July 9th, 2006

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Why SunRocket’s new pay-by-the-year calling plans will fizzle off the launching pad

This morning, Internet telephony provider SunRocket introduced a flat-fee, $299-a-year calling plan to 41 localities around the world.SunRocket SunSpots Edition will include much of Europe, China, Japan, South Korea and Argentina, as well as key cities in Latin America such as Mexico City, São Paulo, and Caracas. SunSpots also offers unlimited free calling throughout the [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and Providers and Promotions.

MatchActivity, Online Dating Site Launches

Match Activity, a new online dating site is ready for your profile.

The 14-month-old Los Angeles online dating start-up is betting that it can carve itself a niche in the online dating market by incorporating some of the newer technologies and focusing on activity based match making. It uses tags, ajax and other such features to offer a better user experience compared to the old school dating sites.

Match Activity is the latest amongst many start-ups taking a bite at the online dating pie. Consumating.com was the first to lead the charge, and was acquired by C/Net. The Knot bought GreatBoyFriends for $600,000 a little while ago. In Canada, there is the most fabulous Verbdate.

Online dating is estimated to be a $1 billion a year business, and growing. Online dating sites have shed some of their stigma, and now are often featured in movies, even ones as terrible as Must Love Dog. According to Pew Internet, some 11% of Internet users have used online dating websites. As broadband spreads, we are only going to see an increase in usage of online applications such as online dating.

Match Activity is going up against some established players including industry leaders, Match.com and Yahoo. Craigslist is another fast growing (and free) online dating site. Of course there is MySpace, not exactly a dating site, but…

That doesn’t deter Yoni Avital, the founder of the company, who believes that actions speak activities speak louder than words. And since most activities are mostly time sensitive, people are more like to be proactive and not mull too long over emails. Sort of adding an auction-like urgency to the whole dating process? The man speaks from experience, it seems. “My best dates happened when we werenâ€™t interviewing one another, but just having fun,” Avital says.

The site is free to use if you post activities publicly or respond to posted activities. However if you want to invite a specific person (or people who approved you already) you will need pay (”$7.99 a month. The company has a two-person staff working out of a LA garage. The development team is based in Israel. Match Activity, angel funded so far is looking for more capital, Avital says. They are currently in talks with some Silicon Valley angels.

Openings for Start-ups?

Over past decade online dating, travel and auctions have been steady money earners for Internet companies. In recent months, however the giants of these categories have hit a glass ceiling. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone because many of them have sat on their haunches. This is an opportunity for start-ups who can nibble away at niches. We noted that might be the case in the online travel industry. Perhaps, it is a perfect time for someone to step up and build a rival to eBay. (In South Korea, Gmarket has done exactly that. Rob Hof of Business Week has a story on that in the current issue, but no link available as yet.)

The flip side is, that these start-ups will have to figure out a low-cost way of building traffic, and figure out how to build a profitable franchise. Exits-via-acqusitions by big boys are an option, but its like betting on Portugal to win the World Cup.

Written by Om Malik on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Broadband Life and Start-Ups.

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Cisco to buy Meeting House Data

Cisco Systems is to acquire privately-held network security specialist Meetinghouse Data Communications for $US43.7 million in cash. Meetinghouse provides a client-side 802.1X supplicant security software that allows enterprise customers to restrict access to their networks to only authorised users and/or host devices attempting to gain access to networked resources through both wired and wireless media.

According to Cisco, when integrated with its existing security portfolio, Meetinghouse's AEGIS SecureConnect products will enable Cisco to provide a single unified wired and wireless client to enterprise customers that will simplify the security management of a broad array of host devices and operating systems.

Brett Galloway, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Wireless Networking Business Unit, said: "The Meetinghouse software supplicant is a natural extension to existing Cisco initiatives such as the Cisco Self Defending Network via Network Admission Control (NAC) and the Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX) program."

Meetinghouse was founded in 1988 and has 77 employees in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2007, ending October 28, 2006. The Meetinghouse team and products will be integrated into the WNBU, reporting into Galloway.

Source: ITWire

Written by Dal on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP News.

A net neutrality movie: It Happened to Jane (1959)

Written by Skype Journal on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.

A net neutrality movie: It Happened to Jane (1959)

Written by Skype Journal on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.

dotMAC, Time For A Makeover?

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft… most technology companies are using newer technologies (collectively called Web 2.0) to enhance the consumer experience inside the browser. Apple, however, is yet to incorporate these technologies and enhance the user experience for the customers of its for-pay dotMac service.

The $99-a-year service in the words falls woefully short of Apple’s otherwise high standards. Unlike the intuitive iPod, iTunes and Mac itself, dotMac is a bit of a beast.

Given that I have my early morning coffee in an Apple Mug, use an Apple pen to scribble notes, it pains me to write this - despite its shiny good looks, dotMac is not an easy web-service to use, and is very un-Apple like. Which is a shame. With over a million users, it is not a small business, one with really high margins. (Some label it as an outright rip-off.)

Don’t get me wrong – there are a lot of good things about dotMac. The syncing of data between two or more Macs is a breeze, though there are free options available, if you are a do-it-yourself type. Still, lets start with three areas which I find seriously bothersome and could use some Ajaxification (for the lack of better word.)

iDisk, which Tao of Mac describes as “slow-as-molasses,” and I agree. [ Also, read Rui’s full scale rant on dot.Mac, which is seriously indepth and worth reading.] I could not agree more. Even on blazing fast connections, it takes forever to manipulate files, folders in the native state. I have had to resort to keeping a local copy, in order to get over these problems. It is the web-based access to the iDisk which is troublesome, and highly frustrating. Tiny start-ups such as Box.net have come-up with a nice and blazingly fast GUI for their storage service, why can’t Apple?

Apple Mail on the web is a throwback to the late 1990s. After using GMail and new Yahoo Mail, you know the web mail has evolved many generations. The Apple Mail, however, is slow, and non-intuitive, despite all those fancy icons. This is another area Apple should be adopting some of the newer technologies to speed-up the experience.

iCal, is another part of dotMac, which fails to impress. Sure, it is great on the desktop, (and I mean great) but on the web, all it is just a page, you can read, but cannot interact. What it needs is ability for users to add new events, and have sharing.

Having said all that, I think what dotMac on the web needs is a major rethink. It needs to come to terms with the reality of consumer expectations. This is not to suggest, Apple should use Ajax for the sake of using it. The end users don’t care – they want a good, fast and easy experience. And as it stands, dotMac cannot claim to do that.

PS: Given that there is a big community of us Apple fans, I want you to think how you would improve dotMac, send me your screenshots for a later post. If I like one, I will send you an Amazon gift certificate. All screenshots should accompany an email and if possible your website/blog address!

Written by Om Malik on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Google and yahoo and Apple.

US: Skype your congressman for privacy

Written by Skype Journal on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized and Skype and VoIP and Security and ebay and skypeout and Privacy and Skypeæ‚å¿— and skypejournal and Life and Life and North America and freedom and community.

The Tempting Talents of Youth

The Wall St. Journal ran a story last week about how VCs are trying to get jiggy with young entrepreneurs by going to keg parties and sending out invites to hip-hop concerts. The story, which was sent to me by a well-known VC perhaps as a warning signal, eerily reminded me of a Canadian VC in the dot-com boom called The NRG Factory. Basically, this "incubator" handed out money to people under the age of 25 who had a good idea. These were "entrepreneurs" with intriguing ideas ideas but, at best, modest skills or little business experience. Neverthless, The NRG Factory was widely hailed as the next big thing: Here's an excerpt from Maclean's magazine:

"In the end, the future lies in places like The NRG Factory, an Internet e-business "incubator", which fosters budding entrepreneurs in a sprawling, art-bedecked loft in downtown Toronto where the desks are on wheels - and some of the businesmen are teenagers. The brainchild of an Internet production and consulting firm, the NRG Group, the Factory now provides five fledgling entrepreneurs with up to $250,000 in seed money each, coaching, infrastructure and marketing and legal services - in return for a large minority stake in the firm."

In the end, the NRG Group fell to the ground with a loud thud. Bad news for them but good news for me because my start-up was able to buy a beautiful $800, German-made ping-pong table for less than $100.
This statement may come across as a dismissive: the energy of youth can be tempting but it's also dangerous. It's dangerous when VCs get caught up in the energy and excitement, and begin to think these attributes can overcome experience and expertise. Far too many Web 2.0 companies are going to fail not because their technology and/or services isn't compelling but the lack of "grey hair" means the twenty-somethings running them don't have anywhere near the mangement skills to build a company - as opposed to a cool programming project. If you're a VC and you find yourself at a hip-hop concert wearing a baseball hat backwards and baggy jeans, you're probably doomed.

Written by Mark Evans on July 9th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Main Page and Venture Capital.

GigaOM This Past Week

This was our first full week of working exclusively on GigaOM, and despite a holiday break, we posted 38 stories and posts. In case you missed any of these, here is an easy way to find the older stuff. You can always find our archives here.