "the most important and effective ways to improve the customer service levels their call center agents provide."

Would it totally shock you to learn that call recording and call monitoring came in at #1 and #2? We didn't think so.

Call center supervisors said the ability to record calls is "their most effective tool in improving customer service." Call recording "gets more sophisticated every day," the study noted, adding that there are more features and functionality the call center technology offers its supervisors, such as the ability to record calls based on varying criteria, so "the more efficient resolving customer issues becomes."

When supervisors are able to track agents' calls by varying criteria, the study found, their ability to review and enhance agent-customer interactions "improves multifold." Likewise, training sessions become "more effective because the interactions used are real-world examples captured by the call center application."

Even compliance standards and regulations improve, because calls can be archived and retrieved more efficiently: "All these improvements combined with agile training methods have a direct effect on key call center metrics such as AHT, ASA, and first-call resolutions."

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FTC attorneys in Chicago recently got a federal court order to shut down robocaller SBN Peripherals, based near Los Angeles, for allegedly "making over 370 million calls to consumers nationwide in the last year alone."

Philly.com wrote that "one phone service provider told the FTC that on a single day in April 2009, SBN sent 2.4 million calls to consumers -- more than 27 calls per second."

That's some serious robocalling, folks, and it's an eloquent argument for why it happens so much - it's that profitable. The FTC has tightened its rules against robocalls in recent months.

Yes, robocalling is illegal. TulsaWorld recently reported that two companies from Texas and Washington state "were recently forced out of business" for robocalling:

"At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington on May 10 granted an order temporarily barring their alleged conduct, and the FTC served the temporary restraining order May 11."

Read more here.

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Media companies around the world are seeking ways to increase their journalists' reach and productivity, according to officials of Evoca, a voice-to-web recording service.

As a former newspaperman, this reporter can recommend paying more attention to reporters' expense claim sheets, specifically "laundry" expenses.

Evoca officials say their tool is one way for media companies to extract more productivity out of their ink-stained wretches. "Both professional and citizen journalists use Evoca to record and podcast interviews with newsmakers in the political, financial, environmental, entertainment, travel, domestic and international security, and other dynamic sectors," they say.

They also can instantly tweet the entire interview recording, or use audio clips for radio programs, voice-overs in videos, and audio highlights embedded in online articles.

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Recently Monitor 24/7's Riaz Mohammed agreed to an interview with TMCnet, to discuss Internet access -- including broadband stimulus initiatives as well as mobile devices and technologies. He also spoke about how the rise of smartphones, 4G wireless technologies and other trends in mobility is affecting demand for his company's services.

"Mobility has had impacted service management services from both sides - the user requesting service and the resource delivering the service," he said. "Mobility has increased end user demand; the work clock no longer stops at 5:00 PM. With mobility, users can be productive at all times."

In addition, Mohammed says, there are "complex underlying technologies that allow end users to be productive 24x7 - e-mail, multiple micro-browser based applications, real-time reporting solutions delivering content to mobile devices and others. This has ultimately increased the demand from IT."

Read more here.