IP Voice Innovation Lags Text, Despite GoogleVoice

One is hard pressed to point to new voice apps, beyond integrated text messaging, find-me, follow-up or visual voice mail, that have become mass market IP voice applications. Dialing from a directory or "click to dial" are helpful, but the bigger changes so far are a simple switch to VoIP in place of plain old telephone service.

The next trend is IP voice on mobile devices, where it has to this point been seen in a "voice from PCs or telephone adapters" scenario.

Contrast that with the pace of development in text-based communications, ranging from text messaging to instant messaging to email to blogging to tweeting. One is tempted to conclude that voice innovation is hampered in part because of its relative complexity, relative incremental cost and an underlying shift in the direction of text communications (messaging) overall.

That isn't to say such voice innovation will not occur; simply that it apparently is harder than innovation in the messaging arena.

http://symbianapplications.info/battle-of-the-google-voice-iphone-apps-voicecentral-vs-gv-mobile/

Online Video Viewing Up 2%, Streams Per Viewer Up 7%

Online video viewing was up in March 2009, says Nielsen Online. Unique viewers grew 1.9 percent year over year. Total streams viewed grew 8.7 percent year over year. Streams per viewer grew 6.7 percent and time spent per viewer grew 12.6 percent.

The central question here is whether linear TV can survive a shift to online viewing. So far, the evidence suggests that the rush to online video “screens” hasn’t necessarily hurt linear TV. At least not yet.

We'll know a bit more once all the first quarter 2009 reports are in, but as of the fourth quarter 2008 there was a net addition of  441,000 subscribers to multi-channel TV services, compared to the start of 2008.

Still, there is no shortage of thinking about how long this can continue.

Building an Ad-Supported Text Messaging Business

Many observers think communication service providers have got to create new revenue streams in partnership with business partners, rather than basing 100 percent of revenue on end users who pay for communication capabilities.

As always is the case for a developing business based on partnerships, partners will differ about the relative values they are bringing to the relationships, as well as relative revenue splits. Ad-supported text messaging campaigns are no different.

“For advertising-supported SMS, the net revenue per message is $0.004, and the carriers dispute this, but that’s the reality of the business,” says David Oberholzer, Limbo VP. “The model isn’t completely solid, and it’s unrealistic to think the CPMs (cost per thousand) we’ll be able to charge will go up dramatically, so it’s unrealistic for carriers trying to impose these types of per-message fees.

“Even relatively small carrier fees will drive out innovation to other platforms, and that’s already happening—look at all the advertising in iPhone apps,” he says. “If carriers raise costs, then that will be exacerbated.”

All of this will get worked out over time, but the issue illustrates the problem: a new and somewhat experimental new business requires nurturing and some degree of give and take between ecosystem partners.

Windstream is Using Twitter for Customer Support

Windstream now is using Twitter to communicate with customer having service issues. "Sorry for the trouble you're experiencing. you can dm or email me and I can check on that for you," Windstream tweets back to a customer.

http://twitter.com/windstream

Toblerone Runs Social Mobile Campaign

Kraft Foods' Toblerone is sponsoring a "Play it, Forward it, Share the Gratitude" mobile promotion that encourages consumers to extend gratitude to loved ones by uploading mobile video and text messages and have them broadcast on digital walls in Greenbelt and Bonifacio High Street in the Philippines.

There is a Web site for the Toblerone ‘Play it, Forward it’ promotion with brand information, details about the promotion, upload and entry forms, desktop widgets, contact details and tallies of uploaded videos, texts and votes.

Consumers can send their thank you videos and text messages to the mobile phones of families and friends from the Toblerone campaign site.

Customers can use bar codes on the candy’s packaging to retrieve discount mobile coupons as well. Social apps supporting the campaign also are available on Facebook and Friendster.

The campaign is powered by TMSfactory.

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/2805.html

Working Americans Use Social Networking; Not Much for Business, Yet

Of 10,000 working American’s surveyed by Compass Intelligence in late November 2008, nearly 60 percent said they were active on a social networking site, but most are not yet using social sites for business purposes.

The most popular site, according to research, is FaceBook, with nearly 35 percent of respondents being registered members of this site.

http://is.gd/hrUr

Federal Telecom Spending $47 Billion in 2009, Growing

Federal information technology spending on IT reached $129 billion in 2008, and will increase in the mid single-digits through 2013, when spending will reach $159 billion, say analysts at Compass Intelligence.

The largest category of Federal IT spending is in the telecom segment, which will receive a big boost due to new Federal policies regarding broadband.

Telecom spending by the Federal government will reach $47 billion in 2009, ramping up faster than many other categories to reach $59 billion by 2013."

Time Warner Cable Shelves Bandwidth Caps

Time Warner Cable appears, for the moment, to be retreating from its bandwidth cap tests in four U.S. cities, temporary ending a controversial experiment that would have created new usage buckets.

Those plans would have featured a lighter user plan featuring 1 Gbyte per month of usage for $15 per month. About 30 percent of Time Warner Cable customers use less than 1 Gyte per month.

Other plans would have featured caps of 10, 20, 40, 60 and 100 GBytes, plus an unlimited plan for the highest-speed 50 Mbps service.

Twitter Usage Explodes in March

The number of visitors to Twitter.com jumped 131 percent in March to 9.3 million visitors, up from five million in February.

We call that an inflection point!

Consumers Sending "Price" Signals to Apple?

Economists are fairly unanimous about one element of human behavior. When prices of any product are raised, demand tends to drop. The salient exception is "luxury" goods, where higher prices sometimes stimulate demand. But early evidence suggests that consumers believe 99 cents is the "right" price for a single song.

Last week was the first week of iTunes’s new, steeper pricing on some tracks, and consumers voted with their wallets, according to Billboard. Sales figures from iTunes show that tracks that now sell for $1.29, up from $0.99, sold 12.5 percent fewer units than during the previous week, while tracks whose prices were unchanged sold 10 percent more than the week before.

Overall revenue was up three percent during the week, so it might not be possible to blame the "economy" for the changes. It appears that unit sales for the top-100 songs were up for the week.

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-is-the-price-right-itunes-price-hikes-impact-first-weeks-sales/

YouTube As Monetizable as a Newspaper?

"User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross, says Farhad Manjoo, Slate's technology columnist.

YouTube, for example, sells ads on fewer than 10 percent of its videos, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. But the costs of storing and serving up 75 billion video clips a year costs Google $360 million a year, the analysts estimate. Add in all other expenses, and the cost of running YouTube for one year exceeds $700 million. But YouTube will make about $240 million in revenues for 2009.

Oddly enough, YouTube loses more money on its content than a daily newspaper.

http://slate.com/id/2216162

You Tube Sensation Will Grab You

If this does not make you tear up just a little in joy, I'm not sure you have a heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBTVdnWj1hM&feature=bz301

Tweet Shows IP Impact

"The terrible phone connection I was blaming on our VoIP line turns out to be the cordless phone clashing with WiFi," says Matthew Weinberg. "May need to go corded."

That's as good an example of any about the changes IP technology has wrought for service providers, who no longer can simply sell a connection, terminate at a network interface and hand off the premises network and devices to an end user. That generally worked when interface specifications were stringent and the total number of devices and applications were limited.

These days the application and device environment is much more complex. But users will call their service provider when applications or devices don't work properly. One way or the other, greater involvement in premises networks and configuration are required.

Skype Proves Stand-Alone Long Distance is a Business

Now that it appears Skype will become a stand-alone company, we have to note the irony. Telcos and cable companies have concluded that long distance no longer is a viable stand-alone business. That's essentially why AT&T and MCI Worldcom do not exist as independent companies.

But it is worth keeping in mind that when an executive says something cannot be done, what that really means is that "I cannot, with my cost structure, personnel or technology holdings, do that." Skype will be able to compete as a stand-alone long distance provider. To greater or lesser degrees, much the same can be said for calling card providers.

As true as it may be that a service provider cannot make a viable business selling long distance alone, that isn't true for all market contestants. One simply needs a different cost structure and channel.

The issue now is what Skype actually is worth. Merill Lynch analyst Justin Post says Skype is worth $2.2 billion, and that could grow to $3 billion by the time it either goes public in 2010 or is sold.

Jeffries & Company analyst Youssef Squali values Skype at $1 billion.

Thomas Wiesel analyst Christa Quarles thinks Skype is worth $1.7 billion. Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang, meanwhile, values Skype at $1.85 billlion.

http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/user%2F05579064408535224496%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list

Skype and eBay: Cautionary Tale for Communications-Enabled Business Processes

As useful as communications-enabled business apps might be, eBay's inability to wring any significant advantages out of voice-enabling eBay. Perhaps messaging of other sorts is valuable, but voice integration does not seem to have added much of anything to the eBay shopping experience.

All of which raises the question of where and when voice communications, perhaps as opposed to text-based communications, adds value to another application, or adds enough value that people even care very much.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCWYwCYVyHx4&refer=home