April 25th, 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from the VoIP Digest written on April 25th, 2006.
Karl Jacob used to be a regular fixture at most Red Herring conferences and events. As a serial entrepreneur he started Dimension X and then later went on to found Keen.com, the company that became infamous for being the home of “psychics” and other 900-number crowd. (These days the company is called Ingenio.) Karl’s next act was as the CEO of email spam-killer Cloudmark.
And then he just vanished. I was quite surprised to hear from after these many years. He confessed he spent a lot of time on Kite-surfing or something equally hideous involving sweat and physical labor. The reason for his call - the very same reason most entrepreneurs call reporters - his new company. Its a social network whatshouldicallit spin-out from Microsoft Research called Wallop.
Jacob is one of the long list of Internet 1.0 guys to make a comeback to the Valley. Is that a sign of the times? Of a Boom or a Bubble? I don’t know. One thing, I do know - Wallop better be good, for the number of social networks are growing faster than the number of pimples on a teenager, and most if not all, have failed to so much as cause a dent in MySpace’s popularity.
The details are sketchy, and no details of funding either, except that Microsoft has a minority stake in the project, and Bay Partners’ Eric Chin led the investment. Jacob says it was a sandbox project at MR (which incidentally spends nearly $7 billion.)
Jacob says he worked with the big guys up North to turn this into a company. Jacobs added that it also addresses some of concerns regarding security and privacy in today’s social networks. “We are trying to bring the elements of off line (physical) interactions into online social networks,” Jacob says. Though he doesn’t elaborate. So at this point - well its just a dash of Wallop!
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Start-Ups and MySpace.
That sage advice is implied in a new InfoTech report entitled "Dual-Mode Cellular/VoWLAN Solutions: Enterprise Preferences and Plans."Vo, of course, stands for voice, WLAN for Wireless Local Area Network, and that is a cell phone on your hip, right?"Deliberate or not, we have a number of activities working together to stimulate enterprise demand for dual-mode [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and trends and WiFi.
Skype is selling ringtones via agreements with several leading music publishers, but Skype is not selling the actual songs themselves.Just heard from a Skype p.r. representative who clarified: "Skype is not selling full songs nor plans to be an online music store."Well OK then, because I have a far better idea that would involve Skype-owner [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and General and trends.
Another day, and another online video start-up. This one with a name that only the founder can love: Dave.TV. Unlike a series of me-too You Tube clones, this one is at least attempting to do something different. Dave.TV CEO and founder Rex Wong says his plan is to come up with AdSense for online video. Well, I have heard that story before, but Wong had sold his previous company, Applied Semantics to Google for $102 million, and claims that it was the foundation of what we today call as AdSense. So his big idea is something like this…
imagine if a computer could identify when somebody said “shampoo” or “burger” across millions of videos, and you could insert a text ad for Prell or Wendy’s along with a clickable logo graphic next to the video when those words are spoken…We will be using the same technology used by Homeland Security to monitor [telephone] chatter. Audio keywording will allow us to contextually figure out where to sell ads and to place more than just pre- and post-roll ads.
Don’t blame me for being skeptical. Or as Techdirt writes, “Imagine trying to serve ads for an episode of Lost based on what the characters are talking about. You’d get a bunch of ads for deserted islands.”
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Start-Ups and Online Video.
So here is a one we didn’t see coming from a mile 
A tipster tells me that Yahoo has started offering Meedio DVR software as a free download to one-and-all, without much fanfare. Isn’t it dandy - that it took just eight days to brand Meedio as Yahoo Go (TV.) (Yahoo had acquired the Meedio technology last week.)
Still you don’t say no to freebies, especially ones that are as good as Meedio. Since it is a Windows only product, I have not tested it out. Maybe I will, but not until this weekend.
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Connected Home.
Auntie Beeb, to the ex-Colonial types is going in for a nip-and-tuck. Forgetting that reason people love BBC for its content, and not gimmicky tricks, the company is hoping to build a public service version of MySpace.com, reports Media Guardian. Its betting the farm on user generated content - blogs, videos and what not. Something tells me, this is going to get a lot of attention. I just simply want a damn good, and reliable news source, which BBC used to me, before it got the “forgetting-your-core-competency” disease. For UGC, Newsvine is pretty darn good.
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0.
Sylantro Systems, an IP-PBX vendor raised $11 million, and that brings the total funding upto $106 million. Why is the company being shy about its fifth round of funding? Maybe because their post-investment valuation is $99.4 million, Light Reading says. Have their cumulative revenues passed the total funding raised? And whatever happened to the IPO plans?
Motricity, a mobile software company raised an additional $40 million in funding from Advanced Equities who lead the round, along with dollars from existing investors New Enterprise Associates and Technology Crossover Ventures. Total funding raised so far: $120 million.
Intel invested in Zensys, developer of the Z-Wave mesh networking technology for wireless home control and automation. Z-Wave competes with Zigbee technology.
One Connect IP gets $5 million and SkyPilot Networks is looking for $25 million.
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP (the New Phone) and Unwired and Venture News.
Widevine content encryption to be integrated with Siemens IPTV solution.
Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
Digitrad, a VoIP solutions company based in France, has introduced the Live Interpreter by 1TouchConnectâ„¢ Service. This multilingual interpreter will be included in Skype's new services package Skype for Business.
The Live Interpreter service enables the business user to conference with non-English speakers using Skype. The Live Interpreter supports the following 'on-the-fly' translations - from English to French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin Arabic or Farsi.
To use the service, users have to call the specific language live interpreter and then conference-in the third party on a Skypeâ„¢ call (PC to PC) or on a SkypeOut call (calling traditional land or mobile lines).
Via Newswire Today
Written by gautam.chabbra on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype.
Yet another 'stuck-in-the-old-times' telecom monopoly, you might say. Russell Shaw reports about this telecom monopoly, Belize Telecommunications Limited, which has been allegedly blocking outgoing calls over Vonage, Skype and other Internet phone service providers. Users say this is happening for the past few months.
This one might hurt the Belize economy most. Belize is dependent upon tourism and tourists like VoIP, a lot. As expected, online forums are active on the topic. Nevertheless, expect the matter to be resolved soon enough.
Via Zdnet
Written by gautam.chabbra on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Business.
Skype is doing the right thing by trying to monetize its brand (in this case, its site) in creative ways. Now, Skype has formed a deal with EMI Music Publishing, a song rights company. Under this deal, Skype can sell EMI's music on its new retail website. Skype can use song copyrights from EMI's catalogue to sell music as downloads and ring tones.
It is also a first for the music industry. Skype can sell the music to buyers worldwide. The normal practice so far has been that licenses are given out on a country-by-country basis. This in turn hurt the songwriters, as they could not easily collect payments for their work. EMI has more than one million copyrights,
Skype has also made a deal with the Warner Bros' group of record labels. However, Skype has not yet announced a launch date for its new online store.
Via Times Online
Written by gautam.chabbra on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype.
Earlier, we reported about a city administration using VoIP services. The Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD) in Phoenix, Arizona is spread across 400 square miles and comprises 37 schools. The school district has recently deployed VoIP-based communication system.
The VoIP system uses Nortel's CS 1000, and Tenor VoIP switches from Quintum Technologies. Not surprisingly, the school district has reduced its communication costs vis-Ã -vis regular landline system.
Moreover, DVUSD’s also wanted to integrate a wide range of analog systems into their new VoIP-based network. It was able to do that using Nortel's solution.
Via Yahoo Finance
Written by gautam.chabbra on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Networks.
Scott McNealy is no longer the chief executive of Sun Microsystems. Wow… it truly is an end of an era. (Okay he is still the chairman, but that’s not like he is The Chairman.)
Damn, I am going to miss his one liners and swings at Microsoft. How can you forget the infamous (and very funny) Ballmer and Butthead quip. Or him calling “Windows operating system a hairball.” Given that it is an emotional day, it might be tough for him to think of new ones, so here are a few. Scott, feel free to use any or all of them.
- Jonathan, clean up this mess, will ya!
- Frequent flyer miles…mmmm!
- Larry, Steve… you guys are on your own.
- You won Bill. Now try beating me in golf.
- And to the Wall Street that pushed the stock up 9% in after hours trading, McNealy’s parting words: you ingrates!
Following the time honored tradition of hazing: Incoming Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz told reporters on a conference call that he will spend next 90 days reviewing the business and focusing on growth opportunities. My question - what the hell were you guys doing up until now?
Anyway good luck, and hope you get Sun back on track, and don’t ignore your blog. It hasn’t been updated for a while!
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Random Access.