July 13th, 2006
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Can Skype be reverse engineered? That has been the $2.6 billion dollar question Skype watchers often ask themselves. Alec Saunders points to this blog post by Charlie Paglee that claims that a bunch of chinese engineers have done exactly that - cracked Skype.
The hacked clients cannot act as super nodes, the said blog notes, quoting the CEO of the unnamed Chinese company. In other words, the said clients could ride the Skype network without doing any heavy lifting of their own. Virus has mutated, and the parasite has a parasite.
It is hard to vouch for the authenticity of this claim; though if they can reverse engineer stuff like Blackberry, router software and what not, this is not that outrageous a claim. We have contacted Skype PR seeking comment. That said, if the crack is true, then it could have some detrimental impact on the Skype and eBay.
Update: Skype has sent this statement, “Skype is aware of the claim made by a small group of Chinese engineers that they have reverse engineered Skype software. We have no evidence to suggest that this is true. Even if it was possible to do this, the software code would lack the feature set and reliability of Skype which is enjoyed by over 100m users today. Moreover, no amount of reverse engineering would threaten Skype’s cryptographic security or integrity.”
Written by Om Malik on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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In the wake of
Hitwise's hailing of MySpace as the leading Web site,
comScore has come out with its leading Web properties for June. Guess what? MySpace isn't first, it's fifth. Yahoo's sites lead the way with 128.6 million unique visitors in the U.S. (out of a total online population of 172.9 million) while MySpace lags with a still very impressive 52.3 million. Google's sites attracted 102.8 million visitors (fourth) while the New York Times was the leading "media" site with 38.1 million visitors (ninth). So what do the comScore numbers mean? It's like accounting or polls: you can presents things in a variety of ways if you use different tools, techniques or methodologies. There's no doubt MySpace is popular; it's just a question of defining it.
Written by Mark Evans on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Earlier this week, Skype and SanDisk announced a couple of
Skype-certified SanDisk smartdrives preloaded with Skype: the Cruzer
Micro and Cruzer Titanium with U3.
In addition to saving users the need to download software, this also
makes it easy to use a friend's computer to make the call. Skype also
says that this reduces the need to change settings/ preferences on
other computers, such as in hotels, Internet cafes, etc., and is suited
to anyone using multiple computers.
Interestingly, Skype mention
student use because the latter tend to use multiple computers. However,
at my local university, they've disabled all of the USB ports for
security and virus protection reasons. [To wit: about 2 yrs ago, when I
set up an alumni email account, there were over 500 spam messages
waiting for me, the first time I signed on.] I'm not sure whether other
colleges and universities disable USB ports as well, so this may not be
a solution for all students.
Still, this move towards installing
software on USB memory sticks/ cards is a growing trend, having mostly
started with web servers, then web browsers, and now VoIP clients. With
web-based word processors and spreadsheets like ZohoWriter and ZohoSheet
(and other Zoho stuff) available online, and Wi-Fi access more widely
available, you could conceivably leave your computer and your PDA
(Personal Digital Assistant) smartphone behind.
However, if you
love your PDA, Skype has been available for Windows-based devices for a
while but has been surprisingly unavailable for Palm OS-based devices.
At least until EQO announced EQO Mobile for Skype, supporting Palm Treo 650 and Motorola ROKR, SLVR, and RAZR mobile phones.
EQO currently has a free beta program, but you should read EQO's how it works page
to get an understanding of the software, as it doesn't seem all that
straightforward. What's more, during signup, you have to specify your
cell carrier. Mine - a large carrier - isn't listed, so I can't try it
out to give you a rundown. (Get with, EQO.)
While EQO is
available for Mac OS X, the SanDisk Cruzer drives are not, as Mac does
not support U3 (Windows 2000 and XP only). The Cruzer drives come in
four models ranging in price from US$39.99-$119.99.
Written by ewriter on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Internet Titans Amazon, Google, Yahoo, eBay, and IAX/InterActiveCorp joined together in writing a letter to Congressional Senators expressing their concerns about net neutrality. This is a clash of the titans for sure. Congress and the telecom/cable lobbyists on one side and large Internet behemoths on the other. Of course, a letter is a bit weak. The Internet titans need to pull out all the stops. Like cut the Senators access to Google.com,
Yahoo! and eBay.
When they can't get their fix of Googling, Yahoo Mail, or eBay auctions they'll change their minds. Yup, no doubt about it. If that doesn't work, just capture Pegasus in the swamp, fly to Washington, D.C. , put on your invisibility helmet, walk past security - no need to slap any officers (
ala Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney) - go straight into Congress's chambers, and using your impregnable sword given to you by Zeus, decapitate any net neutrality opponents. Ok, maybe not decapitate them, but give them a really good scare. Maybe wave the sword around making it appear to be floating by a supernatural force. Then pretend to be God and say "I am against blocking net neutrality. Do not anger me. Pass a net neutrality law..."
I'm just kidding.
Anyway, here's the letter:
Dear Senator,
We write to express our deep concern with the Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunity Reform Act, S. 2686. We ask you to insist that this legislation include meaningful and enforceable network neutrality provisions before it is considered by the full Senate.
The Internet has been an engine of economic growth and a vibrant platform for innovation and competition because of its open architecture. However, this open structure did not happen by accident; in fact, it is the product of non-discrimination rules that had long been in place to prevent network operators from limiting consumer choice.
Last summer, the Federal Communications Commission removed these protections. It is critical that Congress reinstate them in this bill and preserve consumer choice. The strong network neutrality amendment introduced by Senators Snowe and Dorgan would have done just that, but it was narrowly defeated in Committee on a bi-partisan 11 to 11 vote.
We fully support the goal of advancing competition in video services through franchise reform. But, as the telecommunications carriers increasingly use the broadband infrastructure to deliver their own video products, the only way to ensure that consumers will have real choice for video services is for Congress to re-establish meaningful network neutrality rules.
Without network neutrality, consumers will be restricted to online offerings limited by cable and telephone companies. For the first time, those companies - rather than consumers - will effectively become the gatekeepers to the Internet. Absent strong network neutrality provisions, consumers will no longer have the freedom to choose content from thousands of sources on an open Internet.Instead, the Internet will move backwards significantly with fewer options and limited choices.We ask that you protect their freedom.
We stand ready to work with you and your Senate colleagues to include meaningful network neutrality provisions in any national video franchising reform legislation considered in the 109th session.
Sincerely,
Amazon.com
eBay
Google
IAC/InterActiveCorp
Yahoo!
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Skype just announced that US and Canadian Skypers can make free
international "SkypeOut" calls for three weekends starting July 15th.
Call destinations include the U.K., Mexico, and Japan, and the duration
is 48 hours on each weekend.
I'm wondering if they're starting to feel the effects from competitors such as Jajah, Sightspeed, Babble, and Gizmo Project, not to mention VoIP-enhanced IM clients such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and Google Talk.
The
press release did say that 70% of their users, of those surveyed, use
Skype to keep in touch with friends and family overseas. In fact, 25%
of users use Skype for 100% of their international calls.
So
why those countries? Did they do some research and find that there are
more, say, Japanese Canadians than, say, Jamaican Canadians? Not
exactly, but they say that according to the 2000 US census, the total
count of people in the US from those countries exceeds 10 million (less
than 4%). In Canada, the count is 650,000 (2%).
Given that these
percentages are pretty small, can North Americans with roots in other
countries expect similar upcoming promos? The release didn't say, but I
wouldn't be surprised, given that Skype is currently available in 27
languages.
Written by ewriter on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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There are thousands of people that operate their own Asterisk based PBX systems, yet they do not enable any method to allow for p2p sip URI dialing. These sip "targets" are very easy to enable and allow you to dial anyone that has also enabled the function.
Dialing with SIP URI completely avoids toll calling and forces your Asterisk server to create P2P sip connections when you dial someone's SIP URI. It makes a less complex phone call without a system administrator configuring a peer and best of all: It gets rid of phone numbers and your telco!
How does it work?
By creating a SRV record in DNS for your domain you can help remote PBX systems establish P2P calls for a specific extensions. For example, when someone calls me, my URI is resolved to my PBX (sip.blyon.com). When the call comes into my Asterisk box, blyon is setup as a extension, and that extension is connected to a phone or a context. As a result, if someone uses something like Xten to call blyon@blyon.com, I get a normal ring and phone call. When I use my Cisco 7960 phone and dial someone's SIP URI it completes like a normal phone call.
Why is this cool?
This is great because it takes away any central control for locating people. The ENUM standard is nice, but gives someone else control over the mapping database and it keeps an ugly old phone numbers in place. I really don't want to dial phone numbers 10 years from now, I much rather just give someone my email address and have that map to my phone. If I need to call a business, I much rather just call pbx@somecompany.com then find some obscure phone number.
If more people adopt this as a standard, it will be the method of choice for calling people and it puts power into the end user's hands!
Click Here for the Full Article
Written by Dal on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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VeriSign will be responsible for the security of WiMAX networks after its appointment as the provider of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-related services to all WiMAX Forum Certified solutions. Under the agreement, VeriSign will operate the WiMAX root CA used to create a single, trusted device authentication standard for WiMAX networks.
The VeriSign Custom Device Certificate Service (CDCS) allows embedding X.509-standard digital certificates into all WiMAX Forum Certified hardware devices based on IEEE 802.16-2004 and ETSI HiperMAN 1.2.1 standards.
"VeriSign's mission is to create and operate transformational infrastructures that become indispensable to society," said Nico Popp, vice president, Authentication Services for VeriSign.
"WiMAX promises a whole new level of data access flexibility that will be much less location specific for customers. This type of robust mobile, portable or fixed broadband access will be unprecedented, encouraging innovation and improved services," he said.
"VeriSign has proven experience creating interoperable trust models, and demonstrated a deep understanding of the WiMAX requirements, giving us the confidence that they are the best choice to secure the millions of WiMAX devices that will be deployed," said Ron Resnick, president and chair, WiMAX Forum. "VeriSign met the WiMAX requirements for a PKI Trust Model and can provide scalable, robust PKI trust services to our more than 350 member corporations worldwide."
Using strong certificate-based authentication allows service providers to ensure network access, digital content and software services can be secured from unauthorised access.
Austar and Unwired are likely to be the two major providers of high-speed WiMAX wireless broadband Internet access in Australia as they hold the rights to the spectrum normally associated with the technology.
Telstra, alternatively, is focussing on advances in GSM mobile phone technologies toprovide wireless broadband access.
Source: Verisign
Written by Dal on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Digium, creator of Asterisk and pioneer of open source telephony, today announced that Mark Spencer, president of Digium, has been named to Inc.com’s “30 Under 30: America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs”.
Inc. selected the top 30 entrepreneurs based on their proven ability to run a successful company, manage a company with a novel approach, create a successful or innovative product, and/or otherwise demonstrate their innovative idea in the world of entrepreneurship. Inc.’s article can be found at www.inc.com/30under30.
“I am honored to be included in Inc.’s 30 under 30,” said Mark Spencer, president of Digium and creator of Asterisk. “Work has become quite a passion for me and it is very rewarding to receive such recognition.”
“Like many of the successful young entrepreneurs on our list, Mark didn’t just excel within an industry – he’s helping to shape a new one,” said Inc.com Senior Editor Rod Kurtz. “Technology has transformed the American economy, and it’s idea people like Mark who are leading the charge.”
Mark Spencer created Asterisk, the industry’s first open source PBX, while still a Computer Engineering student at Auburn University. When faced with the high cost of buying a PBX for his company, Linux Support Services, Mark simply used his Linux PC and knowledge of C code to write his own. This was the beginning of the world-wide Asterisk phenomenon, and caused Mark to shift his business focus from Linux support to supporting Asterisk and opening up the telecom market. Linux Support Services is now known as Digium, and is bringing open source to the enterprise market while gaining a foothold in the telecom industry.
In addition to Inc. Magazine’s recognition, VoIP Magazine listed Digium as one of the top 20 companies to watch in 2006 and Network World named Mark Spencer as one of the “50 Most Powerful People in Networking”.
About Digium
Digium is the original creator and primary developer of Asterisk, the industry's first open source PBX and Asterisk Business Edition, the professional-grade version of Asterisk. Used in combination with Digium's PCI telephony interface cards, Asterisk offers a strategic, highly cost-effective approach to voice and data transport over IP, TDM, switched and Ethernet architectures.
Digium provides quality hardware and software products that enable telephony applications including legacy PBX, IVR, auto attendant, next generation gateways, media servers and application servers. Digium also offers a full range of professional services including consulting, technical support and custom software development services. Additional information can be found at www.digium.com.
About Asterisk
Code for Asterisk, originally written by Mark Spencer of Digium Inc., has been contributed to from open source software engineers around the world. It supports a wide range of TDM protocols for the handling and transmission of voice over traditional telephony interfaces, and VoIP packet protocols such as IAX, SIP and H.323. It supports US and European standard signaling types used in business phone systems, allowing it to bridge between next-generation voice-data integrated networks and existing infrastructure.
Source: OpenPress
Written by Dal on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Live from Mountain View–A few months ago a Google exec told me a story about a city resident who took a swing at him after a public hearing on Google’s WiFi plans. Naturally, when I heard about a public WiFi training session for Mountain View residents at the Googleplex last night, I had to stop by. Well, no fisticuffs, but a few interesting tidbits.
Google’s Mountain View WiFi network is ready to go, though not open to the public, but about 100 people are already starting to receive invitations to test the service.
The invitations give directions on how to discover the SSID number of the network, which is the number that distinguishes one wireless network from another. (Anyone want to send one along to us?) Right now the SSID number is “cloaked”, so Mountain View residents can’t access it. A few of the residents were saying that they could already see the SSID number when their computer searches for a WiFi signal. That made a Google spokesperson look a bit nervous.
There were probably more than a hundred residents at the training session, and most were worried about not being able to get coverage. For a few areas of Mountain View the company could not secure space on light poles, so Google is asking residents if they wouldn’t mind putting an access point on their chimneys. They even thought about flyer-ing those areas, but said they didn’t want to be too aggressive. Google also said that “it is unlikely that a WiFi-enabled laptop or computer with a conventional WiFi card will work indoors at most locations. If you want to use the system indoors we suggest getting an extended-range WiFi modem.” So that’s another extra cost if the resident wants to rely on the network as a DSL or cable replacement.
After the 100 testers give the network a rigorous review, more trusted-testers will be invited to check it out. Google is calling it a “rolling launch.” They want to make sure that there’s as few glitches as possible for the official launch day, which they’ve only set at the “summer of 2006.” Hopefully we’ll get a chance to give it a spin pretty soon.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Cistera Networks, the leading provider of advanced IP phone application platforms and engines in the Enterprise VoIP Telephony environment, today announced the availability of its Version 1.6 Presence Engine, PresenceManager.
Demand for PresenceManager is strong across all vertical markets, and successful deployments have already been made for large customers in the education vertical market including Corpus Christi and Katy Independent School Districts.
Presence Engines allow IP phone users and administrators to tailor their environments based on multiple factors, including physical presence and availability. The Cistera ConvergenceServer™ uses PresenceManager to appropriately deliver, record and playback calls, to present notifications and events correctly and to allow a more comprehensive real-time directory view of an organization.
"In order for customers to transition from traditional telephony to VoIP, we need to ensure the availability of features they have come to depend on. What used to be called 'Do-Not-Disturb' or 'Time-of-Day Restrictions' are actually early implementations of what is now known in the industry as 'Presence,'" said Cistera Networks CTO Greg Royal. "We took those initial features and brought them into the 21st century, while adding additional functionality that is available in a VoIP environment."
Cistera is one of only a handful of vendors that can deliver both "local" presence, where users set their own presence, and "global" presence, where the administrator can set the presence of large numbers of phones. "We have one customer that can set the presence of over 6,500 phones on a daily basis. The Cistera ConvergenceServer manages and routes over 10,000 calls a day for that customer through Cistera PresenceManager," said Royal.
"Because we natively support Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) on our platform, we can extend it to include SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Level Extensions) platforms such as the Microsoft Live Communications Server (LCS) 2007, and Cisco's Communicator products," continued Royal.
The Cistera ConvergenceServer (CCS), with its robust suite of application engines, offers customers IPT applications that are easy to integrate and install. The CCS adds critical competency and features such as text and audio broadcasting, messaging, recording and content streaming within Cisco and Nortel Converged Communications environments.
Source: Cistera
Written by Dal on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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The confirmation of Robert McDowell to the Federal Communications Commission in May, which creates the first Republican majority in the commission since early 2005, could impact several key policies on controversial telecom issues including the Universal Service Fund, according to Fitch Ratings’ Biannual Telecommunications Regulatory Register.
As for USF, the firm said a reformed USF plan will likely be neutral to most wireline carriers but that wireless carriers could see a reduction in support, particularly if cost studies reflect actual costs rather than the incumbent wireline cost average.
Another issue likely to be impacted is deployment of video services. Efforts by Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. to offer video services has spurred some states to consider revamping old video franchise laws, said Fitch.
Source: RCR
Written by Dal on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) has released an updated conference program for its upcoming INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo West 2006. The event is being held at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA, October 10-13, 2006.
This year's expansive program features specific tracks focusing on the needs of Service Providers, Enterprises, Government Agencies, Developers and Resellers. Each of these educational tracks was hand-selected from hundreds of proposals submitted by IP communications experts around the world.
Conference tracks for INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo West 2006 include:
-- Service Providers Solutions
-- FierceMarkets' IPTV Evolution Workshop
-- iHollywood's WiMAX/Triple Play Workshop
-- IMS Expo (Co-located conference)
-- WiFi Telephony
-- Regulation
-- Large Enterprise
-- Enterprise/Government Solutions
-- TMC University IP PBX Certification Courses
-- VoIP Security for Consumer/User
-- Open Source
-- IP Communications Development
-- SIP Workshop
-- VoIP for SMB
-- Call Center 2.0 (Co-located conference)
-- Telework Coalition Remote Agent Workshop
-- Conferencing & Collaboration
"INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO is the best attended IP Communications event in the world," said Rich Tehrani, TMC President and conference chairman. "The strength of this event and the reason why so many people attend is, and always will be, the unprecedented opportunity to learn. Our team of editors at INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine spent months assembling the most relevant curriculum that will be taught by the highest caliber faculty. I honestly believe the conference's educational content is the best available, and is the strength of this one-of-a-kind event."
The conference program features educational sessions, presented by foremost experts, on the most relevant topics like IMS, SIP, Open Source Telephony, Mobile and Wireless solutions, QoS, DSP Resource Boards, VoIP Security, and more.
In addition, new to this year's program will be several co-located events open to paid attendees of INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO that will focus on IPTV, Voice Peering, IMS, and IP Contact Centers, among others.
Tehrani added, "The scope and depth of content at this event represents a quantum leap not only from IT EXPOs of the past, but from any related technology conference. Every single important topic is covered under one roof by the core conference program, by the co-located IMS EXPO and Call Center 2.0 conferences, or by the workshops offered by our content partners, iHollywood, FierceMarkets and the Voice Peering Fabric."
Registration for the conference is now open at www.itexpo.com. For additional information regarding exhibit and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Dave Rodriguez at 203-852-6800, ext. 146 or via e-mail at drodriguez@tmcnet.com
Press inquiries should be directed to Mostafa Razzak, 23-31 Communications: 646-442-3361 or m.razzak@23-31.com.
Written by Dal on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Is there a second act for Sony's Walkman?
Can the product that originally defined "personal audio" make it back to the top?
In fact, can the company that once topped the consumer gadget mountain, once again ascend to that lofty perch?
(So many questions ...)
While some of Sony's major products, such as TVs and digital cameras, are now regaining momentum, Sony president Ryoji Chubachi said the Walkman is a critical product "to reinforce Sony's resurrection."
He hopes to create demand for the Walkman by marrying software and hardware.
Once again, one of the best reads of what's happening in gadgets has the full story -- www.wsj.com.
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Company picks up exclusive contract from the WiMAX Forum.
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With European Union giving Microsoft a slap upside the head, they've got more to worry about than their share price. Their shares have been fairly level over the past five years,
and some people think it's because they have stopped become innovators,
with few forays into the newest technologies on and off the web. For
example, when you think VoIP, do you think Microsoft?
Back last fall, when they acquired Teleo,
it was expected that Microsoft was making a big leap into the VoIP
market. What have they done with VoIP since? If past history is any
evidence, they'll buy a company with wide presence - often with a free
product - and embed their offerings into enterprise applications.
That's their thing, their forte. But the web hasn't been about
enterprise. If they want to dominate the Internet, Microsoft should
take advice from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and give it away, give it
away, give it away, now.
I shouldn't be too harsh, though. They did release Windows Live Messenger, with the expectation of upstaging Skype. But early in February, we asked is Microsoft serious about VoIP? Then late that month, they announced a free VoIP app allowing Office users to make free calls on Wi-Fi phones - preferably with the Windows Live Messenger-compatible VoIP cordless phone they teamed up with Philips to launch in January. In March, we were sure Microsoft's serious about VoIP.
So
they're obviously trying. Personally, I'm glad they didn't buy Skype
(did they even make an offer?) or Sightspeed, else the products might
have been buried deep in other offerings. I think they need to consider
offering products purely on their own merits, which don't need other MS
apps installed to run on.
Written by ewriter on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Last night, I attended a friendly meet and greet hosted by Microsoft in downtown Toronto. The venue was the funky, artist-friendly Gladstone Hotel, which used to be a major focal point when the trains stopped there way back when. The train tracks are still in use, but a lot has changed since! The hotel was run down for ages, but some smart money came along, and they've updated the place, and it's now become one of Toronto's hippest spots. Lucky us. Lots of black, and artsy types, but when you get by that, the space for Microsoft's event was bright and cheery, and a very like-minded crowd.
Kudos to local tech PR firm, High Road Communications for doing such a nice job. Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of Microsoft, but this is a venue I would associate more with Skype or Google. So, if part of the plan was to make Microsoft more in tune/in touch with the developer community, this was a great way to do that.
The event was part of their Windows Live Update buzz, and the formal briefing takes place on Friday by teleconference. Last night was all about Phil Holden, who I haven't met before, but is a key advocate for Windows Live. From what I could tell, it was was blogger crowd, and I'm sure many are active in the BarCamp scene (especially David Crow), which colleagues like Alec Saunders are.
Not much to say about the event itself. I got to meet Phil, and seem to have become fast friends with David Crow, who has an interesting wireless startup going, among other things. The time was well spent for sure, and I'm looking forward to the Windows Live update call on Friday.
Here are some photos, again, off my Nokia N90.
Phil Holden/me; Phil's red shoes!
David Crow/me
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Written by Jon Arnold's Blog on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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This might seem a bit early to be too excited about, but if you're a lover of pro football, does the season ever end?
EchoStar and the the NFL Network recently announced a multi-year extension to bring many new advanced features to customers of EchoStar’s DISH Network satellite TV service.
These features include availability on DISH Network’s America’s Top 60; 168 games televised nationally, including NFL Network’s regular season primetime game package debuting this Thanksgiving; and full-time carriage of NFL Network’s High Definition feed.
Beginning today, the NFL Network will be available to DISH Network customers on Channel 154 on the America’s Top 60 package or above. Additionally, DISH Network will televise NFL Network’s regular season primetime games nationally on both Standard Definition and High Definition feeds.
If that's not enough, with NFL Network’s exclusive access into key league events, football fans will have access to nearly 2,000 original hours of programming on NFL Network.
www.dishnetwork.com
www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/home
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That's the main Hip-Hop page from our sister (actually more like second cousin) site MP3.com. I see a Cingular Answer T9ones ad there. But why isn't there a Vonage, Skype, or Yahoo! Messenger with Voice ad there as well?Let me explain. Earlier this week the NPD Group came up with research that showed that fans of [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Not sure if Mark Cuban is still pissed the Dallas Mavericks choked during the
NBA Finals but his post that
the Internet is boring makes him sound like a grumpy old man. I'm not a multi-billionaire like Cuban who hit the entrepreneurial jackpot during the dot-com boom by selling by his start-up,
Broadcast.com, to Yahoo but I've been on the Web since 1995, and it seems as interesting to me as ever. Cuban claims it's become a public utility but look at the progress that has been made in the past few years. We've gone from using dial-up to super-fast broadband; we've gone from a Web where you just received information to one where you can
do thousands of things, whether it's banking, vacation planning, sharing photos or making donations. Cuban dismisses blogging but when was last time a mass communications tool with little or no barriers to entry hit the mainstream? Mark, it's a nice rant but you can't be totally serious to claim the Internet is more than "just a utility to deliver the digital bits" created by entrepreneurs or kids. To be honest, you need to step back from the fire and realize how many people have little clue about the Web's capability and power.
Written by Mark Evans on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Amazon.com’s S3 storage web service is proving to be quite a hit amongst the very early stage start-ups.
Despite my early skepticism, the growing number of early-stage start-ups signing up for Amazon S3 indicate that something big is afoot. One of the reasons for the growing popularity of S3 is because the service is optimized for developers and offers REST/SOAP access to its system at pretty affordable prices. Amazon currently charges $0.15 per gigabyte of storage per month and $0.20 per gigabyte of data transferred.
These prices, as Jeff Barr of Amazon explained at SF TechSessions in June, will trend lower, thanks to constant commoditization of hardware and Amazon’s scale. “We are not speculating on the future except to say that we will continue to offer Amazon S3 at extremely competitive pricing by passing along Amazon’s own benefits of scale to Amazon S3 customers,” a company spokesperson said.
S3 is proving to be particularly attractive to community-based media companies - homegrown photos, video, even music. Altexa, Elephant Drive, Jungle Disk, MediaSilo, Ookles, Plum and SmugMug are some of the start-ups that are currently using Amazon’s S3. Online photo sharing company SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill seems to be one happy customer, with a good reason!
He was facing a hefty tab for storage - Smug Mug is adding about ten terabytes worth of photos every month and claims he saved almost $500,000 in storage expenses. His monthly tab just in storage is around the $1500. An Apple 7TB XServe RAID costs about $13,000. Of course there are cheaper options, but still it is a lot of savings.
S3’s early success makes you think that is the on-demand infrastructure can be delivered at an affordable price, the cost of setting up an online business is going to decline even further, perhaps prompting a whole cycle of new entrepreneurial activity. Amazon’s Alexa platform plays into this trend quite well since it allows developers to process and analyze data on Amazon, store it (on S3), and serve it back out to the world.(Amazon, after all is the harbinger of Web 2.0 trends.)
Is this extreme commoditization? In the first stage of commoditization, we say the value shift from specialized chips to all-purporse processors, only to be followed by an appliance movement. The value moved into the software. Maybe what we are seeing is the early signs of value moving into user experience and developer skillset. (Nick Carr, if you are reading this, do let us know what you think. Jonathan Schwartz, chime in, for I know, you know a lot about this trend, first hand!)
Despite its early adoption, it is hard to say if S3 (or Alexa) are a financial success. Yet, it is not hard to imagine S3 as a rallying symbol of on-demand infrastructure, just like Salesforce.com turned software-as-a-service (SaaS) as a viable business option. What do you think?
Written by Om Malik on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Last nite on Comedy Central's Daily Show host Jon Stewart did a hilarious skit about net neutrality- and how Senator Ted Stevens- one of the main lawmakers in this debate, thinks the Internet is a series of tubes.Funny, I always thought it was a truck. A big, huge truck.Excerpt from the segment:Stevens: I…just the other [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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As someone who lives in the Skype world as well as in the BlackBerry world, I am really tempted to try WebMessenger Mobile for Skype.Leveraging the capabilities of desktop (as opposed to mobile) Skype, WebMessenger Mobile for Skype is sort of a bridge between a mobile device and PC-based Skype connectivity. This service works by connecting [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Photobucket is looking to extend its domination of photo-sharing on the web to the mobile domain. We have learnt that withing weeks, Photobucket and mobile marketing company mFoundry will release an application (in beta form) that could help extend Photobucket-basecd content to mobile phones. Sausalito, CA-based mFoundry helps brands do marketing and advertising via mobile. Both companies refused to give details about their mobile plans.
Whatever is the nature of those plans, mobile is becoming a bigger and bigger part of Photobucket’s longterm strategy. Photobucket, which already offers its users a way to upload photos from a camera phone to the site, and by some estimates the company is seeing over 34,000 mobile uploads per day–Photobucket CEO Alex Welch says the mobile uploads come in slightly under that estimated figure.
The company, which has development offices in Denver and a business office in Palo Alto has nearly 19 million users who access the Photobucket site, for free. Going mobile could be a way for Photobucket to monetize its free service. MFoundry applications can insert ads and allow the same users to access photos on their mobile phones, and thus bring some dollars.Photobucket recently launched a service in the U.K. where users can publish images to the mobile phone itself, called “Make Mobile,” but the service doesn’t seem to be available outside the U.K. for now. In a recent survey from M:Metrics, the research firm said U.K. users are inclined to use mobile social services, like uploading photos to Flickr from your cell phone, far above users in the U.S. and other countries in Europe. If Photobucket pushes the “Make Mobile” service beyond the U.K., it could use mFoundry to add advertisements.
The deal highlights the growing market for both mobile advertising and mobile photo sharing. Perhaps that explains why both companies received a good deal of funding in recent months - mFoundry got $7.3 million in March and Photobucket received another $10.5 million in May 2006!
Research firm Ovum says mobile advertising in the U.S. will rise from $45 million this year to $1.2 billion by 2010. Mobile photo sharing is growing in popularity. Flickr and other services like Shozu have seen increase usage, thanks in part to the growing trend of moblogging.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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I kind of like the idea of this new flip-style Wi-Fi VoIP phone from D-Link.The 3.7 ounce phone, which has just started shipping, is listed at $249.99. It isn't sold with a VoIP service, - thus narrowing its appeal, but it will be programmable by consumers to work with a whole range of SIP-based Internet [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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