The split between Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon is becoming dirty and nasty and, frankly, immature. The latest chapter is Congdon's release of a letter from Baron, which makes both of them look foolish. It's such a shame because Rocketboom is such a cool and potentially lucrative platform. If they had been able to work something out, everyone could have got want they wanted. Now, it looks like Rocketboom could be doomed. While the cult of personality has its benefits, we're now seeing the other side, and it ain't pretty. This looks like it's going to be a he said/she said public relations battle that will do neither one of them any good. If you visit Rocketboom's site, you'll see a text message with a promise of a new episode on July 10 with an interim host. Update: A quick scan of the blogosphere suggests if Baron intends to fight a PR war against Congdon, he's going to lose - and lose badly. She's got a tremendous amount of goodwill and support so Baron has everyone to lose by trying to make her look bad - even if she's wrong. Truth be told, Congdon will have a slew of new opportunities to consider while I'm not entirely sure how Rocketboom can maintain its momentum. Does Baron hired someone right away to replace Congdon or does he take his time to find the right person? It has been suggested he could probably score some points by getting Rocketboom users into the selection mix. Update II: Taking a big step back, the Rocketboom cat-fight is a small story getting more far attention than it deserves. For some much-needed perspective, check out Stuart MacDonald and Rob Hyndman.
Looks like Clearwire’s IPO plans weren’t going too well. The company, which was started by telecom master Craig McCaw, withdrew its IPO plans on Wednesday and simultaneously said it had raised $900 million in a private equity round from Intel Capital and Motorola Ventures. Given Vonage’s poor public performance, the move was probably a smart one.
A good deal of that financing–$600 million–will come from Intel Capital, which calls the Clearwire financing the largest in its history. Part of the deal also includes a sale of Clearwire’s NextNet Wireless division to Motorola for an undisclosed sum, and from here on out Motorola will provide the network equipment for Clearwire.
Previously Clearwire had raised nearly $360 million from backers that include McCaw, Intel Corp., and Bell Canada, and now even without the company’s planned $400 million IPO, Clearwire will have over $1 billion to burn on its network. The company needs the funds, given WiMAX networks are very expensive to build, and the company lost $140 million last year. The new injection of capital by the big partners is a major bet on WiMAX and means the network will likely be rolled out faster and more widespread.
The attention on city-wide wireless isn’t just stateside, and Paris has delivered a media-savvy mayor to rival SF’s. The mayor told reporters that Paris is looking to add 400 WiFi spots through out the city, which will be run by private companies that will bid on the contract next year. In addition the city will lower taxes on local fiber deployments.
Let’s see - Vonage stock dropped 3.25% today - enough to make you wonder when the bad news is going to stop? Not any time soon. If 15 class action lawsuits were not enough, UBS Securities, one of the underwriters of the Vonage IPO, initiated coverage of the company with a “neutral” rating. Which is like saying: almost married, Just need to find a girl!
Read the report and you find that the analysts expect the churn to increase to 2.3% per month in the second quarter from the 2.1% per month reported in the first quarter. They say that things would get better, as company starts focusing on “customer service and continued aging of the base. However, we do not think the stock will move out of its recent range until it becomes clear that this metric is stabilizing.”
Okay call me old fashioned, but when selling services to customers, customer service should be the focus. Even Dell knows that! Lets read this report further: “We expect Vonage to have mixed results in 2Q, including seasonally weak net adds of 240,000 and … (higher customer acquisition) costs of around $258.”
How do you define success? In years past we looked towards acquisitions or a possible public stock offering as a sign a company had "made it" and achieved success in the marketplace. In today's business environment of bootstrapped startups and distributed employees and company base the definition of startup success is also changing. Small teams can launch a new company and product providing more than enough revenue to cover their expenses and then some. Big moves such as mergers, acquisitions, and public offerings might actually hurt these small businesses and their small markets.
Some startups begin as hobbies and turn into full-blown companies with enough market interest. Some startups have a master plan for industry domination, even if the industry is still being defined. Our evaluation of success is rapidly changing, and is the topic of this week's podcast.
This week's PodSession, Defining Success, is 19 minutes in length, a 9 MB download.
In an attempt to better convince all those digruntled phone company customers to sign up with Earthlink, the company plans to open an old fashioned brick and mortar retail outlet later this week in downtown San Francisco. The store, which will likely open Thursday or Friday says spokesperson Chris Morse, will be at 1 Front Street, and is intended to help those fed up with Bells and CableCos learn about Earthlink’s products.
For now its only going to be a test-run open for a month, to see if the company can successfully convert walk-ins. It’s smart to move slowly, given its got to cost a chunk of change to rent a high profile store front in dowtown SF even for a month. But maybe it’ll help the company on its more-than ambitious (some would say foolhardy) quest to sell new types of communications services. Last week the company opened a store in Seattle, and plans to followup in other markets where it sells VoIP landline service.
Paris wants blanket wireless Internet cover by the end of 2007, helping to make it the most connected capital city in the world, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said on Tuesday.
Under a new plan, the city hopes to set up 400 free WiFi access points next year and allow Internet service providers to install antennae on strategically-located public property.
"We will act fast and firmly... to create the most favorable conditions for Paris," Delanoe told reporters at city hall. "It is a decisive tool for international competition and thus important for the city."
The plan also calls for slashing taxes on companies that lay down fiber optic cables in a drive to have 80 percent of all buildings within the city connected to so-called 'ultra-high speed' fiber optic networks by 2010.
"Sixty percent of Parisian households already have high-speed connections. ... Our goal will be not only to maintain this but also to move a step ahead," Delanoe said.
License fees for fiber optic cables already snaking through the city's sewer system would be cut by 25 percent, and the tax break would go up to 90 percent for the first 400 meters of new cables that branch out to connect buildings currently lacking the high-speed lines.
The free wireless access points -- to be located in parks, squares, libraries, and public areas -- will be set up by private firms that win contracts to be awarded in early 2007.
The project will also experiment with free WiFi access for an entire city quarter by the end of 2007.
Delanoe said he would be submit the plans for city council approval early next week.
Vonage America Inc. announced that it introduce the Vonage V-Phone, a portable and multifunctional USB flash card phone drive.
"Vonage is pleased to offer our customers the convenience of making phone calls wherever they are, simply by plugging into any laptop or PC with a high speed broadband internet connection," said Daniel Smires, senior vice president of Engineering. "One of the best features of the V-Phone is that customers are not limited to PC-to-PC calling and they still get a variety of choices with Vonage's inexpensive, flat-rate and full-featured calling plans."
The Vonage V-Phone does not require any setup. Vonage software comes pre-loaded on the V-Phone and updates itself on the device's 256 MB flash drive. The V-phone comes with a standard 2.5 mm stereo earpiece microphone, which is compatible with many cell phone headsets.
When customers are surfing the internet at a Wi-Fi hotspot, they can plug in their V-Phone and make calls too. With its plug and play ease, the V-Phone is ideal for business travelers, students, or anyone on the go. Users can check their voicemail from any computer and send voicemail attachments directly to an email account or BlackBerry. The V-Phone allows small businesses to save money on phone bills with Vonage's flat-rate, full-featured calling plans. Small business employees will benefit from the convenience of a virtual mobile office with the ability to make phone calls from PCs with high speed internet access anywhere in the world.
The V-Phone offers added convenience because phone call history and contacts travel with the V-Phone if customers insert it into different PCs. The V-Phone also saves money on costly roaming charges on cell phones or hotel phone bills. Parents of teenagers who use laptops can save money on home and cell phone bills by giving kids the V-Phone as a more affordable way to communicate by phone. College students who frequently change residences, can benefit from the V-Phone's unparalleled portability. The V-phone fits inside the palm of your hand and offers easy storage in pockets, laptop cases, or briefcases. Users don't have to miss phone calls when they're away from their computers because call forwarding is available.
Vonage selected Ubistar and SJ Labs to collaboratively develop its new product. Vonage offers $14.99 for 500 minutes, $24.99 for residential unlimited and $34.99 for business unlimited. Calls to Canada and Puerto Rico are considered local and Vonage has reduced international rates with no connection fees. The V-Phone costs $39.99 with an additional $9.00 activation fee.
With online poker, especially Texas Hold'em, being so popular these
days, it's not surprising that one of the first online gaming applications of VoIP is for poker.
Playwize's
PokerWize will online players not only see their 3D avatars - like many
online games - but they'll also be able to talk to each other.
This is probably just the beginning in a string of VoIP-enabled game applications.
Take things one step further and imagine being able to play word games
with someone across the world, or have a chess game where VoIP enables
you to control the pieces.
While Video over IP (also VoIP) is
not something online poker players will want, it's a possibility as a
proxy for live games. Maybe it's a stretch, but I can also see several
frivolous V2oIP (Voice + Video over IP) applications, such as online game/ quiz shows.
Can you imagine shows like Jeopardy or The Dating Game in online form. All-time Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings
wouldn't have had to worry about running out of clothes. Although an
eDating Game might need something like telepresence suits to make it
worthwhile.
While VoIP is a technology that is beneficial to people worldwide, it's
deployment appears to be gaining the greatest growth in Asian, Middle
Eastern, and North African countries.
These are countries
typically associated with average incomes that are much lower than
those of European or North American countries. With the reduced cost of
telephony provided by VoIP systems, it's not surprising that several
countries in these regions have made deployment of IP telephony a
priority.
In fact, Avaya's survey of decision makers in the
Middle East and North African countries shows that over 70% have plans
to deploy IP telephony. Some already have converged voice and data
networks.
The financial benefits are realized not only in
initial implementation of IP telephony, but also in the ease and cost
of being able to later add VoIP applications. The drawback for
telephony solutions providers based in English-speaking countries is
that there is a need for other-language solutions, which could
conceivably increase project costs.
While VoIP deployment in
Africa and the Middle East is strong, it is growing rapidly in
Asia-Pacific countries in particular, surpassing most other regions in
the world, with a 60+% increase in VoIP equipment purchases.
A
primary cost benefit of deploying IP Telephony comes from regions where
telephone lines or cellular networks are currently at a minimum.
Instead of the cost of having to install separate voice and data
networks, the convergence afforded by IP telephony results in an
overall savings.
VoIP company Skype is hoping to improve its username authentication process for its business customers. The internet telephony software is based on an encrypted public key infrastructure which means that it validates users by itself instead of allowing people to verify the identity of those they are talking to. Skype is looking to establish methods by which users can authenticate each other. One such option is the “ring of trust†where a certification authority (CA) adds users to the ring after confirming their identities and issuing them certificates.
Skype, which is currently not suited for use in big businesses, is also looking to allow organizations to add and delete employee usernames from Skype as and when they join and leave departments. The company is also planning to add features that can be turned off and on according to organizational policies.
Apple is also set to join the long list of VoIP solutions providers. iChat 4.0 in the new Mac OS X operating system, popularly known by the pseudonym Leopard, is being designed on the lines of IM software like Skype Instant Messenger, Google Talk and Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger. VoIP internet telephony and video conferencing capabilities are just a few of features that the newest build of the software will incorporate.
Moving one step closer to its goal of becoming one of the top five voice carriers in Europe by the year 2010, the Sweden-based telecom operator TeliaSonera AB has introduced VoIP Connect, a feature that will enable service providers to offer VoIP services for customers. TeliaSonera’s International Carrier clients can use a gateway to access the company’s network without investing in telephony servers. IP Communications reports:
TeliaSonera estimates around 30 to 40 new customers will be using the new service in the Nordic countries, Europe and the U.S. before the end of this year. The company believes that voice over IP will grow by 10 percent each quarter in Western Europe and that 30 percent of broadband users will use IP-telephony by the end of 2007.
From the truth or hoax file: Apparently, Now officially confirmed: Amanda Congdon, the blogosphere's "It" girl, has been given her walking papers. (check out Amanada's farewell video.) Her take: Andrew Baron, who owns 51% of Rocketboom, didn't want her around anymore, and in a democratic society, the majority rules. If you ask me, it's a bizarre and hard-to-believe move given Amanda is the very user-friendly public face of Rocketboom, which is just started to see some major revenue growth. Did Amanda's fame and interest in acting become an issue? It's the blogosphere's biggest scandal of the year! (note: tongue firmly in cheek) The burning question now is whether Rocketboom can continue to be Rocketboom without Amanda? Sure, everyone can be replaced but Amanda is Rocketboom and Rocketboom is Amanda. Wanna start some idle speculation about Amanda's replacement: how about Canadian Amber MacArthur (right), who appears on G4TechTV's Call for Help, Gadget & Gizmos and Torrent shows? Update: Mathew Ingram had an e-mail chat with Andrew, who explained that Amanda wanted to move to Los Angeles but she was not willing to wait until Rocketboom had put together a transition plan. All in all, it sounds messy. As for Rocketboom's future, I disagree with Michael Arrington's belief Congdon's departure is "an unmitigated disaster". If handled properly and tactfully, Rocketboom can successfully replace Congdon with a new, fresh face. To be honest, Amber MacArthur wouldn't be a bad choice, although I suspect she's relatively unknown south of the border. Addendum: Congdon's departure just seems, well, weird. The fact she announced her departure on the Rocketboom "set" was either a goodwill gesture by Baron or a bizarre hoax given many folks in the U.S. just came off the July 4th holiday and a four-day weekend - an eternity for a country that deems two weeks of vacation a year as more than enough time away from work.
Vonage sent me one of their Vonage V-Phone USB devices to review. As you probably recall, I wasn't very keen on the V-Phone, but I decided to go ahead and test the V-Phone anyway. The concept of the V-Phone is that it's a small portable device that you can take anywhere and your phone number will follow you, as well as the added benefit of inexpensive VoIP minutes. I received my eval unit on June 30th (last Friday) and I attempted to install it on my work PC. I inserted the 256MB V-Phone into an available USB slot. I could see the device installing itself but the softphone client never popped up. I opened Windows Explorer and clicked on the newly created drive letter and received this lovely error message ("This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator."):
This error "can" be related to Group Policy restrictions on an Active Directory network, however I am the CTO of our network, so I don't have any Group Policy restrictions on my PC. It was partially installed since I now had a new USB audio device named "C-Media USB Headphone Set". I was able to listen to music using the included headphones that I connected to the headphones jack on the V-Phone.
Amanda “Rocketboom” Congdon has been unboomed! What a bummer since I really enjoyed her video podcast on Net Neutrality. She did not specify the reasons for the break-up or where she will go, but I have a suggestion.
Folks at PodTech should hire her - right away! (Doh… Scoble is already thinking along those lines.) With Scobelizer already in the house, they have the whole video podcast thing almost figured out. Add Amanda to the mix, and they become a serious player in the video-podcasting business. Video podcasts are more fun, and are likely to get more mainstream interest than podcasts. (Okay that is just my theory!) If done right, video podcasts can become big money earners, since they get higher CPMs. Say what John?
At 9am today, Bell Canada had an analyst call to tell us about their new fiber service to deliver higher speed to Sympatico broadband subscribers. Unfortunately, the invite was too short notice for me, but I've got the story now, so here we go.
It's called Optimax, which is a very promising name. Sounds very powerful - optimum, maximum - but the name doesn't really grab me. Too generic and space agey, and a bit like one of my favorite oxymorons - "new and improved". As George Carlin wryly observed long ago (when he was both funny and dangerous), how can something that's new be improved at the same time? Sort of like jumbo shrimp. I think about these things too much, but I'll bet I'm not the only out there who would do a Simon Cowell, and say "it wasn't your best"....
That said - now I'm speaking to those of you outside of Canada - this is Canada, and we have these peculiar language laws where it's French first in Quebec. I'll leave it at that, but given that Optimax is launching first in Montreal, the name has to work in both languages. My French isn't very good, but I suspect Optimax is a unisex type of word that works equally well in English and French. On that level, the name works, so I'll stop harping on the name thing now.
The analyst call was hosted by Kevin Crull, Bell's President of Residential Services, and I'm told he steered clear of questions about IPTV, which is what most of us are really wondering about. With all the wonderful throughput Optimax delivers - up to 16 Mbps (at $80/month)- one would think Bell was ready to launch IPTV. Clearly, it's not time yet, but at least they now have the transport in place. For those keeping score, this is a FTTN - fiber to the node - deployment, much like what AT&T is doing - and what supports their U-verse IPTV service, which launched last week. FTTH - fiber to the home - is the other route to go, but it's more costly and time-consuming. Verizon is doing it this way, and the payoff is much higher bandwidth capacity - Optimax, you might say.
So, what's the big deal here? One word - Videotron. They've been a real thorn in Bell's side, and their initial launch of VoIP in Montreal has been quite successful - maybe not profitable, but pretty effective at stealing away a lot of Bell subscribers. So, is it a coincidence that Bell is launching Optimax in Montreal - I think not. Without IPTV or a Triple Play bundle to swat back at Videotron, a souped up Internet service is the next best thing.
Once again, Bell takes the high ground by not competing on price - which I think is the right way to go. They're not taking the bait the way CallVantage did in 2004 when Vonage started a very costly price war. And there's nothing in this to do with VoIP. Bell is just steering clear of this, and let Videotron stay with their low priced phone service.
Bell's enhancement to Sympatico gives subscribers more capability than what Videotron can deliver for the fun stuff - gaming, music downloads, video streaming, etc. If you can't win them back by matching price, you take it up a notch, as Emeril would say, with a premium service that gives people a richer experience for the things they love to do. If you can't afford $80 for 16 meg, that's ok. Bell can give you 10 meg at $65. You want choice, you got it. You want to stay in the slow lane for your fun, then stay with Videotron.
It's a competitive market, and while Optimax isn't revolutionary, I think it's a pretty good comeback to counter Videotron. The price conscious subscribers are probably not worth fighting for, but at least Bell can now go after the lost customers they really want back, at least long enough until IPTV is finally ready.
In the ongoing battle between Yahoo and Google, Yahoo is winning on at least one front: Wireless. It is constantly launching new features, and new products to make Yahoo untethered.
ResourceShelf points to Yahoo Ready, a new utility that brings IM, mail, and contacts back-up. It is part of the Yahoo Go (mobile) offering. Too bad the service only works under a select amount of devices though some of the more popular ones like Motorola RAZR are supported. Still, it supports more devices than the limited number of handsets that can use Yahoo Go.
Elsewhere, MobHappy has a nice post on Yahoo’s ideas about mobile search, and the differences between search on mobile vs. the web–search on mobile uses more words than web search even though its much harder to input, given that the user wants to get it right the first time.
Looks like the battle over net neutrality is going from being mere saber-rattling to a serious no-holds barred legal mess. Last week the US Congress approved a bill that gives phone companies permission to offer television. Most wanted that bill to mandate that network neutrality would remain in place, but that didn’t happen. This gives phone companies and other broadband providers the option to charge for access from content providers. The bill has now been kicked up to the US Senate, and while there is little likelihood that the bill is going to get passed this year, it still has many in Silicon Valley worried, most of all Google.
Vint Cerf, one of the key voices in the overall development of the Internet, and a Google VP (and Chief Internet Evangelist) is saying that if things do come to a pass, the company might have to resort to legal means. “If we are not successful in our arguments … then we will simply have to wait until something bad happens and then we will make known our case to the Department of Justice’s anti-trust division,” he said at a news conference in Bulgaria.
What it really means is that Google et.al can drag this thing for a long time, but they also have to remember that the phone companies are masters of legal posturing and regulation. The best way to fight them is to outspend them in terms of lobbying dollars. Yup, a big fund - say $500 million - put together by Google, eBay and others could be enough to swing even the staunchest supporters of phone companies to the other side. Sounds crude, but as they say Money Talks!
Enron founder Kenneth Lay died early Wednesday in Aspen, Colo. after a massive coronary. The 64-year-old was awaiting sentencing. He was found guilty on 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of Enron amidst an accounting scandal. CNN Money has more details.
I'm usually a Firefox user but I do use Internet Explorer from time-to-time. I've been keeping up with the latest betas of Internet Explorer 7 and noticed that for some reason the Movable Type blogging interface doesn't work with IE 7. When publishing an entry it simply times out and the IE 7 browser gives this generic error:
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
Most likely causes: You are not connected to the Internet. The website is encountering problems. There might be a typing error in the address.
It did this with all the betas including the latest IE 7 beta3 and I tried it on two PCs. I contacted one of the IE 7 developers from a Microsoft blog contact page, but never heard back. I've been too busy to contact my sources at Microsoft to resolve the issue. So for now I am forced to use Firefox any time I want to blog something. Not that I have a problem with that, but Firefox has its own issues with Movable Type - including an inability to search for text within Movable Type's fields, including the main Entry Body where you enter your blog's text. Editing the templates is also much harder in Firefox since you can't search for a specific piece of text in the template.
If I have time today I'll contact Microsoft and see what the deal is. Microsoft can't possibly release IE 7 without supporting the millions of Movable Type bloggers out there, can they?
So many ways to "take a picture" now -- SLR camera, reuseable camera, digital camera, digital video camera, cell phone with photo capability, cell phone with video capabilities ...
What did you use to capture the fireworks on July 4?
Cendant’s $4.3 billion sale of its Travelport division to the Blackstone Group announced last week, could be yet another sign that the traditional online travel agencies aren’t the Internet survivors they once were. While online travel bookings are still growing– eMarketer says the U.S. will account for $78 billion in online travel sales this year, up 20% from last year– the online travel agencies themselves are seeing slowed growth, largely because of a new found aggressiveness by both airlines and hotels that are getting web-savvy and the next generation of online travel aggregators.
Cendant’s Travelport division, which owns Orbitz and Cheaptickets saw lowered earnings last year, and Expedia, the number one site in the U.S., saw its stock drop dramatically, after the company slowed its growth and missed its earnings predictions. Though the sites are still growing, albeit slower than investors would like. A recent study from PhoCusWright says the top four online travel agencies, Expedia, Travelocity, Travelport and Priceline grew 29% in the first quarter of this year compared to last year. Decent, but that lagged the e-Travel industry’s total growth.
The main cuplrit is airlines like Southwest that have realized they don’t need to give up part of their revenues to bring in web customers, which are coming in on their own. Southwest Airlines says 65 percent of revenues from bookings were made from online sales last year, and Southwest.com was the number 5 most visited site in April 2006, according to comScore Media Matrix.
There is looming competition from online travel startups that are creating meta-search sites that find fares more quickly and easily than there older cousins, like Sidestep, Mobissimo, and Kayak. Farecast’s site predicts how airline tickets will fluctuate, helping the buyer purchase when the ticket is cheapest. The site went out of beta last week, though for now only operates for the Boston and Seattle areas. Waiting in the wings are other upstarts who are looking to combine social networking, blogging and community-based travel. None of them have any traction, but with $78 billion in spending at stake, there is room to grow!
In the dotcom bust, online travel agenices were among the few web companies that made it through the bad times and managed to show decent growth. While the companies are still growing, smart budget airlines and eager startups are starting to give them a real run for their money.
Bottomline: The old school online travel sites could become the likely buyers of newly funded start-ups, and their fancy services. With no-IPOs in sight, this is as good an outcome for a venture backed start-up?
Riddle me this: why are so many cities around the world so enthusiastic about municipal Wi-Fi systems. At a time when many cities are trapped for cash and facing pressing issues such as re-building infrastructure and other social issues, Wi-Fi access has become a priority. Paris, for example, is the latest city to jump on the Wi-Fi bandwagon with plans to provide blanket-like coverage by the end of next year - joining cities such as Toronto, Philadelphia, Anaheim, New Orleans and San Francisco. Has it come to the point where Internet access is considered a public service/utility? Should cities be in the business of providing their constituents with Internet access when, for the most part, the private sector is already serving the needs of most people? Are cities rolling out Wi-Fi simply because it's politically-friendly and comes across as forward-thinking? Frankly, the municipal Wi-Fi "movement" is a mystery because it addresses a market where many solutions already exist. It's not like the citizens of San Francisco or Toronto are begging for Internet access, especially given low-cost or free service is available at public libraries or coffee shops. When you think about it, the real need for Internet access isn't within municipalities but in rural communities where there is a single high-speed service provider or nothing all. It must be somewhat galling for someone who still has to live with dial-up service to see their urban cousins getting even more access choice.
In his recent post ripping the purported conflict of interest that exists among conservative lobbies--gun owners and big business--who ostensibly support AND oppose legislated network neutrality, Russell Shaw has demonstrated one of the fallacies of the pro-net-neutrality crowd: misplaced priorities. I support some form of network neutrality measures, but the old addage "let's not get carried away" certainly applies. Take a look at Russ's writing and see what you think:
Seems like almost all the 11 Senators who voted against net neutrality are of a political stripe, and party, accurately perceived as being sensitive to the wishes of gun owners and conservative Christians.
So why didn't this big tent work? Easy. Because if I am a conservative Senator who is reflexively anti-regulation and pro-big business (i.e. carrier duopolists) while being say, pro-life and pro-gun, I know that gun owners and Christian Coalition members are not going to vote for my opponent out of disappointment I didn't vote for Net neutrality.
I know this because I know these people. They care about gun-owner rights, pro-life legislation, etc. far more than they do about Net Neutrality.
Now, in case you didn't read between the lines, here's the fallacy: Russ seems to be saying that network neutrality is arguably more important than religious freedom or personal liberty (ie. the first and second amendments to which he alluded), which are guaranteed protections against the government in the Constitution. How on earth Russ complain that conversative senators will never vote net neutrality because of these things? These issues are fundamental to personal freedom and make the entire issue of network neutrality appear tiny and insignificant.
Proportion. Priorities. Don't forget who you are and where you live. And to all my freedom-loving American friends, happy Independence Day (a day late).Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
First,
Vonage came out with their USB memory stick VoIP phone, aka V-Phone.
Then Vocera came out with their Call Badge. While the V-Phone has its
place, it's the latter that really excites me. (Although I suspect that
maybe the Badge came before the V-Phone.)
The Vocera Call Badge
is a wearable mobile VoIP phone. It can hang around your neck with a
piece of cord, like a necklace, or be attached to clothing with its
clip. With the Call Badge, you can communicate over WiFi with anyone
else carrying one of these, within range of a supporting WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network).
The
best part? Besides a button or two, it's a hands-free device,
controlled by voice commands. You can ask for a certain person or
station, and your communication will be routed to the appropriate badge.
Currently,
the device has a native speaker, so your conversation can be overheard.
However, since the Call Badge was designed for enterprise use
(hospitals, labs, offices, stores, etc.), that's not surprising. But I
don't see why they couldn't be made compatible with Bluetooth for
future versions, where some privacy is a necessity.
Either way, I see incredible VoIP applications here, if a supporting
WLAN can handle the VoIP traffic. Consider EMS workers, such as
firefighters. Equipped with Bluetooth headsets in their helmets, and
these Call Badges attached to their jacket. (Of course, that either
means high-capacity Municipal Wi-Fi networks, or porting around a
WiFi-enabled computer server system on fire engines, ambulances, etc.)
I
was unable to find any information about whether Vocera is
publicly-traded, but I suspect not. However, if they go public, I'm
considering buying shares. They have been successfully installing their
VoIP communications system in numerous locations, including several
hospitals, and their overall concept is pretty sound. Check out their
sample videos for a clear explanation of how the system works. It's too
bad that the existing system does not work with Skype.
July 5th, a Brand New Day - a day when I start working on GigaOM on a 24/7 time cycle.
It is exciting, yet scary! A dear friend of mine, an entrepreneur for life, if there was one, offered me one bit of advice: learn to live with that knot in your stomach. It is your reality check. On the flip-side, a sartorially correct friend of mine sent a note saying, “welcome to the argyle sweaters and sock-less lifestyle.” Perhaps, if only I can let go of my affection for formal shirts.
A lot of you have either send personal notes, or expressed words of confidence in person. That means a lot, thanks! My friends at True Ventures have helped me plough through the details that can bog down a first time entrepreneur. It is because of them, that the to-do-list is 3/4th done. My editors at Business 2.0 have been generous enough to help me ease out of my old duties into a new life. They have given me enough time to kick off my new column for the magazine. But more than that - my parents, like all parents have not asked me once, “Why son, would you trade a nice job for life of uncertainty?” And somewhere I have to say thanks to guys from Federated Media, who are working hard on our behalf.
Before I go any further, let me introduce you to Katie Fehrenbacher, who has teamed up with me and is going to help shape the coverage here at GigaOM. She joins us from Red Herring (V2.0) where she was a reporter tracking telecom and wireless industries. She was also one of the founding editors at Engadget.
I had been impressed by her work, and when the opportunity rose to bring on board a full time writer, she was the first person I called. She accepted and what a break! Katie is a dogged reporter and a prolific blogger. (She is so diligent, that she has already filed about half-a-dozen stories, including some short posts even before we got going.) I hope you will join me in welcoming her to the team.
So what does this mean for you? Simply put more stuff on a daily basis. You should expect more mini-length features, and blog posts with an increased frequency. Perhaps, give you all a reason to come back more often to site. We promise to keep your RSS reader busy . Don’t worry - just because its more, doesn’t mean its going to be that different. (We will roll out some design changes, but don’t worry - they won’t be that radical. See that little box on the right - its just to identify some of our tops stories, worth your time. And oh, we added a better way for you to identify who is the writer of a particular post/story.)
What will the new GigaOM be about - you might be wondering! From telecom, broadband, optics, VoIP, Start-ups, Wireless, Wireless Broadband and the Next Net - all things that are helping evolve the world we generically call technology. The common thread, however will always remain: broadband - not the pipes, but the platform. It is how some of the smartest minds in Silicon Valley are thinking (download PPT), and this is a thread we hope to follow.
Along the way there will be some new features, new tools and new directions. Why? Vinod Khosla recently said: “The right way to build a company is to experiment in lots of small ways, so that you have plenty of room to make mistakes and change strategies.”
Some of those experiments will work, some of it won’t. I know you will let me know. Please do, for without your constant guidance, it is not going to be as much fun.
Let a brand new day begin!
PS: My friends in PR: keep those news releases coming, except send them to p r @ g i g a o m d o t c o m
The split between Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon is becoming dirty and nasty and, frankly, immature. The latest chapter is Congdon's release of a letter from Baron, which makes both of them look foolish. It's such a shame because Rocketboom is such a cool and potentially lucrative platform. If they had been able to work something out, everyone could have got want they wanted. Now, it looks like Rocketboom could be doomed. While the cult of personality has its benefits, we're now seeing the other side, and it ain't pretty. This looks like it's going to be a he said/she said public relations battle that will do neither one of them any good. If you visit Rocketboom's site, you'll see a text message with a promise of a new episode on July 10 with an interim host.
and in a democratic society, the majority rules. If you ask me, it's a bizarre 
Folks at 
The main cuplrit is airlines like 
Riddle me this: why are so many cities around the world so enthusiastic about municipal Wi-Fi systems. At a time when many cities are trapped for cash and facing pressing issues such as re-building infrastructure and other social issues, Wi-Fi access has become a priority. 
A lot of you have either send personal notes, or expressed words of confidence in person. That means a lot, thanks! My friends at