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 basic mix right for this first conference on Emerging Telephony. Perhaps the naming isn't perfect, but it is understood. On topics, 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 lightning 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 many 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 lightning pitches have begun to share the "behavioral" and "sociological" 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 applications is key to future success. Thus someone really needs to link these examples together.

Standing alone, radio.livejournal, handiradio, yackpack etc are interesting. Bring the mobile, positional, media and billing components together and there's a bigger story that could help developers 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.

Tag : etel

There is plenty of interesting discussion going on here at Emerging Telephony. This is a quick post after a fun presentation. There is certainly a few marketing dollars targeted at this audience with T-shirts, postcards etc. I've been listening to the FON presentation which promises internet everywhere, Wi-Fi everywhere and the mission to build a WiFi nation globally. More than anything they are trying to build a community around shared access to Wi-Fi. Thus joined together into one network. I think this is an idea whose time has come. They will need this group, this audience to promote it and make it happen. One difficulty in the US is the license for most of us restricts sharing in this way. Will your ISP clamp down? To that I don't know.

I'm also aware of a similar example Wibiki. The business models are different and I'd have to look more deeply to asses the differences. It's perhaps worth reflecting on the earlier deals Skype did with Boingo. The models above have the potential to obsolete such deals. What they are both learning from is the capability to create a universal log-in to Wi-Fi. Interestingly, both of these types of initiatives could benefit from Skype sponsorship.

Tag : etel

Alec Saunders has a great writeup on the ballyhoo surround the recent Tello launch. He describes it thus:

The easy way to think about Tello is to imagine what Skype might be like if it were built for a business user. It’s a voice and IM app that can federate across multiple networks, support a heterogeneous universe of endpoints(hardware and software), and reflect presence information throughout the network. It’s a big vision. Alec Saunders

He provides the overview of the links which confirm to me that no-one has yet really got to do a test drive. I've applied for a personal beta account. Let's see what, when it comes. Tello's exposure at this stage is representative of a startup with big names behind it.

A few comments occur to me. The arguments for presence are it will help enterprise "productivity" dimension. The real issue is increasingly "attention management" and presence is just part of the functionality that enables the new models to emerge around the "economics of attention". This needs more thought. Similarly, Tello says they will federate IM systems so it doesn't matter which one you use anymore. I think this only sorts of works. I'd prefer to know that they are working towards a Jabber XMPP standard. Text is no longer something that provides a competitive advantage. It's the functionality and features you build around it. Perhaps this reflects my resistence to the likely requirement to upload my buddylists. The story also appears to ask the user to follow all sorts of routing info. Frankly I don't want to know about any of that. I do however want intelligence on the best way to make the connection at that moment. That intelligence should reflect both my status and the status of the person or people I want to connect with. No decisions required. Even auto converters where the exchange will be flagged or structured to be asynchonous.

An interesting panel on design and usability. Most interesting is BJ Fogg sharing his useablity thoughts behind YackPack. This is really a neat application. I'd heard about it but not followed it up in the past. In his case he's actually subscri bed to twenty six packs right now. The interface is very simple. He keep reinforcing taking things out that people aren't using. Basically Yack Pack is a fun method for broadcast audio messaging. Both voice and text are available. Check out the explanatory video. It's intriguing. Here's an example of how to send an audio blast to a group of friends or pack.

It's a great example, with the use of pictures, the simple click, record and send. In many ways not all that different to the voice message feature in Skype. YackPack certainly illustrates where Skype could go with audio / video blasts. There's no reason this couldn't be developed and copied in Skype particularly now that SkypeWeb exists. Is it a priority at Skype? Probably not. Should it be? It's an example of a feature that is "new" thus Skype had the opportunity to innovate in this space and hasn't. When video blasts are restricted to your buddylist "spam" is not a problem. Similarly, additional groups that you might subscribe your SkypeID to would be a value added service. Note that networking groups would probably pay the subscription. Enough said.

Tag : etel

I've just arrived at Emerging Telephony. Today various workshops and discussions are happening, tomorrow the conference formally starts. I've ducked in to an Asterisk hacks session. Not sure what I'll find. What I'm seeking is a sense of how adventuous the Asterisk community is and where they are going. There is a good crowd already here. I'd guess O'Reilly will be very happy with 1st show attendance. In the end I'm not sure how much I really learned from this session.

The session moderator is introducing this session on Asterisk, VoIP, and other great hacks. He says telecom has been an adjunct to the systems in the company. Stop thinking about it like a telephone. Let's take a look at what is possible. [Ed: spelling correction. The soft PBX is spelled Asterisk, whereas Asterix refers to the pint sized Gaul of comic book fame.]

This is introduced by Steven Mueller (Sun Labs), who begins talking about the idea of auto provisioning. He descibes it as an easy method to get a new telephones / handsets online and into the Sun network. I'd expect that auto provisioning is automatic. Unfortunately his story shows things are not as simple as this. In this system it is important to be able to update the phone from the center. I can't help but thinking this method is obsolete. The validation system used is likely to be confusing to users. It's obvious that a find me follow me solution would be preferred by users. Summary he's done a neat hack that adds flexibility to his traditional VoIP system and simplifies provisioning. Still I can't help thinking that "softphone" based systems have to end up cheaper.

Christian AstLinux embedded distribution for running Asterix. Allows you to experiment with Asterisk and Linux without leaving your current operating system. Looking on the site it appear this provides a very small footprint and could be run off a USB stick. Still he's talking another language for me. I've had a few pointers recently pointing me to Asterisk options. I'm certainly considering a little "learning by doing" project.

Simon Ditner from Toronto has taken the game Zork and added speech recognition to it. It's been done with Asterisk. It's a fun demo, still complete with bugs. He's using Sphinx2 for the voice recognition portion. There's a good debate on whether there is a commercial application for this. It looks like a wonderful way to me to create a new type of game genre. The mobile operators would love the minutes used online --- talking to a game! Nice.

Raph is taking about Clicktodial, something that I've integrated into my Firefox browser. It just adds a hyperlink to phone numbers on any page and then your skype client or another phone can be set to dial. In this case he has hooked it to SunRocket. He also demonstrates how to do it to any phone number on your desktop. For Skypers using Skylook or the Skype Outlook plug-in this functionality is already common place. It's certainly convenient and it helps the user understanding in merging the computer and telephony.

Ted Wallingford was going to do a presenation on Skype as an attempt. He is not online. Interestingly the moderator has only just today downloaded Skype. That tells me something. I wonder how many more in the audience are like this? Apparently no one from Skype is presenting here. I don't know if anyone from Skype is attending. I think Skype missed an opportunity. They should be here.

Tag : etel

• Tom Online comes to Skype's aid in China (ChinaTechNews.com). Skype's closest partner in China is negotiating with China's telcom operators on Skype's behalf.
• US Verso Tech confirms sale of Skype-blocking software in China (Forbes). How do you say "negotiating power" in Mandarin?
• Microsoft roars into VoIP market (Computerworld). "Industry observers say the catalyst for this is Skype..."
• Radio Shack to offer a range of Skype-related Products (The New York Times). Skype to be featured in holiday catalogs and displayed in stores with special "kiosks."
• ETel: Makers Wanted! (O'Reilly Radar Blog) "...looking for participants in the ETel Fair at our Emerging Telephony conference (conference is Jan 24-26, San Francisco; Fair is the evening of the 25th)".

Thanks to contributor Rick Hultz,a telecom and technology analyst who has followed Skype since it's beginning.