January 19th, 2007
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Did the Wall St. Journal attend a presentation I gave last month to the Toronto Venture Group? You’d swear someone was copiously taking notes given a story it had yesterday on how many Web start-ups have adopted a low-cost, no-frills business philosophy - as opposed to the high-flying, high-spending environment during the dot-com boom.
For me, the WSJ story strikes a chord given I co-founded a start-up during the boom (Blanketware Corp.), and now live and breath the new new way of doing business at b5media. We’re a company without a traditional office (we’ve been operating out of CEO Jeremy Wright’s basement and a converted garage in the back of my house so far). When it comes to doing business Skype and Hotwire are key strategic tools, and until winter finally arrived last week, I was happy to ride my bike to meetings if it meant saving the $10 or $15 on parking.
One quote that stood out in the WSJ story came from Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, who said “Any crash this time won’t be as precipitous as in 2000. Because start-ups aren’t going through cash at such a blistering pace, that gives companies more time to figure out what works in their business.”
While you could argue there may not be a dramatic financial crash, I do believe 2007 could a start-up fall out as many “projects” started in 2005 and 2006 exhaust their initial angel/friends/family/founder financing, and are unable to raise more money because their business models aren’t solid enough. For more thoughts on the WSJ, check out Digital Alchemy, USA Today’s Kevin Maney and PodTech’s John Furrier, who rightly makes the point that the focus for start-ups shouldn’t be on being thrifty but, rather, generating revenue.
Technorati Tags: b5media, Venture Capital, Web 2.0
Written by Mark Evans on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Didn’t take too long for AT&T to start showing why it’s good to be big: You can use your own network to clobber competitors in the pricing game. Friday morning’s salvo is an offer of free, unlimited in-network calls between Cingular (excuse me, AT&T Wireless!) cellular and AT&T landline accounts.
According to the AP story, the service covers about 100 million numbers, which are phones held by users who are suddenly saving money without doing a damn thing. Sounds like that iPhone just got a lot cheaper, one more excuse for Om to indulge himself come June. And VoIP providers who thought they could win by underpricing the incumbents? Welcome to round two.
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Written by Paul Kapustka on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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I love wicked publicists! 
Here's small-guy VoipBuster making fun of big corporate Skype just hours after Skype's announcement on its home page and in a news release sent through the same channels Skype uses.
Skype increases all prices!
(Full text of a statement. Contact details follow below.)
Cologne (ANTARA News/PRNewswire-AsiaNet) - They kept millions of users waiting for more than a month, but today Skype (eBay) finally announced their new "pricing strategy"....
VoipBuster could not believe it: instead of lowering their prices they decided to put a new charge of 3,9 eurocents on all calls!! For almost all Skype users this means a price increase of over 50%!
Time to switch, because VoipBuster, the biggest rival of Skype, announced today more new countries can be called for FREE. Making the price difference even bigger!
VoipBuster a service of Betamax GmbH & Co.
KG Postfach 19 04 25
50501 Koln
press@voipbuster.com
Technorati tags: skypeout, skype, voipbuster, voip, minutestealer, skypepro, voim
Written by Skype Journal on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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It has been a while since I sat down with Angus Davis, co-founder of voice applications service provider TellMe. I have known Davis and his co-founder Mike McCue for years. We met in an era when most Oracle employees wanted to work at Netscape, where the two of them were. (These days I guess Google is the company on people’s wish list to escape the evil clutches of Larry 1.0.)
TellMe powers the 411 services at major telecom service providers, mobile operators and large corporations like FedEx. It is a boring business, but hugely lucrative, enough to make TellMe a likely candidate for an IPO offering later this year. But Davis dodged those questions, and instead we ended up talking about a staggering work of Jobs’ genius – the iPhone, which could also very well be Steve’s WaterWorld.
Given that Angus and I match John Madden in cumulative age, it came as no surprise that we were a tad cynical, and perhaps skeptical of the device that promises to do it all. After all, dialing a touch screen phone when driving is kind of difficult, and of course our senses have been programmed to use the 12-key pad.
Chattering like yentas aside, we did marvel at the phone’s user interface – fluid, dynamic and simple. The kind of fluid dynamism you can see in the Apple TV or on Front Row. It might be worth whatever it cost to build.
The New, Fluid Interface
The commonality amongst those three is their ability to bring into focus the feature or functionality that you want to use, and fading the rest in the background. The simplicity triggers usage almost intuitively. While these are three Apple products, they portend a new trend, the emergence of a more fluid and active user interface.
Apple is not alone in thinking along these lines, because you can find other examples, though not quite as polished or fully evolved.
The Nokia N80 and N73 have a multimedia key that opens up a multifunction window that is navigated using a tiny navigation stick. Some of the Sony Ericsson phones have an almost-dynamic UI, and so does the BlackBerry Pearl from T-Mobile; they only limit it to the Faves feature. A few phones from Samsung and LG have dabbled in this, though most have stopped short of Apple’s efforts.
It is easy to have a static interface when all you want to do is look up a phone number or send a text message. The emergence of the active and fluid user interface stems from the trend that the devices are becoming multifunctional, and complex.
One of the big challenges when it comes to adoption of converged devices has been their complex and confounding user interfaces. Citizens would happily sacrifice convenience of one-device-to-do-it- all in favor of simplicity.
This is especially so in the case of mobile phones that are now masquerading as everything from music players to Internet tablets. To navigate through the wide array of features using a classic user interface is quite challenging.
Intelligent storage drives and multifunction CE devices are also ideal for this new fluid interface, only exposing the functionality you want to use. The gaming consoles have been testing this idea and we can very well expect more UI experimentation in the near future.
Not Just for Devices
The fluid interface is not just for devices, and thanks to Web 2.0 technologies like Ruby and Ajax, you are also seeing the fluidity come to web and web applications, and perhaps it will soon trickle down to enterprise applications.
Netvibes and Pageflakes are good examples of rudimentary interfaces that depend on fluidity. Digg Spy and Cloud View are other examples of a fluid UI. The commonality between all these services is that they are dealing with massive amounts of information, just like the new CE devices.
The big interface shift is part of the technological evolution. During the last century, the automobile business started out Model-T but then evolved to different models, each with a different look and feel and a different dashboard, the UI of that business. It has continued to evolve and become more dynamic as complexity of the box-on-four-wheels has increased.
The computer business has gone through the same evolution. I remember the punch cards, the DOS interface, Windows 3.1, the Mac, the OS X, the Windows XP and so on. (Interestingly, the Xerox inspired icon-driven Mac UI changed the way we interacted with computers.) Computers had screen real estate and helped popularize the “menu” and “windows” system. But with mobiles and CE devices that menu-windows paradigm doesn’t quite work as effectively.
The fluid UI is the natural evolution. In an era where hyper commoditization is part of doing business, UI and by extension the user experience is the crucial barrier to entry. Apple’s iPhone is a collection of commodity chips, hard drives and whatnot dressed up in a pretty shell. It is the UI that makes it intriguing enough to worth waiting for.
Our skepticism about it being a potentially costly debacle aside, both Davis and I are waiting for the iPhone, just to get a close personal look at the user interface. (At least that’s my excuse for getting one!)
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Written by Om Malik on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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After attracting millions of users and billions in valuation, Skype is still seeking to answer the always-there question about whether Skype is a growth business. Thursday the eBay subsidiary unveiled yet another plan to try to tap into Skype users’ wallets, an all-you-can-eat SkypeOut service called Skype Pro which (like their Skype Unlimited plans for Canada and the U.S.) removes the per-minute charges for each call to the PSTN and replaces it with a small connection fee and a subscription cost.
Whether it’s a good deal for users is hard to tell at this point, especially since it’s only available initially in Europe. Clearly, more successful subscription models give Skype things it never had — contracts with users, and steady predictable revenue. Plus more cash up front, instead of waiting for people to call out to the PSTN to get paid.
Why is that important to Skype, more important than say figuring out how to be really disruptive again and move Skype to cell phones? Om noted a long time ago that there are still payouts tied to revenue figures. With Niklas Zennstrom back in charge, it’s not hard to figure out the motivation to get into serious competition with telcos the world over. Just add some cash to the bottom line, quickly! For customers, the question is — do you want eBay to be your phone company?
Bonus links: Skype Journal goes all PowerPoint to explain the latest move; and a reprise of Mr. Blog’s Skype losing-its-luster post, another good refresher on the why-more-paid-services moves.
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Written by Paul Kapustka on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Skypes New Pricing Isnt Distruptive If this is the sort of thing that is so distruptive it takes internet communications one step further it is about time I start an ITSP. Todays announcement from Skype > of a new pricing plan and a price increase on global calling left a lot to be desired. This is a clear case of an overzealous marketing/PR team over-promising and under-delivering. No Problem With Price Increases I agree with PhoneBoy that I have no problem with price increases because, hey it is a business, but dont give your subscribers a bunch sugar coated gobbly-guk marketing speak about some how doing anything more then charging for your service. SkypePro SkypePro is a similar flat rate nationwide calling service for Skype subscribers located outside of North American and the UK. Essentially, the package is similar to the now $14.99 monthly unlimited SkypeOut > offering for US/Canada calling. Not exactly disruptive. Bringing customers calling packages that are closer to what they use to seeing is smart though - most users dont pay for landline or cellualr service by the minute, they buy buckets or unlimited calling plans. It will be interesting to see how these new packages affect Skypes revenues.
Written by Smith On VoIP - Garrett Smith's Insights on VoIP P on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Mark Spencer Shows You How to Install Asterisk Now I was browsing around YouTube today and found this great little video below from Digium , that has Mark Spencer the creator of Asterisk , walking you through the installation of AsteriskNow and a general overview of many of the basic configuration screens. This video truly captures how easy it is to install AsteriskNow , and from using the GUI myself, how much easier it is to configure then, well Asterisk by itself. Check it out, it is well worth the five minutes! >
Written by Smith On VoIP - Garrett Smith's Insights on VoIP P on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Here in Boston at Mashup Camp 3, we’ve seen an incredible range of applications mashed up from sites and services on the web. During three total hours of SpeedGeeking, Mashup Camp attendees spent five minutes a piece viewing demos and asking questions of mashup developers. Then each attendee votes for his or her favorite mashup with a wooden nickel.
We saw mashups going way beyond basic integration with Google Maps to include MySpace integration, hardware hacks, and voice-enabled applications. Early buzz focused on OpenKapow, The Hype Machine, and Gigul8tor by Eventful. And of course everybody loved GBlinker: a Google pin wired up to a serial port so it flashes when email comes in.
OpenKapow offers a platform for creating web-based APIs, feeds, and HTML snippets from any website, taking mashup possibilities way beyond the 300+ APIs offered on ProgrammableWeb.
The Hype Machine combines blog posts from a set of curated music blogs with Amazon sales data and upcoming events. It includes an amazing hacked integration with iTunes that takes you right from the web page to the track you’re interested in. If you prefer buying through Amazon, The Hype Machine figures out what CD page to display.
Gigul8tor provides a data entry page aimed at bands where they can enter information about upcoming gigs and venues. Gigul8tor displays a list of possible locations depending on the venue engine and enters event information right into Eventful in an interface designed just for bands. It shows how different user interfaces could be built in front of Eventful with mashup techniques.
And the winner of Best Mashup and a laptop donated by Intel is… The Hype Machine by Anthony Volodkin. Second place is also a music-related mashup: tourfilter. Is 2007 the year of the music mashup?
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Written by Anne Zelenka on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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When the New York Times’ Walter Mossberg talks, people listen. So, I suspect many people at Microsoft must be somewhat disappointed with Mossberg’s take on Vista, which is sees as a “worthy, but largely unexciting, product”.
“Vista is much prettier than previous versions of Windows. Its icons look better, windows have translucent borders, and items in the taskbar and in folders can display little previews of what they contain. Security is supposedly vastly better; there are some new free, included programs; and fast, universal search is now built in. There are hundreds of other, smaller, improvements and additions throughout the system, including parental controls and even a slicker version of Solitaire.”
My take on Vista is pretty much the same as Mossberg’s. Vista is a definite improvement from a user-interface perspective with some really nice, user-friendly features, particularly the multi-media players. That said, my overall reaction is akin to what my mother says when goes to a movie or play that’s alright but not amazing. Her default phrase is “It was very nice”, which is a mild praise, at best. (I’ll provide a more in-depth review of Vista in a few days.)
As one of the bloggers who received a Ferarri laptop pre-loaded with Vista, one thing I can say is I’m more impressed with Vista than the laptop. The Acer machine has a great screen but it’s fairly heavy, difficult to open and the exhaust fan blows on your hand (if you’re right-handed).
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Walter Mossberg
Written by Mark Evans on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Yesterday I was discussing the Skypecast tab with someone in Germany; went to the tab and got the text shown on the right. Seems like Skypecast is going into support server overload mode. The German colleague with whom I was talking was also receiving the same message. Over the evening this tab’s panel would revert between the normal Skypecast listing and the above message from time-to-time. And, in Skype’s search for new revenue sources, will souvenir SkypeHammers be offered at the Skype Store?
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Written by Skype Journal on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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For folks in the technology world, Techmeme has become one of the places for the latest news. Search Engine Land (aka Danny Sullivan) has a lengthy Q&A with Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera. For those interested in how Techmeme is generating revenue, Rivera said the sponsored post program has been a success since it was introduced several months ago. “I’m even sold out for the next few months” he said, which makes you wonder how long it will be before Techmeme’s reasonably-priced sponsorship rates increase.
Technorati Tags: Techmeme, Gabe Rivera
Written by Mark Evans on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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- Skype:speakablogblog
- Speak your message in a voice mail
- Hang up
- Go to Simon Crowfoot's LiveJournal blog
- See how SpinVox converted your voice to text and posted it
What do you think?
- Should Skype build this as a feature into the clients? Yes, especially Skype for Business.
- Would you pay, say an extra euro a year for a voice-mail-to-text service that sends the text to you via blog, email, RSS feed, IRC, and/or SMS? Yes. Until everyone else includes it for free.
- Right now it is just for English and works best with UK standard; what spoken languages would you like? The 10 most common flavors of Chinese, Estonian, the several Spanish and Portuguese, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic.
- Once in text form, languages I don't speak could be run through a translation machine.
Could be huge for asocial eBay sellers. Or anyone else in business who values a missed a call.
Technorati tags: multilingualcomputing, translation, x8n, spinvox, voicemail, crm, speechtotext, simoncrowfoot, skype, skypejournal, voip, voim
Written by Skype Journal on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Apple Inc. is having a bad day after a spectacular evening when it reported a blowout financial performance. Sold more iPods (21 million), and Macs, banked billions in cash and what not. However, like all of us who have had a bottle of wine (or two), they are waking up with a hangover. The outlook for the second quarter of fiscal 2007 isn’t so rosy, and as a result the stock is down almost 4 percent, and still heading south.
I think Apple is experiencing the down side of over-hyping. By announcing iPhone at the Macworld, the company has put purchasing decisions on hold for millions who were in the market for a high-end iPod. There might be little risk to the lower-end iPod Shuffles and Nanos, but the big profit-making high-end iPods might be at risk.
“We believe this [seasonal] risk is particularly pronounced given our concerns that some consumers may delay iPod purchases ahead of the iPhone lauch,” Bill Shope of J.P. Morgan wrote in a research note to his clients.
The iPhone could pose a bigger challenge to not just Apple but to other handset makers as well. A lot of non-geeks, non Mac fan-boys have emailed or called us, gushing about the iPhone and are willing to wait for the device before buying their next device — an Mp3 player or a mobile phone. Could it prove to be a collective “oops” for the tech business as the “Apple Shock” ripples through the entire ecosystem?
It is also interesting to note that Apple did not announce a single product at Macworld that was available instantly and could add some zip to the Apple revenue stream. Apple TV and Apple Airport are not available till next month. Both are expected to do well, but will they be the two “advils” you need to cure the hangover?
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Written by Om Malik on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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Update #2 at 12.35pm, Friday: A Fox Interactive spokesperson just emailed us this statement: “The toll booth rumor is categorically untrue. We have no plans, current or future, to charge people for widgets. We are working on a filter for security reasons – so there may have been a bug due to that…if so, it’s fixed now and working – no more quicktime worm or flash probs from here on out.”
Updated at 4.22 pm, Thursday:A couple of days ago Robert Young hinted that MySpace might be looking to block-and-tackle-and squeeze some of the widget makers in an effort to bolster its bottom line. Well, looks like the day has arrived sooner that we thought. A senior executive from a very prominent widget maker just emailed us and pointed out that:
So as of this morning, new embed tags to MySpace do not work. Photobucket, Youtube, etc… Their site might be broken, but there have been rumors for weeks that they are thinking of blocking everyone. This might be it, or just a test.. “
Our instinct on this one is that it is a test, and FIM is testing how far they can push the widget makers. Saber rattling is the word, but we would appreciate your feedback in realtime. If FIM does decide to erect a toll booth, well the widget economy is going to have its first fiscal crisis. We will follow-up with FIM and find out.
Update: We emailed FIM but have not heard back from them as yet.
Mashable reported that there were some problems with the Flash-based widgets, but they have resumed working. Brad Greenspan, one of the original founders of MySpace
is speaking out this very public muscle flexing. He is involved in a legal tangle with FIM. Here is what Greenspan had to say:
Anyone that understands MySpace and the internet space in general realizes MySpace is a monopoly. A great article identifying this came out this week by John Barrett a director of research at Park Associates. The media needs to wake up, shake off the spell of News Corp and realize that if we don’t educate the public on the abusive practices of News Corp and MySpace, then everyone who uses sites and services online can be considerably harmed.
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Written by Om Malik on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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If anyone had any doubts about the iPod’s staying power, Apple’s fiscal first-quarter results suggests there no lack of demand for the world’s coolest MP3 player. In the quarter ended Dec. 30, Apple sold a 21 million iPods - an impressive 50% increase over the same period a year earlier.
The iPod’s ability to maintain its momentum indicates the MP3 player market still has plenty of room for growth, and that Apple’s drive to pump out new versions of the iPod have resonated with consumers. It’s an interesting contrast to a post I wrote yesterday on upgrade fatigue when it comes to products such as Internet Explorer and Office.
Apple’s ability to drive higher iPod sales also reflects how competitors are failed to make any serious inroads even though there are products as good or better than the iPod. The iPod has achieved what I like to call “default status” so when people think about buying an MP3 player, they think about an iPod - much like they think about a Blackberry when it comes to a mobile e-mail device.
For something, well, completely different on Apple, check out the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, puppy
Written by Mark Evans on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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The recent rain of venture cash on Torrent-related start-ups and other P2P companies is a sign that the market is girding for a major showdown. Mark Cuban had once noted that the “conflicts between different clients might turn users off BitTorrent completely” and he makes a good point. Traditionally the competition amongst Torrent clients was around features, but the main functionality was universal. The problem, as Janko Roettgers points out, is that now start-ups are using the protocol, and as a result there is a plethora of clients that are not interoperable, and are leading to what he describes as the balkanization of BitTorrent, “with clients fighting over filetype associations and vendors introducing one proprietary feature after another.” Continue reading
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Written by Om Malik on January 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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