July 04, 2008

IP Convergence TV Update

I haven't blogged much about the IP Convergence TV portal lately, but it's time. Our latest update has just gone live, and as usual, there's lots of new and interesting content.

As portal Editor, my role is to keep the content honest and of a high caliber. I'd like to think I'm doing my part as we continue to get great feedback about the portal and traffic continues to be healthy.

So, I'd just like to draw your attention to the new content in our latest update.

We have two Guest Opinion pieces, and I think you'll really enjoy their personal views on convergence technologies. They're from new voices who may be familiar to you, and if not, I hope they will be soon - Garrett Smith and Brady Gilchrist.

On the video front, we have 3 interviews, conducted at recent industy events in Europe. Two focus on the state of IMS - Joe McGarvey of Current Analysis, and Peter Galyas of Tilgin. We also have Intel's John Woodget talking about what's driving WiMax now and how it compares to competing wireless technologies like 4G and LTE.

Finally, we have a really great primer article from Dickel Sooriah of Comverse on femtocells. It's a very timely resource for a technology that's becoming pretty central for FMC, especially SIP-based services.

I should also add that the Convergence Blog serves as my own voice for IPCTV. Sometimes I write exclusive content there, and sometimes I re-post relevant content from this blog. If there's something you'd like to see me blog about there, I'd love to hear from you.


I hope you enjoy the latest content, and to stay up to date with us, it's real easy to sign up for an RSS feed. Just look for it on the ride side of the home page.

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Posted by jonarnold at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2008

Espial Acquires Kasenna

Here's a noteworthy item that came out on Canada Day. In short, one IPTV middleware company has acquired another IPTV middleware company. It's not a huge story or a huge deal, but still of interest to anyone following this space.

The players involved are Ottawa-based Espial Group and California-based Kassena. It's a very small deal dollar-wise - not even $10 million - but there are a few aspects worth commenting on.

First, it's a Canadian story. I've followed Espial for quite some time, and they went public up here on the TSX a little over a year ago.

Second, you don't often see Canadian companies acquiring U.S. companies in the IP world. Mitel's acquisition of Inter-Tel last year was another example, but on a much larger scale. Aside from not often seeing these kinds of deals, you may well not have heard about it either. In addition to this being a really small deal, the timing is a bit odd. Falling on Canada Day, it didn't really get picked up until today. And coming into the July 4 break, it may not register much in the U.S. this week either. Is it possible the timing was intentional so as not to attract much attention? I'm not close enough to either company to speculate, but I welcome your thoughts.

More importantly, the story is worth noting as a sign of low-level consolidation in the IPTV market, which is taking longer to hit its stride than most of us have expected. This is a natural stage for any emerging sector, and together these companies should be stronger. It's always tough to gauge synergies among like companies, especially when they are of comparable size.

The real problem here is that the IPTV space - especially middleware - remains fragmented, with no dominant player. Well, they're all competing against Microsoft - that's a given - but otherwise, they're all pretty small. As a result, the longer the market takes to mature, the harder it is for the indies to hang in for the payoff. At this stage of the game, revenues are hard to come by, and options for toughing it out another quarter or two are limited. That would explain why the size of this deal is so small. Better to take a small buy-out now than risk getting nothing later on.

I've always liked Espial, and hope this deal takes them to another level. If it does, I'm sure we'll see other roll-ups as the other middleware vendors look for ways to keep pace. I doubt this will be a game-changer for Microsoft, but it sure gives Espial more runway now to ramp up and try to emerge as a leader among the indies.

All I can do here is draw some home-grown attention to the news and hope they can make this work. Go Canada!


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Posted by jonarnold at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2008

Skype 4.0 - is Bigger Better?

Today, Skype officially announced the test version of
its latest upgrade, Skype 4.0. Quite a few media types and bloggers picked up on this yesterday, but I wasn't one of them. So, if you know where to go, this may not be news, and otherwise, I'm happy to pass on the highlights.

I participated in the call and briefing today, and it was made clear from the top this is a Beta version with a long test period. Skype wants to be sure they get this right and are really looking for our input to help.

In short, the story is video - that's the gist of 4.0
- bigger, better, faster, easier. Translation - Skype becomes much more fun and much more social. Leading off the call, Don Albert
explained they were "placing some bets" on where communications is going, and for Skype's money, it's on video.

Just to clarify this is not a desperation move or a shift away from
voice, Don spelled out some basic metrics to show that Skype is doing just fine as a business. They did $126 million in Q1 2008, and are on track for $500 million overall this year. Last year they did $400 million, and have now had 5 consecutive quarters of being profitable.

VoIP is a volume business, and even though most Skype users spend little or nothing to make their calls, those $3/month subscriptions sure add up. Let's not forget that unlike the Vonages of the world, their "customer acquisition" costs are very low, so this can be a profitable business once you reach critical mass and get past the growing pains of managing your customers. That's another topic, so let's just stick to the news.

So, why video? They told us that 28% of current Skype calls include
video, and this usage level is rising. This means that a healthy share of Skype sessions are now multimedia, with voice, chat and video. Figure that about 12 million Skype users are active at any give time, then roughly 3 million will be using video.

That's a lot of video calls, and it's a great way to make communications more social, which seems to be the name of the game these days. For now, it's just for the desktop, so it's behind the curve for the mobile video trend, but Skype did tell us they are testing smaller form factors, so it's definitely in their plans.

Following Don Albert's comments, Skype Product Management Director,
Michael Barlett took us through a live demo. It was a bit choppy, but we got a pretty good idea of what the new interface looks like as well as the experience. The key idea here is that Skype 4.0 makes it easier for the mass market to do video calling. It's easier to set up with Skype-certified hardware, it's easier to import your contacts from other directories, it's easier to find other Skype users to call, it's easier to troubleshoot, and it's easier to discover and use new features.

Ease of use has long been a hallmark of Skype's success with voice,
and it looks like they're replicating this now with video. It was
also good to hear them explain how and why earlier iterations of Skype
video were not as market-ready, so I'd have to hope there has been some learning there. Anyhow, for a more technical and visual sense of Skype 4.0, please have a look at Michael Barlett's post today on the Share Skype Blog. And if you want to try it for yourself, there's a link near the end of his post to download it.

On a more technical level, I'll steer you to Jim Courtney's post on Skype Journal. He got an advance look at this, and provides some good reasons why you should not use this as a full replacement for earlier versions of Skype, especially if you're a regular user. Basically, 4.0 does not have all the voice/chat features of 3.8, so you'll likely lose a few capabilities. Furthermore, the full screen interface will take some getting used to, and may not be a great user experience if you're just texting and/or making calls. Good points.

So, is bigger better? I ask this because the big
change is how Skype 4.0 takes over your full screen rather than the side panel we're used to seeing. They're figuring that video makes a better impression when it's big, plus they've done lots of work on compression codecs to ensure a consistent experience, even if you don't have enough bandwidth. After all, big screen video only looks great if it is great. Poor resolution or jumpy streaming becomes that much more noticeable and can really work against you.

I should also add that the experience was enhanced by hosting the concall using Hi Definition audio, courtesy of their partnerhip with
Vapps. They're not the first company to combine HD audio with high end video, but for the general market, it's a nice selling point. On the whole, though, this Beta is definitely on the right side of the trend towards video, and in time will be a key driver in expanding Skype's user base. Perhaps more importantly - as I concur with Andy Abramson's take on his post - Skype 4.0 creates much better opportunities to support advertising and ecommerce.

Doing this would be a radical departure from Niklas Zennstrom's initial vision of keeping Skype pure and commercial free, but they have a business to run, folks. And video is a far more engaging medium for this than text or voice. The possibilities are pretty boggling, especially if advertising is context-aware, and can be shared with multiple parties. For now, unlike voice and text-based Skype, version 4.0 is single party - it's just one-to-one. When they evolve to multiparty video, I think that's where the potential for advertising and ecommerce - PayPal - don't forget about that! - really becomes real. So, is bigger better? For end users, it probably is, but the full screen thing will take some getting used to. For Skype, bigger will no doubt be better, especially if it opens up new revenue streams and finally creates some real synergies for eBay.

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Posted by jonarnold at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

My Interview with Ariel Barlaro, TV Telco Latam

I recently conducted a Q&A interview with Ariel Barlaro, the Editor of TV Telco Latam about the state of video and IPTV in Latin America.

If you're interested in how this part of the world is adopting video and IPTV, you'll find this wortwhile. Ariel has just published a study on this market, and can speak with authority, especially about regional trends, which are quite varied.

I conducted this interview wearing my Editor hat for IP Convergence TV, and it was posted there last week. We're just coming out of a long weekend here in Canada, and I wanted to draw attention to the fact that TMCnet was nice enough to publish the interview as a Feature Article on Friday on their Triple Play Channel. So, in case you missed it on IPCTV, you can now find it on TMC's site. That said, I sure hope you come to our portal, as the quality of content is very high and the range of thought leadership is quite diverse.

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Posted by jonarnold at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

Scott Wharton's New Venture

I've been wanting to post about this for a bit, and it's a good time now to do this.

Scott Wharton was the VP of Marketing at BroadSoft pretty much as long as I've been in this space, and he recently made a move to do his own thing. He's long been instrumental in BroadSoft's growth, and am sure they're sad to see him go. BroadSoft has evolved nicely into a strong company that I've been close to going back to my time at Frost & Sullivan. I think I even wrote my first white paper for them.

I've long considered Scott one of my go-to guys who I would always make a point of seeing at conferences. He's one of a handful of people I met when first starting out in this space who until a few weeks ago was with the same company. Not many of those around, and that counts for a lot in my books.

I'm not privy to the details, but Scott has been keen on the video telephony market for some time, and now he's taking the plunge. His new company is called Vidtel, and he's gone coastal, moving house and home from Maryland to Silicon Valley. That's quite a commitment, and he's convinced the time is right for a pureplay focused on consumer video calling. He's not alone in this space, so he must be seeing something most of us are not.

There's no doubt the market is more ready for this than ever before. Many flavors of video calling are gaining traction in the enterprise market, and I know of at least one BroadSoft customer who is doing very well with it in the consumer market. The technology is ready, the handsets are cheap enough, broadband is mainstream now, and mobile video calling is starting to happen. So, why not in the home? If anything, video calling can make landlines sexy again, and you can't tell me that's a message the telcos don't want to hear.

So, here's my shoutout to share the news about Scott's move and of course, to wish him all the success in the world. I haven't seen much about this on the blogs, and if you're looking for Scott, you need to know where to find him. For now, the Vidtel website is just a landing page, so that won't get you very far.

If you don't have his personal contact info, you can find him on LinkedIn. You can also find him in the blogosphere. He's been writing sporadically for some time, and it's all good, so you should try following him there. I'm glad I waited until today to post, actually, because Scott actually posted today. Lucky me - my post now has some up to the minute content! It's his first post since early February, but that's understandable given that he's probably been in stealth mode for a while.

Anyhow, he's not in stealth any more, so if video calling is on your radar, you should follow Scott's blog, and more importantly what he plans to do with Vidtel. I'll be watching.


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Posted by jonarnold at April 28, 2008 09:02 PM


Comments

Jon,

Can you please fix the link "Scott actually posted today" since it it's empty and does not work.

Thanks,
Pieter

Posted by: Pieter at April 29, 2008 08:05 AM

Hi John,

Thanks for the write up! If anyone wants to learn more about my new venture, please drop me a line at scott(at)vidtel.com.

Scott

Posted by: Scott Wharton at April 29, 2008 02:13 PM

Hi Pieter - thanks for the comment. Not sure what happened there with the link. Just fixed it - seems to be working now.

Posted by: Jon Arnold at April 30, 2008 02:52 PM

Posted by jonarnold at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2008

IP Convergence TV Updates Posted

I just wanted to draw attention to some recent content updates to the IP Convergence TV portal. On my Convergence Blog, we finally posted a lengthy Q&A I did with Ryan Olsen, who covers the VoIP infrastructure space at Synergy Research. This was my coverage area when I was at Frost & Sullivan, and I still follow it, so I have a natural affinity to Ryan's research.

His latest coverage is for the Q4 2007 period, and their report provides very extensive analysis and data points about the various equipment categories - gateways, softswitches, application servers, etc. The Q&A addresses the trends along with some data points that Ryan is seeing in each major category along with the overall state of the VoIP infrastructure market. Hope you enjoy it, and Ryan's contact information is provided for further follow up on his report.

We're also finally getting the last batch of videos posted that were done at the ITExpo. My interviews with TMC's Rich Tehrani and Manuel Vexler of the IMS Forum have now been posted, and before the week is out my interview with Eric Burger and Marc Robins of the SIP Forum should be posted as well.

Another video that was recently posted was conducted by Erik Larsson with David Carnevale of iSuppli during the Mobile World Congress.

Since my last blog update, I should mention there are also new video interviews with analysts David Yedwab and Will Stofega, as well as Part 2 of my interview with Greg Galitzine.

We have a number of Guest Opinion contributions coming very soon as well, with some being familiar names and some being new ones. All told, the quality of content we're getting on the portal remains quite high, and I hope you come spend some there, propose new content, leave a comment, and of course, subscribe.

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Posted by jonarnold at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2008

IP Convergence TV Updates Posted

One of the recent hats I've been wearing is the Portal Editor for IP Convergence TV. We've been doing quite a lot of work recently to get the next major update done, and things went live today. We're steadily building a following, and the content is getting better all the time.

There's quite a bit of new content there, some we've had ready for a while, and some that's fresh from last week's IT Expo. If you're interested in what we cover - IPTV, VoIP, FMC and IMS - then I think you'll find our updates very worthwhile.

Here's a short-form list of the new content that's there now:

- 2 video interviews I conducted at the show last week - Greg Galitzine of TMC, and Matt Lukens of Comverse. I did 10 interviews at the show, and the others will be posted in due time.

- 4 new Guest Opinion pieces, all from strong voices in their spaces - Ike Elliott, Markus Goebel, Bob Emmerson and David Hattey. Our roster of contributors continues to expand, and there are more new voices coming soon.

- 2 new feature articles - 1 from BEA and 1 from Comverse

- a few recent posts from me on the Convergence Blog, including my review of the IPTV roundtable I hosted last Friday

As always, I'd love to hear your feedback on the portal, as well as suggestions for new content any time.


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Posted by jonarnold at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2008

Is Video the next Killer App?

How's that for a teaser? I'm not going to get to the bottom of this right now, but maybe I can get some dialog going around this. It's late, it's Friday, we're all tired, but I'm determined to get this post out today and pass on some link love to colleague Peter Csathy.

Peter is the CEO of SightSpeed, a company I've blogged about quite a bit, and is getting a lot of well-deserved attention from many of the bloggers I follow and cite here.

CES was this week, and while not an event I've ever attended, it's hard to ignore all the noise around it. Peter was there, and having seen John Chambers's vision for video and all the noise around that, he's got a vested interest in having an opinion about this. Based on Peter's post - and other accounts I've seen about CES - Cisco's mantra about video being the next killer app was a highlight of the show, and has gotten a lot of attention.

Well, at face value, it's a strong statement, and even though I wasn't there, I'm definitely nodding my head. I heard the same story a few weeks ago at Cisco's C-Scape analyst conference, and video was certainly the biggest takeaway for me. Having seen a few things over those few days, I certainly saw a new side of Cisco and where they're going - and I think they have a pretty good story here.

The sub-story here is SightSpeed, and if video is the next killer app, then Peter's company will be there in spades. Peter's post makes the case for how SightSpeed is shaping up to be the Skype of video - but without the messy baggage around having a corporate parent. Desktop video is not really the focus of Cisco's grand plan, but that's what SightSpeed is all about. If Telepresence is the killer app for the Fortune 500 set, then SightSpeed will be the same for everyone else. Desktop video may not be as sexy, but it has a WAY bigger user base, and with a best-in-class offering, you have to like what SightSpeed is doing. I sure do!


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Posted by jonarnold at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2007

IP Convergence TV Updates Posted

Wearing my Community Advocate and Portal Editor hat for the IP Convergence TV portal, it's my duty - and pleasure - to let you know the latest update is running live now.

Not only is there new content, but the look and feel of the website has been updated. It's more user-friendly, but still a work in progress. I can tell you that traffic has been building nicely, and we're getting some great feedback from both vendors and carriers.

Two things in particular to draw to your attention....

1. My feature has been been converted from a podcast to a blog. So, my existing podcasts have been transcribed, and can be found in a new section called the Convergence Blog. My latest posting is an extended review of some recent research from Deloitte that I posted about here on my own blog a couple of weeks back.

The Convergence Blog is very early stage, though, and the look/feel will definitely be evolving - please bear with us. For those of you who were following my podcasts on the portal, I should add that all the posts on this blog can still be heard. Just like I do on this blog, the Convergence Blog posts are audio-enabled courtesy of Odiogo. I think this is a great application, and recommend it for any blogger.

2. In terms of new content, there's a new white paper from AudioCodes, 3 new video interviews conducted by Erik Larsson, and 3 new Guest Opinion pieces from some very good writers/industry players... Thomas Howe, Dean Bubley and Bob Emmerson.

I hope you read 'em all, and sign up at the site to get alerts on our updates. Got a lot in the pipeline already for the next update, so if you're following convergence technologies - IPTV, FMC, IPTV, IMS - you should find this a useful resource.


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Posted by jonarnold at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2007

Cisco C-Scape 2007 – Parting Thoughts

I mentioned in passing in my earlier post that compared to last year, Cisco has certainly come a long way in its focus on video and network-centric solutions. Lots of talk last year about unified communications and SMB – not so much now. Telepresence is front and center, which is not a bad thing. And why not? I don’t know how much traction Halo or Tandberg or Polycom are getting, but Cisco wasn’t shy telling you how many deployments they have in less than a year’s time. If the numbers are to be believed, it’s pretty hard not to conclude that Cisco has bet right with Telepresence.

There really are 2 major story lines related to TP. The first is telepresence itself and the second is how this fits into the broader constellation of video-based solutions that Cisco seems to be betting its future on. Many presentations and sessions ended with the reassuring messaging that Cisco is ‘uniquely positioned’ to deliver video and bring customers into the Web 2.0 world. Well, if you say so, then it must be true. There was a lot of Kool Aid served at C-Scape, but on this count they just may be right. To the extent you believe that - it’s too early for me to tell - Cisco is poised to become a force in the video a lot faster than you might think.

So, first to TP – Telepresence. The big message there is that if you just think of this as high end videoconferencing, then you have very 1.0 view of things. Absolutely, that’s what it does, but from day 1 Cisco has not called this videoconferencing, and has staked out higher ground trying to get the world to see this as an entirely new category. The Cisco view is that this a tool for business transformation, that changes the way people communicate, and more importantly, the way we do business. They provided pretty good examples of this, particularly in health care, and we’re not just talking about cutting down on travel. It’s about enabling new processes and accelerating workflow. I’m just an indie, so I can’t really envisage this in my world, but can definitely see where this really can happen.

If you want to see the wow factor of where they’re coming from, check out this much-watched video off of YouTube. It runs about 4 minutes, and was mentioned often at the event, and gives the term virtual reality new meaning. In this session, John Chambers is speaking live in Bangalore, and Marthin De Beer appears hologram-like on the same stage as if he was right there with him. This isn’t from a Hollywood special effects magician – it can happen at your next board meeting. An interesting example they provided was how an Arab Emirates country wants to use this as a way to virtually bring Western celebrities into their local events. Well, that makes sense – a lot of rich and famous people will not – or cannot – travel to this part of the world, so TP is the next best thing. I get that.

Also, if you want to see a more extensive video from which this demo was done, there's an official version running on Cisco's website. It runs about 11 minutes, and has John Chambers telling the TP story in more detail.

I should also add that as good as the TP story is, there was no mention made of some interesting news from late last week. Cisco announced they’ll be opening up TP to interoperate with other standards-based videoconferencing systems. I’m all for that, and it positions Telepresence as more of a 2.0 solution, making it even more interesting. Not sure why they didn’t play this angle up at C-Scape.

Lots more to talk about here, but you get the idea. Anyhow, the second idea is the bigger picture of video. This is Dan Scheinman’s world, and Cisco demonstrated on a few levels how committed they are to video. They see it as the killer app of the Internet, and they just might be right. And of course, to do video right, you must have the right network, and who knows networks better than Cisco, right? Networks are not my forte, so I really can’t challenge on this front. What I do know is that 2008 will see the launch of EOS – their Entertainment Operating System – which puts all the pieces to together, including search capabilities that are a big part of their secret sauce.

I agree with Dan’s premise that there’s simply too much content out there, and people generally don’t know what they’re looking for most of the time, and when they do, they really don’t know how to find it. So, a big part of what will make video a big deal is having search tools that don’t just help you find things, but that help you discover things. It’s a subtle difference, but a big one in my books, and again, I get that. If EOS lives up to its promise, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will have some catching up to do.

Missed opportunities? One comes to mind for me. One of the quiet stories that I think is cool is their focus on digital signage. I see lots of interesting applications, and once Cisco Field is built you can bet it will be a living test lab and showcase for this. Anyhow, given the size of the main hall for the big presentations, there were large video screens flanking the stage so everyone could see what was going on. At the back and the edges of center stage, however, were several smaller display screens draped in semi-random fashion to give the feeling of a more intimate, home-theater type setting. I’d guess they were each approximately the size of a flat screen TV you might have in your home.

Ok – I get it – video is the big message, so sure, the more video displays the better. Unfortunately, for the most part, these display screens only had static images - usually the conference logo. Ugh - not very exciting and, to me, a missed opportunity. Not only could those screens have been used to enhance the overall video message with streaming media, but even more so, they could have been a great vehicle to demonstrate their digital signage technology. It’s pretty neat stuff, and like TP, you really need to see it to get the idea.

Of course, you could argue that having too many screens showing streaming video/media – using both big and small screens - would be too distracting from what’s going on center stage. That may be true, but hey, we’re all smart, media savvy analysts. I’d say a little Hollywood razzle dazzle – even at just a few choice break points throughout the day – would have made a great impression to show off not just the power of both video and digital signage, but also to make a statement about how much of media company Cisco is becoming.

I can’t help but mention at this point that doing something like that – and it couldn’t have been that hard to do – would have been far more effective than the morally ambiguous Telepresence commercial they ran to close out the morning session. If you saw this, you’d know what I mean, and after a morning full of interesting and engaging presentations, it’s hard to see what they were thinking here. On a brain-dead level, the commercial was very sentimental and touchy-feely about an everyday American family keeping in touch with their son who is in some far-away place. That’s an easy message to send about the power of Telepresence. But it sure was hard to tell whether their son – who was holed up in some form of a tented base camp in the middle of nowhere – was doing noble Peace Corps type of work – or was in the military doing other types of work.

Maybe it’s just me, but I found this commercial confusing and a bit suspicious rather than uplifting and singing the praises of TP. I didn’t hear anyone else reading it this way, so I guess it’s just me. So either it was just way too subtle for everyone, or I spend too much time reading meaning into things where there’s nothing really there. The latter is probably closer to the truth, although I spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this stuff as a Psychology undergrad enroute to my Marketing MBA. Or maybe I should switch fields and go into advertising....

Much more to talk about, but that’s about all that will make it to my blog. To sum up, instead of hearing talk about VoIP, IP telephony, unified communications, SMB, the language this time around was about collaboration, Web 2.0, blogging, social networks, innovation, content, community, personalization and the experience. If it was just words like these, you’d be right to be sceptical. But they sure seem to be walking the talk, and even though their Web 2.0 Kool Aid was pretty strong - if you were there you’d know what I’m referring to – I do share their vision and can see how the pieces fit.

John Chambers loves to talk about never losing a battle where they’ve had a head start and how they’ve had a good track record capitalizing on market transitions. It’s also pretty clear that innovation is a major mantra at Cisco, and they’re living it as an organization, signs of which became increasingly apparent the more time I spent talking with them during the event.

Well, video sure is one of these ‘market transitions’, and they seem to be right on target for what’s coming in 2008. In short, his vision is to transform Cisco from a plumbing play to a platform play, and if they do, their branding message ‘welcome to the human network’ will ring true, and give them the one thing they don’t have – cachet in the consumer market. Apple has it, Microsoft has it, and Cisco’s dying to have it. If I’m a betting man, I say they’ll get it in 2008.


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Posted by jonarnold at 02:42 PM | Comments (3)

December 12, 2007

Cisco C-Scape 2007 - Reprise

The C-Scape event finished up this afternoon, and overall, it was a really well run event. Today was mostly break-out sessions and 1 on 1 interviews, all of which were very good. Time well spent for sure.

It's been a full day and with an early flight home tomorrow, I'm not up for much analysis right now. The next best thing is to share with you coverage of the event on Cisco's corporate blog, which also includes a number of video clips of a few presentations.

I'll add my parting thoughts in a separate post once I'm back. Stay tuned....

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Posted by jonarnold at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2007

Cisco C-Scape 2007 - Day 1

Just wanted to post some quick photo highlights from Cisco's C-Scape analyst conference, which kicked off today in San Jose. I attended last year, and it sure is interesting to see how far along the video/media road Cisco has come in a year's time. Not a lot of talk about routers and switches, hardly any talk about IP telephony, and ZERO mention of VoIP. If I'm tracking video, media, social networking, Web 2.0, it's pretty hard not to bump up against Cisco now. Pretty impressive the way they've put a lot of the pieces together, and I have no doubt that in 2008 they will be one of the big stories in this space.

Got lots more to say, but not now - hopefully tomorrow....


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John Chambers opened things with a roundtable Telepresence session, with live feeds from 4 different cities - 3 on stage as you see here, plus a Cisco contingent based in New York. This was neat to watch, as John Chambers led a round robin discussion with 3 speakers about Telepresence, especially in terms of how these technologies can improve and accelerate productivity. I couldn't help but note, though that the interaction was a bit static, as John went from one speaker to another in serial fashion. So, there wasn't much to look at while the other speakers just sat there silently. Would have been more effective if there was some real time interactive discussion among everyone - maybe next time. Was also interesting with this being a session-within-a-session, as we got to watch John Chambers conduct his session, mostly with his back to the audience. Pretty tricky stuff to stage, as he needs to engage all of us out there watching him face these screens to engage the speakers, since they were talking him, not us.

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Charlie Giancarlo, hosting the Cisco Development Council, with John Chambers looking on in front of me. Tough audience to please, but they did a great job.

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Dan Scheinman, Media Solutions Group - definitely the media guru at Cisco, and I really enjoyed his vision for where all this is going. Key takeaway - Me plus We = Community. Totally.

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Cisco is big on Second Life - here's the Cisco Sandbox...

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Sneak preview - I'm going to be on video during tomorrow's 8am session. I was the first analyst to do submit a question on videotape for tomorrow's CIO Fireside Chat session. Let's see how they answer it tomorrow - I'll let you know next post.

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November 28, 2007

Blogging Has Some Side Benefits - Being on TV!

This is a fun post, really. Just sharing with you one of the payoffs that can come from blogging. I sure don't do it for the money - don't know anybody who does. The only monetization scheme of note that I participate in is with Newstex, who has been tracking me for almost 2 years. If you scroll down the right margin of my blog page, you'll see a blue Newstex box. Just click on that, and you can learn more about it.

Anyhow, I recently got my current royalty report, and I've earned a whopping $28.42. As you can tell, my blog doesn't carry ads, and I don't really take advantage of the web tools you need to build online traffic, so I have no expectations of turning my blog into a money machine. If that was my business, I'd be doing things very differently, that's for sure.

That aside, I'm happy to say that my blog does generate regular inquiries from people/companies wanting to know about my services and the things I do to make a living as Principal of J Arnold & Associates. And a good portion of those have turned into paying clients, including two this week already. So, if you're wondering if blogging is worth it, that's a hands-down yes, at least for me.

I'm posting now to tell you about a nice side benefit that's come from blogging. I get to be on national TV, but not to tell the world about VoIP. Get this - our national broadcaster - the venerable CBC - has been airing a show since March of this year called Test the Nation. It's an IQ-type quiz show that originated in Holland back in 2001, and the format has been used in some 40 countries, although I don't think it's in the U.S. yet.

The show works on a team concept and 2 teams face off against each other. So, guess what - one of the teams for the upcoming series is.... bloggers. I've been back and forth with CBC on this for a bit now, but I'm on the team. The new series airs on January 20, 2008, and the overall theme is 21st Century knowledge. I'm pretty solid aside from up to the minute stuff, so I'll be leaning on my kids to make sure I'm schooled in all the latest cyberknowledge.

This sure should be fun, and for a change, blogging leads to something totally unexpected, and something I wouldn't be doing otherwise. It's one thing to be on business TV talking about telecom, but an IQ quiz show? Why not, right? So, if you have aspirations of getting on national TV, blogging might be your ticket. I've got no idea what kind of questions they'll be asking, but I sure hope they have something about VoIP - I'll be ready for that! :-)

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November 22, 2007

Deloitte's "State of the Media Democracy" Highlights

Earlier this week, Deloitte hosted a really engaging webinar titled "State of the Media Democracy", and I listened through the whole thing. The webinar featured extensive highlights from primary research conducted for Deloitte earlier this year. I'm not exactly sure when the research was done, as I've seen highlights of this study published as far back as August. However, it's reasonably current, and with a base of 2,200 U.S. consumers, it's a pretty solid sample.

As far as I can tell the webinar was done for the Canadian market, and given that the research findings were very U.S.-centric, I'm sure Deloitte has done similar webinars in the States for their American clientele.

Anyhow, this webinar was hosted by Gary Gluckman, the leader of Deloitte Canada's Media and Entertainment Practice. I've cited Gary on some of my posts, and have done several others around other Deloitte initiatives that touch on IP communications.

Sorry for the long preamble, but I think it's pretty likely that I'm sharing new information for my readers, and that you probably weren't on this call. So, if you have even a faint interest in how consumers are engaging with the media and technology these days, you'll want to read on.

I'm just going to share some high level takeaways, as I'd be here all day doing justice to the research. I'm privy to the full slide set from the webinar, and since Deloitte spent a lot of time and money to get this great research done, I'm not exactly going to give it away here. Same for me - I don't make a living blogging, although a lot people seem to think so. Anyhow, even a taste is worthwhile, so here we go....

- Big idea #1 - yup, we've finally crossed the line. Overall, consumers are spending more time on the Internet than watching TV - 16.6 hours per week vs. 15.2. We knew this day would come - and it's probably the biggest shift in media consumption habits since TV supplanted radio. Aside - the research sample is segmented into four user groups - Millennials, Xers, Boomers, Matures - and I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions about how each one consumes media.

- User generated content is very popular. For every two hours people spend on regular Web browsing, they're spending one hour engaged with user-generated content. It's not clear to me how much of that hour is spent creating their own content vs. watching YouTube-type videos, but it's still significant. Not surprisingly, the mix was 50/50 among Millennials. They spend as much time with user generated content as they do with everything else on the Web.

- Reading books still rocks (hoorayyyyyy!). I'm so old school, and damned proud of it. When asked what 5 things people expect to spend more time doing next year, reading a book rated the highest aside from socializing with friends and family. Even more interesting - and encouraging - is how this finding held up pretty steadily across all age groups - not just with Matures. Actually, I think this may be the tip of the iceberg for a backlash that's coming against multitasking and media/technology saturation. I can definitely see that happening, with people getting zoned out on virtual living, and just wanting to do simple, singular things like read a book, go bowling, baking bread. Remember those days?

- Big idea #2 - TV is just background noise for doing other things. Only 10% of the sample just watch TV when watching TV (I'm in that camp). Everybody else is doing other stuff while "watching" TV - Web browsing, snacking, homework, email, talking on the phone. Talk about a medium that isn't very engaging. This is why going to the movies is such a powerful experience - you can't do all this other *hit - you actually have to pay attention and watch the movie. And - we're happy to pay for the privilege of doing so. What a great business model. I can see a whole bunch of other businesses that could be started based on the same premise. Gee, I can think of SOO many things to talk about here - I see a book coming. Don't get me started, unless you come running with a publishing contract or a cable TV show.....

- Big idea #3 - the advertising-driven model to support Internet content doesn't work for everyone. No surprise there, and the data shows that more than 1 in 4 (28%) would be willing to pay for online content that was free of advertising. Hey, that's good news for my blog, which is so Stone Age on this front - it's no wonder nobody can find me. I'd rather have a handful of engaged, loyal readers than thousands of strangers any day.

- People prefer to read print materials than online. Overall, the sample spends more than twice as much time reading printed newspapers and magazines than online versions of these - 4.3 vs. 1.8 hours a week. And, practically nobody reads online magazines - just 1/2 hour a week on average. Advertisers beware.

That's all I can tell you for now. There is a 3 page summary doc that Deloitte has made available, so by all means, get a copy here if you want any more detail. Beyond that, you should call me, and I'll be happy to get you in touch with Gary.


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November 15, 2007

IP Convergence TV Portal - Latest Podcast/Coverage

Just wanted to share with you my latest podcast for IP Convergence TV, which has now been posted to the portal.

My podcast was about Fall VON, which just took place 2 weeks ago in Boston. The pod runs about 6 minutes, and I talk about my key takeaways from the event in terms of would be most interesting for the IPCTV audience. Would love to hear your thoughts if you have a chance to give it a listen.

While I've got you, I wanted to cite a couple of pieces of recent media coverage following the portal's launch on October 25.

First is a nice writeup from Fierce VoIP that ran earlier this week.

Second is a citing in PR Vibes, an industry newsletter produced by Atlanta-based Calysto Communications. Unfortunately, I don't have a link to point you to at this time, but here's an excerpt from their coverage:

Ipconvergencetv.com– A non-profit website focused on IP convergence has been launched by a group of industry partners, including AudioCodes, BEA Systems, BitBand, Blueslice Networks, Cicero Networks, Comverse, Intel, Tilgin and Verimatrix. The partners contribute information free of charge within their areas of expertise. Jon Arnold, principal of analyst firm J Arnold & Associates, is editor of the site and reviews all content before publication. The purpose of ipconvergencetv.com is to create a portal for longer feature material for decision makers and industry in the area of IP communications, fixed mobile convergence and IPTV.

That's it for now, and I'll keep posting to my blog when we have updates to report as well as when my next podcast is ready.

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Posted by jonarnold at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2007

My Afternoon with Nokia Siemens

Yesterday I the benefit of a private briefing with Nokia Siemens and Personeta to showcase all the cool things they're doing around IMS and FMC applications. It turned out I was the only person present during my alloted time, so I had the team all to myself.

This was quite the experience in quite the setting. However, it was a great way to demonstrate a variety of applications, utilizing combinations of broadband, mobility and video. So, for example, you may be using mobile-to-mobile video calling today with the likes of AT&T or Rogers, but they were also able to show some things you're not likely getting today from your carrier. Let's go see.


Welcome to the Nokia Siemens mobile experience (photos courtesy of my Nokia N95 - which they were very happy to see)....

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Has the inside of a tractor trailer ever looked so good? Looks like something out of a James Bond movie.

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Video calling, mobile-to-mobile - nothing new there...

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Mobile-to-PC video calling - that's getting more interesting...

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Let's move on to IPTV. This is on a Sony HD screen, and notice how the home page fills out the whole TV screen, as well as the high quality resolution. This particular site is called dotdaily, and it's a customized home page, where the viewer selects the content and news feeds of interest.

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Now we move from the big screen to a small screen. Here is live, streaming TV - CNN in fact - running on a Nokia N95 - of course.

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And now something even more interesting. How about accessing content stored on your PVR/DVR on your mobile phone? Or control the settings to remotely set up a recording session? Literally, a mobile, remote control. That's pretty neat. The service isn't launched yet, but it's coming. Hence the deliberately murky picture to protect the innocent.

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Finally, a quick word about the magic bus itself. This is the first time I've ever had a briefing in a parking lot! While it may sound suspicious, this is one well-equipped rig.

Note the satellite dish mounted on top of the cab in the first picture. The front end of the inside of the trailer was hidden behind a curtain, but I got to see it briefly. Basically, there's enough equipment there to simulate a Central Office environment, which provides a realistic, real time setting to demonstrate all these services.

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Note how both sides of the trailer slide out from the middle like wings to create all the space you see inside. Not quite Transformers, but pretty impressive.

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Posted by jonarnold at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)

November 07, 2007

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launch Coverage

As the Portal Editor and Community Advocate for IP Convergence TV, I'd just like to share with you some of the nice coverage we've received since our formal launch on October 25.

First is some coverage from the blogs; Marc Robins, Moshe Maeir, Alec Saunders, and Peter Csathy.

Next, Greg Galatzine did a Q&A about the portal with Erik Larsson, Comverse's key driver behind this initiative. It's a good read about the objectives of IP Convergence TV and what you can expect to see going forward.

Finally the portal is getting good support from several of the sponsors, who are promoting it on their websites, namely Comverse, AudioCodes, Blueslice and mine.

As with most web-based initiatives, we rely on both viral and organic support, and hope this will continue to build as we find our audience. By all means, feel free to spread the word, and if you have questions about how to do this, or want to contribute ideas or views to the portal, please drop me a line.


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October 26, 2007

I'm on Facebook Now!

People have been leaning on me to get on Facebook for a while now, and I've finally succcumbed, just before VON.

Well, I'm also doing it now in honor of the founders who have an incredible goldmine, now that Microsoft is investing dot.com kind of dollars for a tiny sliver of this thing. It's an amazing example of the power of a good idea and being in the right place at the right time.

So, with 200,000 people jumping on this train every day, I'd better get on before I start to look like more of a Luddite than I already am. If you do the math, that's 2.3 sign-ups EVERY SECOND of every day. That sure is a nice curve to be riding.

These are Skype-like growth metrics, of course, and it will be interesting to see how Facebook's trajectory unfolds, especially now that Skype and MySpace are hooked up, and Microsoft has skin in the game.

I mention Skype for another reason. It's all about ease of use. Took me about 10 minutes to set up a basic Facebook profile last night, and right away I had friends, and a bunch more in my inbox this morning. As I recall, it took my son Max about the same amount of time to set himself up on Skype. To me, more than anything, it's ease of use and simplicity that make these things successful. From there, it's all about who can build an engaged community, and of course, laying the foundation for the advertising that will inevitably monetize this and make billionaires out of the founders.

So far, I just see one glitch in the ease-of-use department, but I know it's there for a reason. Want to find me on Facebook? Go to the site, and try.

What do you get? 144 Jon Arnolds. Yup - I'm certainly not alone. Good luck finding me, especially if you're not yet a member. The site only lets you search through the first 3 pages of "Jon Arnold", and I'm not there. So, I guess resistance is futile - you will be assimilated. If you really want to find me, you've gotta join up. So, join up, and let's be friends. Or, drop me a line and I'll send you an invite!


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Posted by jonarnold at 10:48 AM | Comments (1)

October 25, 2007

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launched Today

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Just a quick note to say that the press release for IP Convergence TV went out today, and I hope you come by to check it out!

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Posted by jonarnold at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2007

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launching Tomorrow

IP Convergence TV has its full launch tomorrow - October 25. The soft launch was last month, and based on the feedback, it's been improved on a few fronts.

It's a busy week leading up to Fall VON, but I think IP Convergence TV merits some attention of its own. If you're following IP convergence trends - primarily VoIP, FMC and IPTV - I'm sure you'll find something of interest here.

This is a non-profit initiative, so it's not a pay-for-play portal. The sponsors contribute thoughtful content, and in return, the portal provides a platform to share their views. Lots going on here - video interviews, podcasts, opinion pieces by thought leaders like Thomas Howe, white papers, and articles.

I'm in the middle of all this, serving as the Community Advocate and Portal Editor. So, I'm doing my part here to spread the word, and urge you visit the site and sign up for regular updates.


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Posted by jonarnold at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2007

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launching Tomorrow

Tomorrow - September 19 - is the beta launch of IP Convergence TV. Chances are this will be news to you, but hopefully not for long.

IP Convergence TV is an industry-based web portal focused on the broad spectrum of IP Convergence, which includes IPTV, Triple Play, FMC and some IMS. The portal has been developed to become a focal point of thought leadership and high quality content to help service providers better understand how they can effectively adopt convergence technologies.

I'm involved in this initiative and serve as the Portal Editor and Community Advocate. It's a pretty engaging role, and my job is keep the content on target, and I'll be making regular contributions of my own. I should point out that this is a non-commercial site. The core content is contributed by a charter group of sponsors, led by Comverse. That said, we are also drawing from a wider pool of thought leaders, so the perspectives will be pretty broad.

I'll leave it at that for now, and would simply encourage you to visit and learn about what the portal is all about and what it has to offer. There's lots to explore, and you can sign up free for regular updates. The portal is definitely going to evolve, but as a beta site, it's quite good, and if you're following IP convergence, I'm sure you find the content and the concept of interest. Hope to see you there.


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August 28, 2007

IPTV Middleware Webinar With Espial - Sept 18 - Registration Open

Just wanted to let you know about an upcoming webinar that I'm participating in. It's being sponsored by Espial, and they'll be presenting their position on the cost of ownership - TCO - associated with IPTV middleware, and its role in making for a successful and cost-effective IPTV deployment.

I've been invited to speak during the webinar, and if you're interested in this space, it would be great to have you join us. As with most all webinars, there's no cost to participate, and you can read all about it and register here. Hope you can make it.


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August 09, 2007

Teen Tech Review - LG's DVD Player

On this week's Teen Tech Review on BlogTV.ca, my son Max reviews the LG DVD player. We're just back from a road trip, so he's had the benefit of using it both at home and in various vacation settings.

If you're based in Canada, you can watch the review directly from the BlogTV.ca site here.

Note - looks like BlogTV.ca has made some changes to the Channel selections. Until now, Teen Tech Reviews was listed under the Technology Channel, which is where it belongs. Well, they've dropped this channel - guess not enough people are watching, and/or there's not enough people contributing relevant content. Now we've been slotted into the "Miscellaneous" channel, which isn't hugely encouraging. I guess it's a bit like being bumped from a Thursday night slot to Monday at 11pm. So, I'd say our reviews are going to be harder to find now, but you'll always be able to see them here.

Remember - BlogTV.ca is basically a social networking experiment. There's no advertising, and very little stuctured, regular content to speak of. Not surprisingly, most of the content is what 20-somethings are into - dating, About Me, lots of guitar playing and silly pet tricks.

If you're outside Canada you probably won't be able to access this link, but the embedded link below should work just fine. Hope you like it!

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July 25, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Espial and the IPTV Middleware Market

My guest this week was Brian Mahony, VP of Marketing at Ottawa-based Espial Group. Espial is one of the leading indie IPTV middleware vendors, and are very much connnected to the market and technology issues around IPTV. Brian provided a great perspective on the IPTV market and some of the better-known deployments.

Espial also just had a successful IPO, and Brian touched on some of the realities of being a public company, as well as what makes Ottawa such a viable market for tech startups.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Brian.

NOTE - no podcast next week - family vacation...

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July 13, 2007

Max's Nokia N95 Video Review

We're finally back on track with our video reviews on BlogTV.ca. We've had a 2 week hiatus - Max had exams, and then we got a new web cam. This cam is MUCH better, but it took a few days to get things working properly - we'll be doing a separate review on this, actually.

So this week's Teen Tech Review is with the wonderful Nokia N95, and if you can bear with Max for 8 minutes, he'll show and tell you all the cool things this phone has to offer.

And if that's not enough, Max is working on his written review, which will turn up on his blog. Once it's posted, I'll get the word out here - hopefully on Monday.

For those of you based in Canada, you can watch the review here, which is a direct link to the BlogTV.ca website. After watching the review, I hope you poke around to explore what else is going on at BlogTV.ca.

I understand that BlogTV has been launched in the U.S., but Canada was the first country that the Israel-based BlogTV originators expanded to. So, for a change we've got something going here before the Americans, and I'll lay odds I'm the only person you're hearing about this from. If you like what you see, please RSS me, as Teen Tech Reviews is a regular series, and we have lots more reviews coming.

For those of you not based in Canada, you'll need to watch our review via the embedded link below. Regular readers of my blog will know the story behind this, but at least this is a workable solution to share our reviews outside of Canada.

Hope you like it, and all comments are welcome!



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June 22, 2007

Teen Tech Review - LG Fusic Phone

On this week's Teen Tech Review, Max and I discuss the LG Fusic cell phone. Of course, Max does most of the showing and telling, and he draws some nice comparisons to other phones he's been using, mainly from Nokia.

This is supposed to be a weekly series, and we missed last week because Max is studying for exams! Next week I'm away, but after that, we should be back to our weekly schedule.

Now that I've developed a "workaround", anybody reading my blog will be able to view this videocast. As you may know, this series of videocasts is being produced by me, and broadcast on BlogTV.ca.

If you're based in Canada, you can go direct to their site, and view it there. You can find Teen Tech Reviews on the Techno-Gadgets channel. To reiterate from previous posts. BlogTV.ca is a hybrid between TV and videoblogging. It's like TV in the sense that there are channels where you can view content for a variety of topics. It's also like TV because our broadcasts are live, but then archived for future viewing.

At any given time of the day, then, there are several live video feeds, and you can have a lot of fun playing voyeur, and drop in on all these virtual fishbowls that people seem to enjoy living in. I'm way too old for that, but I can certainly see how lots of people are very comfortable doing that.

So, for those of you in Canada, you can view this week's review here. From there it's not hard to access our other reviews, as well as explore the rest of BlogTV.ca.

For those of you outside of Canada, this link will not likely work, since BlogTV.ca can only be accessed domestically. They have their reasons for doing this, and one could view this as a net neutrality issue, I suppose. However, I think I'm the only one producing content for them that has this problem, so I don't see their policy changing any time soon. Pretty much everyone else there is producing content for their own entertainment, and aren't concerned about reaching a global audience. After all, this is really about social networking, and not being on FOX or the CBC.

Anyhow, if you can't open that link, you can watch our review here, via this embedded URL. It runs about 9 minutes - hope you like it!



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Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - New Media, with MyThum Interactive and Deloitte

On this week's podcast, the focus was Canada's New Media community. I've never had 3 guests on together before, but somehow, we made it work. This podcast was a follow up to my coverage of the Canadian New Media Awards held last month in Toronto, and I wanted to do something with the Company of the Year winner. So, one of my guests was Michael Carter, President and CEO of MyThum Interactive, and we talked about what winning this award has meant for the company.

Joining us was Gary Gluckman and Richard Lee, both from the Toronto office of Deloitte, where they are key leaders of their Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice. Deloitte has been on previous podcasts of mine, talking about their Fast 50 and Fast 500 programs, but this was the first time we talked about their involvement in the new media space. Deloitte is a major sponsor of the CNMA, and Gary and Richard shared their views on the new media space in Canada, along with the winning qualities they saw in MyThum.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Gary, Richard and Michael.


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Posted by jonarnold at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2007

Video Calling - Ready for Prime Time - But is Verizon?

One more quick entry for today. SightSpeed CEO/fellow blogger Peter Csathy has brought this story to my attention. It may not be news to many of you, but it's still worth noting. Peter cites a WSJ story about a new service launched yesterday from AT&T called VideoShare. While not the first to do this, it's a huge validation for person-to-person mobile video calling, and as Peter notes on his blog, it opens up huge opportunities for creative applications.

Peter and his company, SightSpeed, are major advocates of video, and this is great news for companies like his. Video calling has always been slow to take root for all kinds of reasons, but people seem to be far less inhibited on their cell phones, and in some ways, video is really a natural extension of a voice call for mobile users. As Peter suggests, it won't take long for businesses come up with all kinds of applications that will totally make sense. An example he cites is for real estate agents, who can show their clients listings in real time when they're somewhere else. Couldn't agree more!

Peter also brings up the inevitable iPhone question. They won't be supporting video calling in the initial launch, but if uptake is slower than expected - and there are all kinds of reasons for this to happen - you can bet that would change. Video calling will sure have a cool factor for a large segment of the market, and it could turn out to be a great value-add to compete against Verizon, who will be doing whatever they can to retain subscribers lured by the allure of the iPhone. I suspect we'll find out how cool video calling will be when the iPhone era officially kicks off.


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June 20, 2007

Microsoft Canada Expression Launch

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Last night, I attended the Canadian launch of Microsoft Expression Suite. This is their soup-to-nuts Web design software solution. As you can see from their website, it's a full suite of various tools for designers, web developers, graphic artists, etc.

This isn't exactly my crowd, but it was very interesting to mingle with this community and see how Microsoft engages them. I'd say they did a pretty good job, and it's a very important audience to be cool with. I'm pretty sure that Adobe is the tool of choice for many in the room, and Expression certainly seemed to hold their interest. I'm also pretty sure that I was the only analyst in attendance, and in my circles, this may be the first and possibly only place you'll hear about Expression.

Aside from the demos and requisite Microsoft presenters, the star of the show was GK VanPatter, a renowned designer - which was new to me. You can learn more about him via Humantific, as well as the NextDesign Leadership Institute. Pretty interesting stuff.

I love learning from people like this, and he gave some interesting perspectives about the design process. From this, it became clear to me that what Expression brings to this community is a complete platform that facilitates collaboration, which is critical to good design. GK spoke about the importance of cross-disciplinary work teams, and platforms like Expression make it possible for people in different spheres, speaking different working languages, and probably using different computer technologies, to collaborate during the process of creating good design. He also talked about Design 1.0/2.0/3.0 - and it's the same paradigm we use in the IP world, whether it be striving for Voice 2.0 or Web 2.0. Same problems - same principles - and same types of solutions. That clicked for me.


David Crow, Microsoft Canada

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GK Van Patter, NextD

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June 18, 2007

BlogTV.ca Broadcast - Update - Sony PSP Review

This is the third in my series of updates on my videocasts on BlogTV.ca. I now have a way to make Teen Tech Reviews accessible to anyone on the Net, and this post gets us up to date on all our videocasts so far.

Below is the embedded link to our most recent videocast, which is Max's review of the Sony PSP. Here's my original post about the videocast, at which point I realized people outside of Canada couldn't access the BlogTV.ca website.

In case you were wondering - we didn't do a review last week - Max is studying for exams!



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Posted by jonarnold at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)

BlogTV.ca Broadcast - Update - Fireman 3.0 Review

Well, it looks like my workaround solution works. Earlier today, I did a test for our first Teen Tech Review with some people in the U.S., and they were able to view the review. So, I now have a way to share our BlogTV.ca reviews with anyone who cares to watch them.

If you're wondering what this is about, I'll quickly explain. A few weeks back, I launched a weekly videocast series called Teen Tech Reviews on BlogTV.ca. This is the vehicle to make my son, Max, famous --- but also to draw attention to this interesting experiment called BlogTV.ca. As I soon discovered, you can only access the BlogTV.ca website from Canada. This means that a lot of people reading my blog are not able to view our videocasts.

As of this morning, that has been fixed, so from now on, when we do our segments, I'll include an embedded link to the videocast on my blog post. For those of you outside Canada, at least you'll be able to see our reviews. However, you won't be able to visit the BlogTV.ca site to see what else is going on there - and I don't have a fix for that. Which is too bad, especially if you're into new media and social networking. It's pretty unique, although I haven't compared it yet to the BlogTV edition that's coming to the U.S.

So, for this post, I'm providing an embedded link for our second podcast, which was for the Fireman 3.0 DVD burner software. I'll put up another post shortly for the Sony PSP review, and then we'll be up to date. Enjoy - and please, your comments are welcome!



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June 16, 2007

BlogTV.ca Broadcasts - Plan B - Nokia N800 Review

I recently started a weekly series of video posts with my son, Max, to do tech reviews. We're doing these on BlogTV.ca, which is based here in Toronto. It was recently been brought to my attention that that our video segments cannot be viewed outside of Canada. BlogTV.ca can only be viewed in Canada, so many people who follow my blog can't see what we're doing.

That situation isn't about to change soon, so I'm resorting to Plan B as way to make our video posts accessible to anyone. I'm embedding our first segment below - which was a review of the Nokia N800 - and if you can view this, then I think I have a workaround.

So, if you're outside of Canada, and can view this, please let me know! I need the confirmation, and then we'll be fine.


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Posted by jonarnold at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2007

Microsoft Office RoundTable Demo

It's been a busy week on a few fronts, and I got to attend a cool event last night. Microsoft Canada held a demo event for Office RoundTable, which is part of their unified communications thrust. RoundTable is an IP-based videoconferencing solution - more features and flexibility than traditional systems, but not as high-end as telepresence. It's a pretty neat concept, and the part I like the best is its portability. The unit is quite small - the size of a table lamp - and looks like an inverted Starship Enterprise. So, you don't have to dedicate a room to it, or have specialized furniture and lighting.

Not too many analysts in attendance - I may have been the only one, in fact, so I got a good look at it. The demo shows the 360 experience, as the cameras take in all views of the room, and you get to see them all at once across various windows on your PC screen. We're told it will scale very well, so potentially, you could do a lot of interesting things with a large room full of people - if that's your cup of tea.

Not much else to say, really, other than kudos to High Road Communications, who did a great job pulling this together. I'll let my Nokia 93 take over from here, with a few photos, and a 4 minute video clip of Bryan Rusche leading the demo.


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Bryan Rusche, Microsoft Canada

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with Sean Seaton (Microsoft Canada) and my "Microsoft Blue" Mojito

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And the best for last - with Katie Cook (Microsoft Canada) and Michel Burger (Microsoft CTO) - and the door prize, which I happened to win - whoo hoo!

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Take it away, Bryan....

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