May 21, 2008
Service Provider Views - Jajah, Ribbit and Ifbyphone
My latest article for Service Provider Views was published yesterday on TMCnet. The focus this time was on some variations of the platform play as a path that service providers can take in the Web 2.0 world.
In particular, I touch briefly on Ifbyphone, Ribbit and Jajah. They're all different, and illustrate varying degrees of what a platform play might look like. It's early days for all of them, but I think there will be a place in the market for each of these models.
In my view, Jajah represents the most complete solution as platform plays go, and they'll be the sole subject of my next article, including an interview with their CEO, Trevor Healy. As always, your comments on my column are welcome.
Technorati tags: Service Provider Views, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, Jajah, Ifbyphone, Ribbit
Posted by jonarnold at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2008
Blogged.com Rates My Blog #1 for Telecoms
I was contacted the other day by Blogged.com, saying that they've been following my blog, and it looks like they like it. So, I've got two pieces of good news to share on that front...
1. Blogs are rated out of 10, and mine rated 8.3. This puts it in the "Great" tier, which is the third highest tier, behind "Excellent" and "Superb".
Only the top, top blogs get the Superb rating, which is a perfect 10.0. How hard is that to get? Well, they've tracked and rated 17,149 blogs under the "Technology" banner, and only 2 rated Superb. One is TechCrunch, which should be pretty familiar to readers of this blog, and the other is WiredScience (from Wired magazine), which is a bit off-center from my day-to-day coverage. Following "Superb", anything between 9.0 and 9.9 is "Excellent", and "Great" covers blogs with a rating between 8.0 and 8.9.
2. My blog is rated #1 among all the Telecom blogs they're tracking. Telecom is a tiny subset of all the Technology blogs, and only includes 84 blogs. While there are roughly 550 "Technology" blogs with ratings higher than my 8.3 rating (hey, I'll take that among 17,000+ total blogs!!!), there aren't any rated higher among Telecom blogs - I'll definitely take that.
There are a few familiar blogs in this category for what it's worth, including VoIP News, Jajah's blog, Brough Turner and IP Business Magazine. These are all pretty good blogs, so I consider myself to be in good company, and it's great to get such a positive rating among this crowd.
So, what does this mean? Lots of ways to look at this. First, it's great to be recognized at all, and second, it's also great to get a solid rating amidst so many good blogs and bloggers. If you're curious, I urge you to scan through the top blogs, whether the Telecom blogs, or the massive list of over 17,000 Technology blogs. The list of Tech blogs is as interesting for who is there and who is not. I had a quick scan of the blogs with ratings of 8.3 or higher, and aside from TechCrunch, I really only found 3 that I follow regularly - Jeff Pulver (9.2), Ken Camp (8.7) and Tom Keating (8.3). Interesting, huh???
How do they rate these blogs? Well, I can only go by what the website says - the ratings are done by sector-specific editors, and they base these on four criteria: "frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design, and writing style". As you can see from the site, all readers are welcome to rate these blogs, but I'm not sure how much impact these ratings have on the editors.
You can also suggest other blogs for evaluation, which is great since I suspect they're missing quite a few very good blogs that we all follow regularly. I haven't explored the Tech blogs rated below mine, so there could well be many familiar blogs there, so I urge you to look for yours if you're wondering. Are there better telecom blogs out there than mine? Absolutely. Blogged.com is a work in progress, so by all means suggest other blogs you'd like to see them rate.
For someone like me, Blogged.com is a good story. As you may know, my blog is 100% content-driven - there are no banners, ads, sponsors or Google links. As such, my traffic is minuscule compared to most - if not all - the bloggers I follow, and I suspect my blog is invisible to a big swath of the market. I'll never generate the kind of traffic that most bloggers have, and I concede that my following will be small, but hopefully loyal.
Furthermore, I'm a writer at heart, and take a lot of care in what I say and how I say it. I'm at ease saying that most bloggers are not great writers, and their notoriety comes from other competencies. So, I like what I see with Blogger.com, as their criteria is based more on what the blogger is creating rather than how many people link to them, or how well their blog is search-optimized.
So, who is Blogged.com? Well, I've been asking the same question myself. Their site launched in February, so it's pretty new, and you can read a brief review about them here from Webware's Rafe Needleman.
For those of you into social media, what makes Blogged.com different from things like Technorati is that it's based on expert evaluation of the content itself as opposed to key words or tags embedded in the content. It's a bit like Digg in that it makes use of crowdsourcing - a big buzzword in social media - which draws on input from readers to gauge the importance and relevance of a blog within its peer group. So, it's very Web 2.0 by nature, building on sharing and mass collaboration, but with a judicious mix of editorial objectivity (or so we'd like to think)and collective input from readers and other bloggers.
I really can't say how much stock you should put in these ratings, but Blogged.com seems like a pretty good barometer to me. Sure, they're new, and their universe of blogs will continue to expand, and whether you agree or disagree, you have plenty of opportunity to speak your mind and recommend other blogs for them to evaluate.
And if nothing else, I love their website because it's a great collection of blogs, and I'll use this as a regular resource now when I need to drill down for granular industry research.
Technorati tags: Blogged.com, Jon Arnold, telecom blogs
Posted by jonarnold at 08:50 AM | Comments (2)
May 02, 2008
eComm Presentations
For those of you who couldn't/didn't attend eComm2008 this March - and that's probably most of you - I just wanted to say that the content is slowly making its way to the eComm website.
The quantity of presentations was overwhelming, and the quality was excellent, and despite seeing almost everything, it's impossible to really digest the whole ball o' wax. Lee was forward-thinking enough to video tape the presentations, and he's even gone to the trouble of getting some of these transcribed. Wow - that's impressive! He's not doing this to get rich, folks - it's there for anyone to access, no charge. I've been talking with Lee about this, and he genuinely feels the communications sector is undergoing an historic transformation, and he simply wants to chronicle the proceedings.
So, to see what's there, go to the eComm Blog, where he's got a few of the presentations - video and text - up now. More will be coming in time, so come back soon if you haven't found what you're looking for.
Lee - friendly suggestion - put a Tip Jar on your site! This stuff is great, and I'd like to think at least a few people would like to send something good your way for all this hard work!
Technorati tags: eComm, Jon Arnold, Lee Dryburgh
Posted by jonarnold at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2008
Fonolo Wins Best New Product at eComm
Another interesting story I missed out on yesterday. Toronto-based Fonolo announced they won Best New Product at last month's eComm, an event that I blogged about quite a bit. The news was posted yesterday on eComm's website, along with a video of Shai Berger's presentation. It was one of the few presos I missed at eComm, but I'm close enough to the company as it is - Shai is on my blog roll as well.
Fonolo just re-named itself and are ramping up to become a successful startup. In a word, their application is deep dialing, and to learn more watch the video, or spend a few minutes at their website. I've liked what they're doing from the start, and they really do solve real world problems that you'll relate to as soon as you check them out.
I'll leave at it that for now - I'd rather pique your interest here than spell it all out. The main thing is to recognize their win, and say congrats. It's a good day to be a Canadian startup!
Technorati tags: Fonolo, Jon Arnold, Shai Berger,eComm
Posted by jonarnold at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
Jajah, Yahoo, Jahoo, Whoohoo....
I made a conscious decision to take most of yesterday off because of my birthday. I'm the boss, and what I say goes.
Invariably, something interesting always seems to happen when I do things like this. So, better late than never, but yesterday's news with Jajah and Yahoo sure is a goodie. It's been well covered by now, and for reference I'll steer you to the mainstream press - Business Week - and some blogs - Andy Abramson, Irv Shapiro, Gary Kim, Garrett Smith, Alec Saunders.
And if that won't keep you busy enough, Alec interviewed Jajah's co-founder Roman Scharf on his Squawk Box program yesterday.
Tons going on with this news, and it's one of the best examples I've seen about bringing telephony and the web together. To sum it up, I'd just use one word: SCALE.
This news validates web based calling for the masses like never before. Jajah has hit 10 million customers. Yahoo's IM base is 97 million users. They've basically outsourced the voice element to Jajah, who now has a turnkey hosted platform that could be used on a wholesale basis by any carrier/operator looking for someone to take LD voice off their hands. Plus, Jajah has opened their platform up to the developer community. I should also add that Jajah is more about using the phone to make calls than the PC, the latter of which is really Skype's domain. Oh, and let's not forget Jajah's relationship with Intel, which could make them the default voice service embedded into their chips. Etc., etc.
If this isn't Voice 2.0 and Web 2.0 all rolled up into one, I don't know what is. On the side of caution, Andy rightly notes that Yahoo is still potentially in play with Microsoft, and if that comes to fruition, Jajah may need to yield to Microsoft's voice technologies. That aside, this news is serious validation that the world is ready for 2.0, whether you call it voice, web or just applications. Scale is the final frontier for making these things mainstream, and with this news we sure have it now. Whoo hoo!
Technorati tags: Jajah, Jon Arnold, Yahoo, Alec Saunders, Andy Abramson
Posted by jonarnold at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2008
Geosign - what a story!/Welcome Kevin Restivo
This is a two-for-one post. First item is Geosign, a very mysterious company based in Guelph, Ontario. I posted about them last March after they quietly received a humongous funding of $160 million. This kind of money is unheard of in Canada, especially for an obscure company in an obscure town. In the IP communications space, most ventures are lucky to scare up a few million, and this raise is probably more than the whole space has received combined. I've never seen anything so out of whack at this level of magnitude. It just didn't add up.
After hearing about the funding, I approached them for me to come out and do an interview with their CEO. Initially, they were receptive, but suddenly the trail went cold - they were no longer giving interviews. Over the course of last summer, I had a dialog going with a journalist who was trying to get the story, and she had all kinds of interesting tidbits that were difficult to substantiate, but you just could tell something wasn't right. We fell out of touch, and Geosign has been off my radar for a while - but I've always wondered what the real story was.
Well, the other day I got my answer. Last weekend, the Financial Post Business Magazine ran a cover story on Geosign, penned by Robert Thompson. It's one of those you-have-to-read-this-to-believe-it stories, and I'm not going rehash it all for you here. I'll just say this was the classic Google pay-per-ad-click model on steriods, with hundreds of bogus websites set up as landing pages with nothing more than online ads on them. The scheme worked well enough for Geosign to attract $160 million - incredible! - but once Google caught on to their M.O., they changed the rules of the game, and the whole thing collapsed practically overnight.
Someone should make a movie of this. Canada is such a nice, modest, polite place, and you'd hardly ever suspect something like this would come out such a wholesome place like Guelph. Incredibly, as you read through the story, no crimes were committed, and the founders have simply moved on to other things - as if nothing ever happened.
I just want to say enough here to tempt you into reading the article. It's a great read, and I don't want to take away from Robert Thompson's good work.
Now for Part 2 of my post. I never would have seen this if it weren't for fellow analyst Kevin Restivo. He actually used to cover tech for the same paper as Robert, the Financial Post here in Toronto. He left a few years back for the analyst world, and is currently at IDC. We see each other at local events, and more recently, he's made me aware of his blog, which was started back in the summer.
While scrolling through his recent posts yesterday, I came across his post about Geosign. That was the first news I'd heard about Geosign in ages, and I'm so glad he referenced the magazine article, as I never see the Post. So, now I have the full story, and am happy to share it here.
More importantly is a shout-out here to Kevin and his blog. It's really good, not just for local and Canadian coverage, but Kevin is a strong analyst, and has keen insights on technology trends in general. We have very few analysts blogging about the Canadian market, and I'm glad he is. We have reciprocated links on our blog rolls, and I'm happy to introduce Kevin to my readers.
Technorati tags: Geosign, Jon Arnold, Kevin Restivo
Posted by jonarnold at 11:53 AM | Comments (1)
March 03, 2008
Webware 100 - I'm Voting for Octopz and Mobivox
CNET's Webware 100 voting commenced last Monday, and I'm just coming across this now.
This initiative sure looks like a great barometer of Web 2.0, and I would think that anyone following this space would want to be watching this group of companies closely. In some ways this reminds me of Demo, with the idea being that any company making this group is in good company. However, this a very different process where the nominations are determined by Webware's Editors, and the winners are chosen by readers/visitors to the site who make the effort to vote. So, it's not as gruelling as Demo, but it provides a great forum to recognize up and coming - as well as established companies.
To vote, the Web 2.0 space is grouped into 10 categories, and there are about 30 companies nominated in each category. Scrolling through these, there are lots of familiar and large names - Google, Facebook, Blogger, Flickr, etc. - so there's always a risk of this being a popularity contest. Sure, they'll get their share of mainstream votes, but for those of us watching smaller companies more closely, this is your chance to speak up.
There are tons of interesting companies in here, but I want to note two in particular - Ocotopz and Mobivox. Aside from being Canadian, these are the ones from all the nominations that I follow the closest. Toronto-based Octopz made the short list for voting, as did Montreal-based Mobivox. Readers of my blog will know I've followed both companies for some time, and have posted about them previously, here and here.
Whether I'm waving the Canadian flag, or you want to support a couple of really great companies, I would urge you to check both out and decide for yourself if they're worth your vote. I have voted for both, and would gladly recommend them to others if you wanted a second opinion.
At this time of writing, the Webware 100 has tallied around 1 million votes, so this thing is pretty popular. Voting ends March 31, and the winners will be conveniently announced just before the Web 2.0 Expo, which starts April 22.
Technorati tags: Webware 100, Jon Arnold, Octopz, Mobivox
Posted by jonarnold at 09:06 AM | Comments (1)
February 28, 2008
eComm2008 - Q&A with Lee Dryburgh/Discount Offer
Got two updates to share with you about the eComm2008 conference, which I did a background post about on Monday.
First is an interview I did with Lee Dryburgh that just ran on IP Convergence TV the other day. Lee mostly talks about his views on convergence technologies, but also a bit about what you can expect to experience at eComm2008. Hope you enjoy it, and comments are welcome.
Second is a special discount offer I can share with you to save 15% on registration for the conference. Hopefully, you've heard by now from many sources how promising this event will be, and if you're thinking about going, please drop me a line, and I can pass on the information you'll need to save 15% on your registration.
Technorati tags: eComm2008, Jon Arnold, Lee Dryburgh
Posted by jonarnold at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2008
Next Stop - eComm2008
Next conference for me is eComm2008, coming up March 12-14 in Mountain View, California.
Got a few things to convey about this event in my post...
For background, eComm has picked up where eTel left off last year, and is largely the vision of Lee Dryburgh, who I have recently gotten to know a bit, and am looking forward to meeting next month.
I'm late posting about eComm as it's taken a while to formalize my participation, which I'll get to in a moment. So, if you haven't been reading up eComm, you should start with the press release, and then move on to some of the recent blog posts, including today's from Thomas Howe and Andy Abramson, and earlier ones from Martin Geddes and Alec Saunders' Squawk Box interview, which includes Lee Dryburgh as a guest.
Myself - I've got small part, but at least I'm there, and am really looking forward to hearing from such a first-rate roster of speakers. I'll be moderating the Mobile Mashups panel, which currently includes Tom Howe (oh, what a surprise!), Dean Bubley, Irv Shaprio, Boaz Zilberman, and James Body. If you're coming, the session is on Thursday, from 2:00 to 3:00.
Finally, being on the West coast, I was really hoping to participate in Spring VON - now known as VON.X - which is the following week in San Jose. Very hard decisions to make here, but my circumstances just don't make it possible to do both. Turns out eComm takes place during our March break, and the plans have unfolded such that my 15 year old son, Max, is coming with me and will be with me at eComm, at least for as long as he finds it interesting. So, if you've ever wanted to meet Max, here's your chance. He'll be with me at eComm, but we're flying back after that so he can get back to school. Will have to miss VON this time around, but I certainly plan to be there in the fall.
Technorati tags: eComm2008, Jon Arnold, Lee Dryburgh, VON
Posted by jonarnold at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2008
Where's voice going? Ask Tom - Mr. Mashup
Mashups can mean many things, but in the world of voice and VoIP mashups, Thomas Howe is the guy. He's carving a great niche for his company in this space, and I want to point you to his latest thinking which was just posted the other day.
Thomas did a long, but thought-provoking interview (34 minutes) with Lee Dryburgh, the main force and vision behind the upcoming eComm 2008 conference. It's been posted to their blog page in podcast form, and includes some summary comments and excerpts from the interview. Definitely worth a listen. As an aside, the eComm event looks very promising, and you'll be hearing more about it from me soon. I should also add that Lee has posted an even longer interview there on the outlook for telecom and broadband with the renowned Martin Geddes, who is quite involved with the eComm event.
For those of you following the mashup space, I should note that this builds on another recent podcast that Thomas did a couple of weeks back with Iotum, on their inaugural ConCast. It's also worth a listen, especially since it's a group discussion featuring other notable and familiar voices.
Technorati tags:
Thomas Howe, Jon Arnold, Lee Dryburgh, eComm
Posted by jonarnold at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2008
Iotum's Voice Mashup "ConCast"
Today, Iotum put a great idea into practice, and may have a new product on their hands - the "ConCast". I love it, and think they're on to something good here. This was their first ConCast, and is a great way to demonstrate their conference calling application that's been running on Facebook for a few months now.
The idea was this - a half hour scheduled concall/audio webinar - with a roundtable speaker format. Voice mashups was the topic, and the call was led by none other than Thomas Howe - who else? Joining Thomas was Alec, Andy Abramson and Jim Courtney. They all chimed in at various points, and about two dozen people were in and out listening to the discussion. You could tell they were doing that because in the background you kept hearing that "ping" sound that tells you when someone has joined or left the group.
I wasn't able to be on the call as I had a concall of my own going this morning, but I got a chance to listen to the replay, which you can do as well. You can find it on Alec's post, along with his post-game review. The session runs about 27 minutes, and if you're interested in mashups, this is about as good as it gets for listening to people who are living it.
Great going, guys, and I hope you have more of these soon! And, the faster you build up your numbers, the faster you'll attract sponsors and then you'll have a money-maker on your hands - that's the kind of mashup we're all after...
Technorati tags: Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Facebook, voice mashups, Thomas Howe, Iotum
Posted by jonarnold at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2008
Alec Saunders' Privacy Manifesto
Really thoughtful post today from Alec Saunders that I want to draw your attention to.
Anyone who is concerned about what Facebook's Beacon initiative could lead to, or how they recently handled uber-blogger Robert Scoble should read Alec's post. Actually, it's a guest post on GigaOm, which is a great way for Alec to give back and support Om Malik as he recuperates - am not going to go there right now. I certainly wish a speedy and safe recovery for Om, and in his absence, people like Alec are stepping up and providing fresh content for his site.
I don't have much to add, and Alec does a great job laying out some of the key issues around Internet privacy, and more importantly proposes some rules of conduct and engagement - his manifesto - that would have prevented these from becoming bad situations.
As with any good blog post, the best indication of its impact is in the comments, and there are quite a few of them - well worth reading, and an indication that Alec has tackled this issue very well.
Furthermore, if you surf over to Alec's own blog, you'll see an updated post where he talks about the aftermath of this morning's post, and how the very comapanies he discussed are now part of DataPortability.org, a working group to establish guidelines and best practices for porting data from one site to another.
Great stuff, Alec - all in a day's work....
Technorati tags: Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, GigaOm
Posted by jonarnold at 10:04 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.
Technorati tags: IP Convergence TV, Jon Arnold, J Arnold Associates
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.
Technorati tags: Cisco, Jon Arnold, Telepresence, C-Scape
Posted by jonarnold at 02:42 PM | Comments (3)
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....
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.
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.
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.
Cisco is big on Second Life - here's the Cisco Sandbox...
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.
Technorati tags: Cisco, Jon Arnold
Posted by jonarnold at 05:59 PM | Comments (2)
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!
Technorati tags: Facebook, Jon Arnold, Skype, MySpace
Posted by jonarnold at 10:48 AM | Comments (1)
October 04, 2007
Thomas Howe Company/Sylantro Announce Mashup Winners
As readers of my blog would know, The Thomas Howe Company is doing really great things in the mashup space, and are starting to make a name for themselves.
One of the ways they've done this is with Sylantro, where they jointly held a mashup competition at Sylantro's Global Summit customer event this week. I think it's a great idea, and Thomas has posted the results of the competition today to his company blog.
As the post explains, the overall winner was Infosys Technologies, and their "CallPal" mashup integrates personal calendaring/contact information with Sylantro's Synapps platform. Sounds like this was a great forum to demo all kinds of neat mashups, and you can get a better sense of that from Thomas's post.
While I've got you, I'd also like to draw attention to THC's new blog page, which recently replaced Thomas Howe's personal blog. So, if you're following this, make sure to update your links. I should also note that the THC blog has a very fun and engaging look and feel. They're using the European red telephone booth image as their icon, and every time you visit the home page, there's a rotation of really cool landscape images, with that phone booth icon dropped in. It's a fun way of saying that no matter where you are in the world, you can always be in touch, and if you want to talk about mashups, THC will be there for you.
Technorati tags: Thomas Howe Company, Jon Arnold, Sylantro
Posted by jonarnold at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2007
Microsoft Surface - This is Cool!
On Saturday, Max and I had a private briefing of Microsoft Surface. First off, I just have to say this is a bit like Telepresence - you have to see it and experience it to believe and understand what it's all about. You can get a good sense of this from the Surface website, but sitting down and seeing it first hand is something else.
Most people haven't seen Surface before, so if that's you, I think you'll really enjoy this post.
Toronto was the second stop on their North America media tour - following New York, and I suspect Max is the first teenager in Canada to have had a private briefing, so he's a pretty happy guy. Surface has been public for several months, but commercial deployments are another story. This particular demo was held at the downtown Sheraton Hotel, which is part of the Starwood hotel/resort operation. Am not sure just how far along they are in offering Surface to their guests, but we got a pretty good taste of what it might look like if they did.
I'll let the pictures and video clip below tell the rest of the story. I have no doubt Surface will find a home for some pretty cool commercial settings like hotels, but we also got a glimpse about how this will become the uber-cool coffee table of the future in your smart home. The mind boggles.....
Surface is a tabletop console, and it's touch-based. Just think of it as a giant iPhone - but much more powerful. This example is a restaurant, where all the menu items can be viewed, and you can place your order directly from the console. That's just the beginning...
Now it's time to divvy up the bill. Kyle and Max are going Dutch, and they're now going to drag each item that's theirs into their own spaces so they can figure out how much each of them owes to pay the bill.
Max's portion is $14.63. He just puts his credit card face up on the console. The back of his credit card is tagged to interface with Surface, and presto, the bill is paid on the spot. Of course, this cuts down on interacting with the waiter, but for the 2.0 crowd, how can you not like this?
Let's switch to the fun stuff - home entertainment. Check this out - the video puzzle. This is a car racing video, and the image is broken up over a grid of plastic tiles. They're all tagged, and each one shows a portion of the video clip. The challenge is to assemble all the tiles in the right order - just like a puzzle - to get the complete image as fast as you can (there's a timer on the console to show how long it takes). Lots of ways to play this game - 1 on 1, or kids vs. parents, etc. So, just like doing your daily crossword puzzle, imagine subscribing to a service where you get a daily video puzzle to solve. It's not hard to see how Surface opens up a whole new world of entertainment possibilities. You'll see even more in the video clip down below.
And of course, the Paint program. Just pick your colors and doodle away. The possibilities are endless, and it won't take long for people to figure out creative ways to use this.
Here's a short video of the demo, led by Microsoft's Kyle Warnick. He does a great job illustrating some of the cool things you can do with Surface. Check out what he does with a digital camera, and then with a couple of Zunes. Where can I get one of these???
Technorati tags: Microsoft Surface, Jon Arnold, Toronto
Posted by jonarnold at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2007
Iotum Wants Your Voice on Facebook
I had fun putting my Ooma review together yesterday, and was worried it would get lost in the overdrive coverage Iotum has received on its just launched voice conferencing application for Facebook.
I'm not Facebooking - but will be quite soon (getting too many invitations not to be doing this)- so I'm pretty oblivious to all the buzz around this. Facebook for business is THE craze right now, and in our world, I think Jeff Pulver has been a big driver of this. Once he made this his de facto social networking tool in favor of LinkedIn (which I still use and like), well, everyone gets on that train pretty fast.
Anyhow, I can't really comment on Iotum's application since I'm not on Facebook, but I certainly get it. Totally makes sense, and I think they're smart to jump on this and become the conferencing app for Facebook. I know Iotum has been working very hard lately to point their business in this direction, and anyone following my blog will know they've been courting success for a long time. Conferencing is very much a hi volume/low margin business, but hey, everyone except me seems to be doing Facebook, so the volume is there. Iotum is very much a "2.0" company, and Facebook is a 2.0 tool - but voice conferencing is still pretty 1.0. I sure am rooting for Iotum on this one, and I have no doubt they'll find ways to make this a 2.0 experience, and along with it, hopefully some good margins.
If you're on Facebook, you really should give this a try - you can try it out yourself now for free - just go to Iotum's site, and you're on your way.
Technorati tags: Iotum, Jon Arnold, Facebook
Posted by jonarnold at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2007
Thomas Howe Company on the Move
Industry colleague and mashup master, Thomas Howe is on to a good thing, and I'm glad to see he's making some noise about it.
Today, Thomas Howe Company announced a partnership with ProgrammableWeb, which looks to be THE place for the mashup developer community. I've been hearing about this for a while, and it's great to see things coming to fruition here. Thomas is carving out a great niche in the mashup space (you may recall he won the Mashup Competition at ETel), and this news should really help get the word out and accelerate his progress. If you're into this space, this will be a good partnership to follow, and if you're not sure why, let Thomas and the press release tell you more.
Technorati tags: Thomas Howe, Jon Arnold, VoIP mashups, ProgrammableWeb
Posted by jonarnold at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2007
Microsoft Canada Expression Launch
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
GK Van Patter, NextD
Technorati tags: David Crow, Jon Arnold, GK VanPatter, Microsoft Expression Studio
Posted by jonarnold at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2007
Skype History Made in Fenway Park
Very cool post from fellow blogger and Torontonian, Jim Courtney. As you may know, he's quite the techhie, and writes - very well - for Skype Journal.
Well, Jim is at a Skype Developer's conference in Boston this week, and he took in his first-ever visit to Fenway Park. Just when you thought I was about to sneak in a Red Sox post - which is long overdue, but the way they're tanking tonight, I'm not in the mood - this is very much an IP communications story.
As you'll see in his Skype Journal post yesterday, Jim made history at Fenway Park on Tuesday. The big deal is this - Jim figured out how send a Skype IM over his Blackberry at the conference, and by his estimation, sent the first such message ever from Fenway Park. Very neat. Not quite a "Watson, come here, I need you" moment, but when the annals of Skype are written - and perhaps sold off on eBay... - this may well find its way into the historical timeline chart. Maybe not, but it sure must have felt good doing so.
And guess what? I was supposed to be his Watson on this first-ever event! Yup, I was the first person Jim Skyped to have this IM conversation via his Blackberry, but nooooooooooo, I was too busy to partake. Plan B - not surprisingly, was Alec Saunders - and not surprisingly, Alec was there for Jim, and you can read all about their IM chat on Jim's post. Way to go, Alec! At least Jim kept the thread going in Canada. Would have been really cool if Alec was in Brantford at the time, but Ottawa will do.
Technorati tags: Skype, Jon Arnold, Skype Journal, Jim Courtney, Blackberry, Alec Saunders
Posted by jonarnold at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2007
Welcome - the Thomas Howe Company
Fellow blogger, indie colleague and New Englander Thomas Howe is doing his thing with a mission. It's not easy being an indie - it's certainly not for everybody - and Thomas is taking some exciting steps in ramping up his business.
I've been off the blogs for almost week - gotta make a living - and I just caught a post of his from last week announcing his formal launch. I'm in the loop on what Thomas is up to, but this was the first public notice I've seen about it.
So, I'm doing my part here to say congrats and welcome to.... The Thomas Howe Company. The name says it all , and you can read more about on his post here. If you're into Web 2.0 and mashups, this is a company you'll want to be following, and in time I won't be the only one you'll be hearing this from.
Technorati tags: Thomas Howe, Jon Arnold, mashups
Posted by jonarnold at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2007
Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Stefan Dubowski on Open Source and Web 2.0
My guest this week was Stefan Dubowski, returning for his second podcast with me. Stefan is the Editor of Telemanagement Magazine, one of Canada's leading telecom pubs.
We both attended the IT360 conference here in Toronto recently, and shared our thoughts on the event, including Don Tapscott's keynote. From there, we talked about Open Source and Web 2.0, both of which were prominent at the conference. Stefan has been covering telecom for quite some time, and he shared his views on why large enterprises aren't quite ready yet for Open Source.
You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Stefan.
Technorati tags: IT360 Conference, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Stefan Dubowski, Telemanagement, Open Source
Posted by jonarnold at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2007
IT360 Conference Highlights
Yesterday, I attended the IT360 Conference here in Toronto, and gave a presentation on Unified Communications. The content at the conference is pretty heavy on Linux and Open Source, and it's a great place to be if you're into Asterisk. Saw quite a few familiar faces, and missed sessions by Open Source mainstays John "mad dog" Hall and Jim Van Meggelen, as their presentations were at the same time as mine.
The star attraction of the show was Don Tapscott, who gave a terrific keynote built around his new book Wikinomics. He's actually authored 11 books, and drew from many of them, giving the audience a lot of food for thought as to how technology is transforming the way we work, live, communicate, collaborate, etc. Very engaging stuff.
Below are some photos as per my Nokia 93, which could be the last you'll see from this device for a while. I just got the Nokia N95, which I'll start evaluating now.
Oh, if you're interested in my presentation, drop me a line, and I'll be happy to send it over.
Here's Don.....
Kevin Fleming with an update on what's new at Asterisk, including their show-within-a-show plans at the upcoming Fall VON.
The show floor - some familiar names - TAUG - Toronto Asterisk Users Group, and Talkswitch, who I recently did a podcast with.
And finally, the little PC that could. Ever seen anything so cute? This is from the OLPC initiative - One Laptop Per Child - and if you believe in better living through technology, this will certainly be part of the dream.
So, why are we talking about this here? This PC was a very effective prop for one of the exhibitors, Squeak. Squeak.org is an open source applications platform, and is being used by OLPC to drive Etoys, a math and science learning tool.
Technorati tags: IT360 Conference and Expo, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, Unified Communications
Posted by jonarnold at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2007
Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Steve Mast and New Media Marketing
For my latest podcast, I spoke with Steve Mast of Delvinia Interactive. He's their VP and Managing Director, and Delvinia is one of Canada's leading digital marketing shops. They have a lot of experience with new media, and we spoke about how they're using it across a variety of client situations.
We focused in particular on a contest run by the Royal Bank, which is Canada's #1 bank, and if they're ready to embrace new media, you know it's arrived. Delvinia created a program for them called The Next Great Innovator Challenge, where college/university students submit ideas for getting the youth market more in touch with financial services. It's largely a web-based contest, which included a blog that served as a useful resource for the contestants. Steve spoke about how the program was put together and how it's delivering value for their client.
You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Steve.
Technorati tags: Delvinia Interactive, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Steve Mast
Posted by jonarnold at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2007
DiamondWare - A Gamer's Best Friend - and a Company to Watch
Anyone following the gaming world or the Second Life phenomenon would know by now that Second Life announced the addition of voice into its platform on February 27. That’s an old story by now, but I just want to connect the dots back to DiamondWare, and tell you the story that isn't getting much play - yet. I’ve known this company for a few years now – and we’ll get to that in a moment.
I’m telling you this story because I think it needs to be told, and also because I’m one of the first who can tell it. I’ve had the benefit of a full briefing and demo of their conferencing platform, so I’ve seen it and heard it first hand. The only other way to experience it is if you’re part of the Second Life beta, or involved with one of the many trials DiamondWare is currently running with some big name companies. At the Game Developers 2007 Conference held two weeks ago, DiamondWare, in fact, provided a hint of what’s coming. They issued a series of announcements at the show about gaming deployments that will soon be commercially available, namely Auran’s Fury, and Virgin Games’s A World of my Own.
But those are NDA scenarios, so for most of you out there, I’ll likely be the first person you’ll hear about this from. Here we go…
First, I’ll just work backwards to name the players that bring us to DiamondWare. SecondLife is the largest public deployment of their 3D voice software, and the virtual world of Second Life was created by San Francisco-based Linden Labs. Their February 27 press release tells the basic story, but makes only a passing reference to the technology behind 3D voice, which involves two companies – Vivox and DiamondWare. Vivox provides the platform to support 3D voice, but the technology itself has been licensed to Vivox by DiamondWare. This relationship has been in the works for some time, as DiamondWare announced their successful demonstration with Second Life last September. It’s only now coming to market.
I should also add another thread to the story here. Vivox is another Jeff Pulver venture – he’s a co-founder and their Chairman. Jeff is an avid Second Lifer, and has his own virtual conference space there called Pulveria. He gave a great real-time demo of this at his Fall VON keynote last September, and I’m one of the bloggers who commented about it. Jeff posted about Second Life adding voice on February 28, but only mentioned Vivox. That’s understandable, but if that’s all you’ve read about this story, then you’re missing the DW connection. Given that it’s VON this week, I thought it would be timely to mention this, as I'm sure you'll be hearing about Second Life and Pulveria a few times during the show. Unfortunately I won’t be at the show this time, but I’m not hard to find if you need me.
So what’s the big deal with DW? You don’t have to look far through all the press about DW’s news with Second Life to get the basic idea. It’s typically described as immersive, spatial audio, with crystal clear sound that is highly adaptive to the real-time environment you’re in. For Second Lifers or gamers, it can be your best friend. I think of it as bling for your avatar. It’s easy to see how it makes these worlds much more interesting, but it’s the reality factor that DW brings that makes it really cool. When you’re in a multi-player gaming environment, or trying to have a conversation in a crowd inside SL, that’s where DW really stands out.
I recently got set up to do a personal demo with DW’s CEO, Keith Weiner. He kindly sent me a USB stereo headset and I downloaded the application, and we got connected. You need to have a decent headset to properly experience this. All I can tell you is that this works really well! Definitely not what you’re used to, and you can tell right away this is a much more life-like experience – a bit like the buzz you get from telepresence compared to conventional video conferencing.
This wasn’t a gaming or SL demo – it was a conventional conferencing application, and even in this simple scenario, you can get to experience how cool this is. First off, this is stereophonic sound, so the quality is very good right off the bat (32 KHz if you’re keeping score). Most conferencing is mono, and Keith cited Skype as an example that many of us are familiar with. It’s certainly a radical improvement, and it’s hard to imagine going back.
Here’s what’s really neat about the experience. On the screen you can see the names and positions of everyone sitting around the conference table. As each person speaks, you hear them in their positional or spatial context. For example, the person on your left is heard in the left channel. It’s much easier to follow the flow of conversation, and things get really interesting when multiple conversations occur, or people start moving around the room.
The experience is very life-like, and is much easier to follow things when different people start talking. Similarly, DW responds in real time as people move about – their volumes rise and fall as they move, and Keith refers to this as “proximity monitoring”. This all sounds very natural and simple in the real world, but the magic of DW is the ability to recreate it in a digital world.
Of course, I can only express the experience in words here, but the message is clear – it sounds great, and this is a big step forward. In some ways, it’s a bit too good. I commented to Keith that DW’s clarity created awkward moments when nobody was saying anything. There was total silence, and it really felt like the signal had cut out and I was off the call (which has happened to all of us on concalls, right?). More than once I had to ask if anyone was there. Well, that’s why they add white noise, right?
Another observation was that DW picks up EVERYTHING. So, when you’re on a call like this, don’t yawn, swallow, click your teeth, mumble under your breath, or make any side comments. Everyone will hear you, and they’ll probably be able to tell it was you! So, I suggested to Keith he may want to provide some concall etiquette tips for first time users. It reminded me of my Telepresence demo with Cisco. The experience was very life-like, but the presenters on the Cisco side of the table (who were far away in San Jose) came across a bit stiff, and looked like newscasters. These technologies are very new, and better than what we’re used, and we’re just not very media-aware yet of how best to use them. It will take some getting used to, but this is a good thing.
I should also add that voice quality itself is not DW’s secret sauce. It’s based a royalty-free Polycom codec, Siren 14 - G722.1. The real power of DW is that it’s “massively scalable”. Keith has had this in mind from the beginning, and that’s a big part of the vision for the gaming world, which will soon start seeing thousands of players online at the same time using voice. And of course, Second Life, which claims over 3 million registered users, will be a huge proof point for DW’s scalability.
The gaming world is an obvious market for DW, and they are positioning themselves very nicely there. Aside from the recent news items demonstrating their traction in this market, Keith explained how DW is already integrated into 4 of the top 6 middleware solutions for gaming. Also, while SL itself is a big deal for DW, that’s only the beginning.
Now, it’s time to segue from the gaming space to the enterprise market, which I think is where things get really interesting. SL isn’t just about people who want to have fun in a virtual world. Keith noted that 40 of the Fortune 500 companies – as well as several universities – are using SL to collaborate – such as holding meetings or doing presentations there. There’s a lot going on in SL with big companies that is anything but virtual, and a recent Investors Business Daily article is a great place to read more. They have already recognized the power of virtual communities for business applications, and with voice in the picture now, this space becomes more relevant to them.
Here’s why – collaboration is hot – I’d say it’s THE trend right now in IP, especially in the business market. Voice is what makes collaboration really effective, and that’s where DW really wants to play. SL will give them a great proving ground for this, plus they will gain tremendous experience from the gaming market. I think this is what will set DW apart in this space. By adding this caliber of voice experience to gaming, DW is allowing gamers to collaborate like never before, and guess what? This is what a lot of techhies and early adopters love to do. Gamers are going to create a great template for how to do real time, multimedia collaboration in the business world, and DW is right in the middle of this.
Not only that, but gamers are paying real money to do this! We’re not talking about a free service here. These are the building blocks for new applications with real business models that can deliver real benefits to businesses. Futhermore, DW can be a platform for a hosted solution. Think about how this opens the doors for all kinds of players who want to raise the bar with scalable conferencing and collaboration solutions. It could be Cisco, it could be IBM, it could be Microsoft, it could be Apple (the iPhone could support gaming) it could be AT&T, it could be Time Warner, it could be Sony, it could be Google. You get the idea. And if you want to bring it into the home, DW supports SurroundSound, and could be part of an IPTV bundle.
You might also be thinking about how DW’s 3D audio could be great for things like music downloads, movies, TV, video, etc. All well and good, but it’s not their focus right now. DW is really about two-way, interactive, collaborative communication, whereas these are all static, one-way communication modes. However, we’re not too far away from somebody wanting to use this on platforms that support multimedia collaboration. Just like gaming, it doesn’t take much to see creative types embrace this to virtually create music or video content online. It’s going to happen…..
I’ll conclude by saying that the stars seem to be lining up nicely for DW, and SL is really putting them on the map. The company has always been under the radar, mainly due to lack of a commercial application that we could actually use. They’ve been very fortunate to be kept going all this time by government and military R&D contracts. Much like how so many Israeli IP communications got their start in the military, DW has come out of the same milieu in the U.S.
I think this is important, as DW has gained experience on some interesting projects they could not have gotten any other way. And now all that R&D is coming to commercial fruition, and DW is a viable company without any debt. This is a very rare combination of events. I can’t think of too many companies that have survived this long without the benefit of VC backing or revenue-generating customers to keep them going. DW has had the luxury of all this R&D and lots of patents that should give them a pretty strong head start against anyone else trying to duplicate what they’ve done.
If you’ve stuck with me to read this post to this point, and you’re an investor who understands this space, I’d say DW is primed for big things. You’ll have to track Keith down, though, to see what he wants to do. Just remember where you heard it first!
Technorati tags: Second Life, Jon Arnold, DiamondWare, Vivox, Jeff Pulver
Posted by jonarnold at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2007
Cisco Raises the Stakes with WebEx
The news of Cisco's $3.2 billion purchase of WebEx comes hot on the heels of Microsoft's acquisition of TellMe the other day for $800 million. While these deals are in different spaces, this is another step along the way to what's looking like an expensive showdown between these two giants.
While Cisco and Microsoft enjoy a close working relationship on a few fronts, it's clear that they both want to control the enterprise communications space, and their visions do not seem to allow for more than one of them to do that. Regardless, $3.2 billion is a lot of money, especially for a company that only does about 1/10th of that in sales. Of course, Cisco spent a lot more to acquire Scientific Atlanta, so we may not have seen the biggest deal yet.
It's hard to tell where this is all going or when it all ends. Both companies have money to burn, and at this stage of the game, time to market is everything, and it's simply more expedient to buy rather than build. Of course, there's the ongoing challenge of integrating these companies once acquired, and figuring out the details about branding, channels, R&D, staff retention, etc. However, this is the price you pay to get what you need, and perhaps more importantly, to keep it out of the hands of your competitors.
There won't be any shortage of media coverage today about this, although I'm surprised at how little blog coverage there has been so far.
Rather than re-hash the details, I'll steer you to Business Week Online. Their feature is out already, and it provides a good overview of Cisco's deal and the overall context for what's driving this. They were also nice enough to cite me, so I'm more than happy to share this with you.
Technorati tags: Cisco, Jon Arnold, Microsoft, J Arnold & Associates, Business Week
Posted by jonarnold at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2007
Geosign Raises $160 Million - and Just Where is Guelph, Ontario?
So, who is Geosign, and how did they raise $160 million???
I'm asking the same questions myself. Geosign is a small, quiet company based in Guelph, Ontario - an hour or so from Toronto. Who knew???
It's a great Internet story for sure, and possibly a Web 2.0 story. They're an "Internet media" company, and it just shows how these success stories can truly come from anywhere. Guelph is in the middle of nowhere - a landlocked, agricultural town - barely big enough to be considered a city. I've been there a few times, and it's got a very interesting history. More importantly, though, it's in close proximity to Ontario's Technology Triangle, which is one of Canada's leading centers of tech innovation, most notably the home of RIM, and many others. More on that in a moment.
For the details, I'll steer you to today's Globe & Mail, which has a good writeup on Geosign and what they're going to do with all this money. As the article explains, Geosign has developed a network of 180 websites, all providing information for consumers on a wide range of goods and services. I'm not much for web surfing, so this is all news to me.
If you're curious, here's what one of their sites looks like - gizmocafe. Pretty plain, vanilla, mass market type of stuff. Nothing complicated, but hey, Geosign claims to attract some 35 million visitors a month to its sites. Can you imagine how many they'll be able to attract now? Gotta like their formula - dang, why didn't I think of that???
The item that really stood out for me in the article was the fact that this is the largest raise of private capital in Canada, and the largest in telecom/tech since Vonage raised $200 million in 2005. That's pretty impressive, and tells you that software and web-based businesses can still attract big money.
Mark Evans posted on this Wednesday, and his post includes a brief interview with their CEO, Ted Hastings.
I just wanted to add a brief comment about the size of this deal. Aside from its sheer scale, it says a lot about the potential that investors are starting to see in the Internet and online businesses. While it's surprising to see all of this coming from a low profile company based in a small city, it's not surprising that the funds are coming from the U.S. Followers of my blog may recall my visit to last year's Canadian Venture Forum. Canada may get its fair share of domestic VC placements, but the size of these deals is smaller than what U.S. companies get. It's hard to imagine any Canadian firm putting this amount of money into a company like this.
That said, you don't have to look far to see how hard it is to get funding up here, so in the IP communications space, there are still challenges for sure. I'm close to more than one startup here that has great technology, has done a lot of the right things, but still cannot get a deal. Makes you scratch your head and wonder how one company can get so much money, while so many others are hanging on by a thread. And to think how far these companies would get if they could just hive off 5% of Geosign's pot of gold. They're not going to spend that money Vonage-style, that's for sure. Geosign is bankrolled now to do some big things, and that's got to include acquisitions. I have no idea what their management structure or vision is like, but they're in a great position now.
On that note, I just may get to give Geosign some ideas about this myself. I'm in the process of organizing a mini-tour later this month of the Waterloo region, of which Guelph is part of, and Geosign is definitely on the list. Good timing!
This is coming as a result of my recent connection to Waterloo City Councillor, Mark Whaley, who has been encouraging me to this. It's in the works as we speak, and aside from my upcoming visit, I plan to do some podcasts about these companies afterwards.
Finally - just a small thing. You know what I like about this company? They spell their name Geosign, and not GeoSign. It's just so predictable the way companies concatenate two words with capitals. I'm old school that way, and am not a fan of forcing two words together that really don't belong together, and making it look right by using capitals. Enough. BackToWorkNow.
Technorati tags: Geosign, Jon Arnold, Tech Triangle
Posted by jonarnold at 12:48 PM | Comments (5)
March 06, 2007
My Dinner with Thomas - Mr. Mashup
If you've been following my blog, I posted the other day about colleague Thomas Howe, and his impressive ETel win last week in the Telephony Mashup Contest. Whoo hoo!
Well, for all my supportive posts - and being the first blogger to share the good news - I said dinner was on him if he won. After all, he did change our plans to meet here in Toronto when he found out his entry had been accepted. So, he went, he won, he came here last night, and as you can see from the photo, we had dinner. Now everybody's happy. Thanks Thomas!
Being an Engineer, Thomas is more tech-centric than me, and he's already posted about our dinner - just thought I'd share that. Glad he did, coz now I don't have to get into how cold it was last night. Next time, Thomas, either wear a winter coat, or come up when the weather is nicer! :-)
I should just add that we talked about a lot of things, and I think you can expect to hear more interesting developments on the mashup front from Thomas soon. On that note, he's contributing an article on mashups for the newsletter I'm putting together with Marc Robins, which we hope to have ready very soon. We also plotted out what we think is the right strategy for a startup we're both keen on - Flat Planet Telephone Company. We'll keep that to ourselves just for now...
Nice to see some validation on Thomas's mashup - The After Hours Doctor's Office - on Russell Shaw's blog today. Same for Garrett Smith on his post yesterday, Andy Abramson too, and Ken Camp from last week. Others as well, but you get the idea.
Technorati tags: Thomas Howe, Jon Arnold, ETel, Web 2.0
Posted by jonarnold at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)