A conversation with Richard Wallis, an experiment, and a survey
Richard Wallis left Talis (my former employer) last month, and has set up as a consultant at DataLiberate. In this short podcast, Richard shares some of his thoughts on data, semantics, and ‘the power of the link.’ Our conversation is also an excuse for an experiment. I have been producing audio-only podcasts here and elsewhere [...]
Thought of the Day: Carriers!
Remember what hotels taught us? They taught us to never make a long distance call from the room. The hotels discovered that long distance wasn’t just a service, but a money maker and charged us through the nose on long distance usage. It sorta worked w…
Skype: Interop is a Waste of Time
Ecomm is a fantastic conference (for telecom propeller heads). This year I was only able to do a fly-by. However, the organizers are starting to post videos. Jonathan Christensen of Skype discusses the latest release of SkypeKit, an SDK for real time communications. SkypeKit is primarily targeted at consumer electronics manufacturers to embed Skype into a [...]
Dial M for Skype
The more I think about Microsoft acquiring Skype, the more I think it was a pretty smart move. The initial reports were all about synergies with various MS and Skype technologies, upon further reflection, I think the endgame will be carrier disruption….
Skype For Asterisk Was Already Dead!
The big story this week (so far), Skype for Asterisk (SFA) comes to its end. The official notification reads: Skype for Asterisk will not be available for sale or activation after July 26, 2011. Skype for Asterisk was developed by Digium in cooperation with Skype. It includes proprietary software from Skype that allows Asterisk to [...]
Skype – the mysterious money bubble
This morning I wrote this post already in one tweet: 2003: Skype founded. 2005: bought by eBay $2.5B (60m users). 2009: sold by eBay $2.8B (450m users). 2011: bought by MSFT $8B (700m users) That was after a very quick 5 minute analysis of a few tweets, posts and web sites. Now I’ve finally found [...]
Microsoft’s Skype Acquisition: My Immediate Concerns
Kara Swisher of BoomTown has confirmed that Microsoft has finalized the deal to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. According to her Microsoft will announce the news early in the morning tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier tonight that Microsoft–in what would be its most aggressive acquisition in the digital space–was zeroing in on buying [...]
Facebook and T-Mobile Launch Bobsled. With Huge Privacy Glitch. Or is it By Design? Skype, Google Voice and Telcos Beware, Anyway…
Out of left field, T-Mobile and Facebook launched Bobsled, a VOIP service that allows voice calls to anyone on your Facebook list for free. At this moment the entire blogging world is busy writing about it, so I skip the basics… and just run to some funny experience while testing it. First, here’s how you [...]
Skype Downtime And The Cloud Fail
Skype went down this morning and, as expected, Techmeme and Twitter are already going crazy with the news about downtime. There were speculations about problems with their centralized infrastructure used to authenticate users (which was a cause of trouble in one of the past outages) and some were even talking about “The Cloud Fail”. Whether [...]
Cisco Planning To Acquire Skype To Target Consumer Market?
Mike Arrington has made a post talking about a possible acquisition of Skype by Cisco. According to him there are talks to acquire Skype at a price near $5 Billion before they complete the IPO process. Cisco has made an offer to acquire Skype before they complete their IPO process, says one of our more [...]
Presence for Mobile Phones?
How often do we see mobile phones ringing/vibrating in a meeting? I see this in almost every meeting. We have an option to set our online presence to ‘Busy’ to avoid any IMs, Skype calls etc. But sadly, we don’t have a similar option for our mobile phones. I like working late and more often [...]
Skype Blocks Fring – Or Not? Fingerpointing… But Where is Skype for Android?
Just two days ago I reported how mobile video call app Fring enabled making video calls on 3G, even to other platforms, say Skype. That was a huge improvement for iPhone users, since their native Facetime only allows iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 calls, and only over wi-fi. But the new option proved to be [...]
Fring’s Popularity BackF(i)ring
Hooray, iPhone users can now make video calls on 3G, even to other platforms, say Skype, but using the popular Fring app. Or not… The new option proved to be too popular, overwhelming Fring’s servers. This morning Fring announced suspension of support for Skype. The biggest losers are Android users on all carriers but Verizon, [...]
FacePalm
The future is here according to Steve Jobs. Maybe he should tell Pixar to make “Back to the Future 4″ cause there sure were a lot of “time travellers” who tried video-calling five years ago. Video calling is fun. Once. Then you never use it again. I’m surprised Apple is pushing FaceTime the way they [...]
Sorry Facebook, Here’s Why Google+ Plus is Better
By Mark Fidelman on July 11, 2011
Zuckerberg is a man so certain of the success of his quest that he can afford to ignore the latest attempt by Google to disrupt the social space. He displays a confidence similar to a card shark who has devoted a prodigious effort in studying every possible move by his competitors. And who now feels [...]
Posted in Application Software, Featured Posts | Tagged commentary, enterprise 2.0, facebook, google, google plus, LivingSocial, skype | 5 Responses