Newspapers and the information paths

Mark Evans gives an interesting advice on how to change the newspapers world business model. In a previous post, he highlights the 5 Ws about newspaper (curious as it is, I've used the same "trick" for my presentation at VON Europe 2006. It is dramatically true that information (the quickest and, therefore, raw) is changing its source-destination path: from the old paradigm of "newscaster to consumers", we are moving to the new one "consumers to consumers". It is sponsored and aided by the Web2.0 revolution (both technological and social aids are present), and it is a business model where the consumer is not anymore the payer.

What is happening is that the whole economics model we used to see (Consumer is the one who pays) is fading out. Well, it already changed years ago, but now it is the model that doesn't work over the Internet, at most.
Consumer is not anymore the direct source of revenues, and some levels of indirection must be taken into account when monetizing the business performance.

Technorati Tags: mark evans, newspaper, web20, revenues, vow, cernIO,

VON Italy photos on Flickr!

I've just published some photos on Flickr about the VON Italy: I've take some pictures of the staff, they were really nice and helpful!

VON Italy report

The VON Italy has been a great happening, with more than 2000 visitors and lots of exhibitors. Jeff presented his vision to the Italian audience, reminding us that the "V" of VoIP actually stands for "Video". It seems to us in Abbeynet that V stands for a lot of "things". And that IP is not the transport layer "over" which we put "things".

On the customer point of view, the WWW is the platform where applications are available to him/her. It is seen as the transport media, as the convergent layer of all the services that build a Rich Internet Application (that is, RIA).
Somebody says that VoIP is not a service but an application, I'd say that it is the third dimension on the "mute" World wide web: it's Voice Over Web.

I've had the opportunity to speak on behalf of Luca, who couldn't be there with us, and I've noticed how our presentation schema, general vision and the market approach is rather different from those presented by other speakers.
Diversity is always a good thing to see in environments. But is this diversity a merit just for us or for the whole market?

Regarding the presentation level, I've received good feedback for being interactive and easy to understand (no big theories, no long numbers, no big schemas), but this has been done at the cost of not really going into things. Those who are interested in insights of our vision can contact me, Luca or Giacomo.

Technorati tags: Giacomo Vacca, Luca Filigheddu, Jeff Pulver, VON, VOW, VoIP, EOIP,

Customized Google voip search engine

Google is always a step forward in user-centered services and community-enhancing tools. THis one is one of a kind, I think, because it allows us to build our own search engines.
I've just built a small one on VoIP related sites.
At present it features a narrow search in few blogs and landmark sites, I'll be pleased if you drop me a line with the sites worth to be included in the search list, or feel free to add new sources on your own.

The Google Coop search engine on Voip is here

Technorati tags: google, coop, voip, buzz, web20, voice20, search

(pun) Voice Over IP? Old story

Voice over IP is old stuff, now a new trend is spreading all over the world. The new buzz word is VUW.
No, it's not a typo of VOW - Voice Over Web, as I usually promote on this blog, but it's Voice Under Water. Take a look at this phone, it's amazing.
And, maybe, useless :)

Technorati tags: VUW, VOW, marketing20, gizmodo

Summing up the weekly news

It's been a busy week, with no time (no mind) to write about some interesting news of the last week:

• VON Italy is approaching, we'll be there to present the Abbeynet vision (yep, it's our company) and do talk about our latest works: Abbeyphone VOW (it stands for Voice Over Web) and Presence. I'll be happy to meet with anybody is interested, just buzz me on Sitofono.


• Alec Saunders talks about OpenAIM: he is praising the good work done by AOL, but he wants more: he wants a subscription mechanism instead of a polling one. Wouldn't be nice if all applications behave like a SIP/SIMPLE standard compliant presence server?


• Andy Abramson on 2.0 for 1.0 presents a nice picture of transitions from old to new. That is to say, applying 2.0 services and applications to 1.0 technologies. We already do that, like using the HTML to build Rich User Interfaces on the web, and we already do that (as Iotum does) on telephony 1.0, by pervasively spreading the Voice Over Web.


• And finally, Livejournal got Voice by GizmoProject. As Luca points out, services must be tailored over the customers needs. Each community has its own color and shape, taste and smell, therefore you cannot stamp out a Voice-enabling application that fits for all of them. Luca's example of LinkedIn enhanced with voice services (but it could have been Qunu as well) is a fair example of how to enable a new revenue stream into an existing community service.

Technorati tags: VOW, Voice20, social, LiveJournal, Iotum, gizmo, linkedin, qunu

Microsoft SLAM. Let's see

Microsoft launched a "prototype social software for communicating and sharing with groups of firend and family". It requires a phone number, and a windows mobile device.
Scenarios seem a bit too avant-garde, and practically unfeasible: for this to work, people need to own a Windows Mobile device. I could understand it were an Ipod...

Technorati Tags: microsoft, social, presence, web20

The curse of features - part I

When we design a thing for everyday use, we too often incur in the curse of "Creeping Featurism". A nice (and sarchastic) representation is sketched here: "All I've ever Wanted in a Gadget".



Technorati Tags: feature, gadget, featurism, norman, usability

Funny (just funny?) telephony applications

Just to confirm that "ye olde telephone" is still the convergent platform upon which applications are developed, here are few examples.

Call-in-sick and uBreakup, which let you getting rid of awful situations.
Jokes set apart, this is a true demonstration of what are the capabilities of the Web and a telephony application over IP (yep, it's probably a bit of Asterisk and a small investment for a mediaGW). Deployment is easy, scenarios are uncountable.

Technorati Tags: voip, call-in-sick, ubreakup, asterisk

Pervasive Voice Over Web - it's happening

Our company vision is taking place. We are not anymore the lone pioneers of the Voice Over Web pervasivity. Since we demonstrated it's feasible, lots of attempts and experiments have taken place in the WWW. The most interesing so far are, beside our Abbeyphone VOW, Sightspeed for AMD (as quoted by Aswath) and Busta.
These services differentiate from the yet-another-SIP service provider in what is the application deployment and exploitation: the deployment is online, on the web, and the service usage experience happens in a pervasive way. The uibiquitous presence of various contact tools like "call me via web", "call by gadget, widget, extension, plugin...", "call me via myspace" and so on is the true sign of the need of getting in (better) contact.
Forums, blogs, newsgroups and the other offline/deferred communication mode need to converge on the voice part -whether it's just a voice message or a full audio-video communication, voice is still the easiest, and the most powerful communication tool that human beings can use to share ideas.


Technorati Tags: sightspeed, VOW, activex, Voice over web, sitòfono, busta