So far this conference has fueled more ideas (for me) than any VoIP related conference I've attended in the last two years!
The O'Reilly crowd appears to have gotten the basics mix right for this first conference on Emerging Telephony. Perhaps the naming isn't perfect, but it is understood. On topic they have continued to focus on the fringe and what happens at the edge. VoIP is a clear component but the discussion is pushing towards Conversation or Voice 3.0. There's a mix of developers, companies and investors here. A few more of the big guys are stepping up this morning. France Telecom, Google, BT etc. The room has been packed with well over 300 people excluding what's going on in the halls. There has been a good balance and mix between the technical talk and enlightened briefing. The format focused on 15 minute presentations and 5 minute for lightening presentations is keeping things moving.
Skype has been mentioned by almost every speaker in some way. I know Skype was appoached to speak. Skype made a real (huge / big big) mistake not being here. As an audience all have now heard of Skype, probaby one third have not used it, another third have tried it but aren't really into it --- as they are Asterisk developers and engineers. The balance are hooked on Skype although I doubt any would state that Skype is the long term winner or solution provider. No one in this group believes in the nBillion paid for Skype. I'm writing this now while the Google Talk PM is making the case for Libjingle. He is pointing out that the Google Talk API is running ahead of the Google Talk client (a point Phil made recently).
Peter Cochrane spoke yesterday about the "emotional pull" of successful solutions. That's where there is one element or presentation "so far" missing here. Some of the examples and the lightening pitchs have begun to share the "behavioral" and "socialogical" impact of this new technology. It's the area I've enjoyed telling the stories about Skype (and other emerging examples). For the developers and engineers in the room working on Asterisk it is a set of stories they need to hear. New behaviors are demanding new applications. How the "few leading edge users" are using these new application is key to future success. Thus someone really needs to link these examples together. Standing alone the radio.livejournal.org, www.handiradio.com, www.yackpack.com etc are interesting. Bring the mobile, positional, media and billing components together and there's a bigger story that could help developer accelerate their ideas.
Separately, there was a great presentation on Rural Wi-Fi, and I hope after today when David Isenberg presents on Freedom to Connect that the audience leaves with a broader understanding of the regulations and policy developments that could simply destroy the value they are trying to create.
Phil provided a pithy brief on Skype facts and details yesterday. I'll post the audio recording later.
