February 7th, 2007

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Intel invests in open-source telephony firm Fonality

Fonality said that it has taken in $7 million in funding, led by Intel Capital which will be used to expand Fonality's operations in the U.S. and internationally. Fonality sells ...

Written by News.blog: VoIP (CNET News.com) on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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JAJAH and Pageflakes Release VoIP Widget

The VoIP Widget Is Supposed to Make VoIP Calls Easier Then Ever But will it? Users can now add a little VoIP widget to their personal startpage at www.pageflakes.com and initiate calls from the widget - without having to go to any other website. Thats great, but what if I dont have or want to have a Pageflakes personal startpage. This doesnt make VoIP calling any easier for anyone, except Pageflakes users, a small minority when you consider how many could really benefit from easier VoIP calls. A better move for JAJAH would have been to release a widget that works on Wordpress, Moveable Type, Blogger, etc that would allow a bloggers user to make calls using JAJAHs technology. Now that would be sweet, and with 50 million+ blogs out there, it would certainly expose a larger audience to JAJAH then Pageflakes.

Written by Smith On VoIP - Garrett Smith's Insights on VoIP P on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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UNH Labs to Pre-Test VoIP Hardware For Vonage

Hey Kid Test This Adaptor Whud Ya? The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) has been approved as the first external testing facility to pre-screen Internet telephony devices for compatibility with the services of Vonage. Vendors looking to get their product certified for use with the Vonage network will have to make it through analysis at the UNH-IOL prior to getting into Vonages in-house lab. It will be interesting to see if this move increases the number of devices available for use with Vonage or if it is simply a move to lower the amount of inquires and products they receive directly.

Written by Smith On VoIP - Garrett Smith's Insights on VoIP P on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Fonality trixbox Open Communication Certification

Fonality trixbox to host workshop for telephony professionals and system integrators As I reported earlier last week , Fonality a leading open source Asterisk based IP PBX provider, has announced the Fonality trixbox Open Communications Certification (FtOCC) workshop. The workshop is a first in a series that looks to train telephony professionals and systems integrators on the trixbox application platform and established a recognized certification for trixbox professionals. The course will focus on a myriad of subjects including, but not limited to: VoIP, PBX deployment, network assessment, telephony troubleshooting, T1/PRI training, and IP handset education. The goal of the FtOCC is to arm data VARs, system integrators and telephony professionals with the knowledge needed to deploy and manage PBX installations for businesses from 1 to 1,000 employees. For more information on the FtOCC program, please visit the Learntrixbox.com .

Written by Smith On VoIP - Garrett Smith's Insights on VoIP P on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Here’s a handy guide to Skype third-party utilities and hacks

Given that the Skype site's third-party software taxonomy is still a bit less intuitive than it ought to be, I'd recommend VoIP News' Hacking Skype: 25 Tips To Improve Your Skype Experience as a resource you might want to check out. The title is a bit unintentionally misleading. The balance of these tips really aren't [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Skype This…or That

Ever wondered what you could do with Skype beyond making voice calls? Then, check out this list of 25 tips and hacks to get more out of Skype.

Technorati Tags: Skype, VoIP

Written by Mark Evans on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Metacafe gets a new CEO

Metacafe, the online video startup that was rumored to be close to an acquisition deal for $200 million or so last December, is getting a new CEO. Co-founder Arik Czerniak tells us that he is stepping down as CEO and will remain at the company focusing on products and strategy. Erick Hachenburg, previously of Electronic Arts, will be taking over as CEO of the company that has offices in Palo Alto and Tel-Aviv Israel.

Czerniak tells us that the guard change “is great news for the company,” and Hachenburg “is a guy who is going to lead us to the next level.”

Metacafe has been adding other new executives recently. In January the company said it had hired Mort Greenberg, VP Sales, Allyson Campa, VP Marketing, and added Bud Colligan as its Executive Chairman. Metacafe, also opened a New York office “to better serve its advertisers and media partners.” The company has raised at least $19 million from investors, including Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners.

In December TechCrunch reported that Metacafe’s acquisition deal might had fallen through because of traffic concerns, and cited Comscore numbers that showed the startup had a 25% traffic drop in monthly unique vistors — from a high of 4.2 million in September, to 3.1 million in November.

Numbers compiled on NewTeeVee from Comscore for the month of December, show that Metacafe had 2.95 million total unique visitors for that month (U.S. audience). Numbers from Compete compiled on NewTeeVee say that Metacafe is ranked #14 with a 1.3% market share and 1.57 million unique monthly visitors, also based on a U.S. audience.

Hitwise data says comparing Jan-07 versus Dec-06, the market share of visits to the site among all U.S. web sites increased 1% — that’s in contrast to the company’s growth between Jan-06 and Jan-07 where Hitwise says its market share of visits to the site increased 912% among all US websites. That year over year traffic boost came as a result of the company sharing the advertising revenues with video creators — an advantage now blunted by YouTube’s recent announcement.

It seems like the traffic concerns are real, and the company is looking for ways to turn around ~~revive~~ a traffic decline. Investors, for one, are always eager to press for the symbolic change of the guard when things go south. The new ceo will have his work cut out for him, trying to revive the company and beat its competitors

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Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Would you download digital videos from Wal-Mart?

Today Wal-Mart Stores introduces a digitally downloadable library of 3,000 titles from the six major movie distributors. The significant majority of these titles are available for $14.88, but are tied to discounted pricing available to those who go to their Wal-Mart store and purchase the actual, physical DVD. Others have noted the digital download bar [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Joost for Mac, almost here

All right Macheads, we got some seriously good news for you. Starting today at 8 PM GMT, which is about 12 noon in Silicon Valley, Joost is going to open its website to 100 NewTeeVee readers¹ who have an Intel powered Mac and let them have an alpha version of Joost for Mac. You need to be registered on their website to get access to the alpha software. Continue Reading

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Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Woo-Hoo! Vonage finds itself a test lab

That's notable, considering that Vonage doesn't make their own equipment. So what's the deal? Vonage's service comes with literally dozens of equipment options, from routers and adapters to Vonage-branded portable devices. But as frequent posts to the non-Vonage-operated Vonage Forum tells us, sometimes these devices and set-ups don't play nice with the Vonage service, or each [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Wal-Mart, The Grand Delusion, Part II

Back in the 1990s, you knew things were getting a tad frothy when you found companies with essentially no expertise in a “hot business” expanding into businesses they had little or no clue about. A good case in point: Enron and its broadband push. They thought bandwidth was like energy, and well rest is a well known tragedy.

That’s just one example of 1990s style corporate stupidity. If you go through the archives of The Industry Standard, I am sure you will find more. Well into the first decade of the new century, you see delusionary behavior making a strong comeback.

Today, WalMart, which has enjoyed little success with its previous technology expansion plans, announced its desire to get into the movie download business.

One can’t fault them for trying, after all how much can you squeeze your ecosystem and offer everyday low prices. The landscape, when it comes to movie downloads is no different than the digital music market. Every one came, saw, and whimpered away. (Read: Digital Downloads or Dot Bombs of today)

One should expect the same play-by-play action this time around. There are too many me-too download services out there, muddying the waters and confusing the consumers about which movie or television they can download from where, and why. Which device should they get in order to take their digital purchase along with them.

In this land of confusion, it seems once again Steve Jobs will look like a messiah - a device which works with the videos you download from iTunes store. Simple - unfortunately you can’t say the same about Wal-Mart. As Paul points out on NewTeeVee, “There is a question of what might happen to always low prices when customers start calling up asking for online support. Hard to steer them to one of those friendly greeter-folks through a browser.”

Photo: courtesy of Desktop Wall Paper downloads for the movie Jack Ass 2

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