Showing posts with label Google Voice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Voice. Show all posts

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Skype Should Give Me A Free Phone Number

Image representing Skype as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
Skype should give me a free phone number like Google Voice does. And then they should get into a race to give me limitless voice calls over those numbers over data and WiFi. To kick the carriers out. They charge too much.

Skype already has great sound quality over long (read international) distances. A number would be nice to have unpaid for.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Republic Wireless' $19 Feast

It should not be possible to escape wireless broadband. Anywhere. In that ocean smartphones should float. Voice is just data. It can be super cheap.


Republic Wireless reopens its unlimited $19 per month beta, starts offering Motorola Defy XT
the Motorola Defy XT, an Android 2.3 device with a 3.7-inch display, 1GHz CPU, 1650 mAh battery, 5MP camera / VGA front camera, 1GB of ROM and microSD slot. It can be your for $249
Republic Wireless Outs The Defy XT, Reopens Beta For $19/Month Unlimited Wireless Service
For just $19 a month customers get truly unlimited data, voice and text messages. Plus, this is offered free of a contract. .... The Defy XT .. won’t topple any of today’s flagship phones .... But thanks to a deal with Sprint, the phones also work wherever there is a cellular signal. ..... the company is going to be a disruptive force in the wireless industry. Republic Wireless isn’t a scrappy startup either. It’s a division of the Cary, North Carolina-based Bandwidth.com, the VoIP company responsible at least in part for Google Voice, Skype, Pandora and many more data services.
Republic Wireless reopens $19 service, sells Motorola Defy XT
Let the Waves Begin!
It’s a great phone, and it’s incredibly durable. ..... With the DEFY XT, you don’t have to worry about expensive replacements and insurance policies. This phone is the real deal, with Corning Gorilla Glass and an IP67 Rating for solid particle and water resistance. .... at a time when Big Cell is busy making more money at higher prices, with more restrictions and continued confusing business practices.
Republic Wireless now brings Motorola Defy XT to its $19 unlimited monthly plans
Republic Wireless is an unusual carrier.
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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Post PC Or PC Plus

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...Image via CrunchBase
Winrumors: Microsoft slams post-PC idea, claims “PC isn’t even middle aged yet”: even their most ardent admirers will not assert that they are as good as PCs at the first two verbs, create and collaborate. And that’s why one should take any reports of the death of the PC with a rather large grain of salt. Because creating and collaborating are two of the most basic human drives, and are central to the idea of the PC. They move our culture, economy and world forward. You see their fingerprints in every laboratory, startup, classroom, and community.
I am in agreement with Microsoft on this one. But let me clarify. A laptop is PC. The Macbook Air is PC. The Chromebook is PC.

In my case instead of me migrating my computing to the smartphone I have migrated most of my phone calls to the free Google/Gmail/Google Voice phone on my laptop. If you have been getting many text messages from me and have been impressed with how fast I can type on the small screen, be warned. I am not typing on a small screen. I am typing on a proper keyboard on my big laptop. I am sending text messages to people from my laptop. Thank you Google Voice.

Being on the move is important. But if you already know you are going to be online for so many hours per day, there the laptop rules. The laptop is mobile.

Steve Jobs' home office features a huge screen desktop. That dude be driving a 18 wheeler.

The smartphone is a great addition to the family and is on its way to becoming the center of the known universe, and for good reason.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Nosh: The Starting Point Is Not The Dish

Image representing Foodspotting as depicted in...Image via CrunchBaseI have long been a proponent of adding a social element to FoodSpotting, (FoodSpotting API) and Nosh seems to have that element, but where Nosh does not seem to "get" it is that with Nosh the dish does not seem to be the starting point. That is a big minus. (FoodSpotting's Dish As Starting Point)

The social graph I have had in mind for FoodSpotting has been more the Color kind than the Facebook kind. FoodSpotting could be an amazing force for peace. And I don't feel like I am exaggerating. I do mean to talk geopolitics.

The Color Social Graph Might Work Better For Books, Movies, Music
Twitter ---> Instagram ---> FoodSpotting

But if I were FoodSpotting, this would be a wake up call to me. The brain behind Nosh was the same brain behind what today is Google Voice. The guy sure has the tech chops. And he is trying to fork into the FoodSpotting space from the Instagram paradigm. But he has already exhibited some major vision level blind spots. The name Firespotter borrows half the body from the name FoodSpotting. Thief!

Monday, May 16, 2011

A Data Plan Is All You Should Need

Image representing Skype as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBaseYou pay 30 bucks a month, and that is your data plan. And it is good for your smartphone, it is good for your tablet, it is good for your laptop, one data plan for all. The data plan should cover voice and text messaging. Skype ought to morph, Google Voice ought to morph into smartphone apps that make irrelevant the traditional phone number. Landlines are gone, phone numbers should go too.

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?
Image representing Google Voice as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
The plan should be 30 bucks a month. And if your speed does not double every two years, the company providing the data plan should declare bankruptcy. The only calling plan that should be allowed is the unlimited calling plan, and that too for a limited period.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Dumbo And Union Square

Location of Manhattan on New York City.Image via WikipediaI am headed to Union Square Friday afternoon to spend a few hours with the PaperlessPost team and its fearless leader Alexa Herschfeld. I had a voice mail from her Wednesday and Google Voice had transcribed her name as Celexa Ourselves. Not good, Google Voice, not good.

And to me it is feeling like I am headed to Dumbo. Dumbo and Union Square are two places in town that have tech clusters. There are a whole bunch of tech startups congregated in those two locales.

If there are other such clusters in the city, I am not aware of them as of yet. I am surprised there are not similar clusters in Williamsburg and Chinatown. I know of at least one major tech company that is based out of Chinatown, but I don't think you would call that a cluster.

Monday, December 27, 2010

A $50 Smartphone Running On Free WiFi

Bruce Willis at a Live Free or Die Hard (Die H...Image via WikipediaThis is what I am waiting for: a $50 smartphone running on free wifi. You pay for the hardware, you of course keep it charged up, it comes with a charger, and there is no monthly fee to any carrier after that. In a big city like New York, there is free wifi everywhere. And where there is no wifi, you say hello to people. You actually value face time. Hi, my smartphone is not working, let me just have a moment with you.

Bruce Willis tried that on two young women fans in an elevator when they asked for his autograph, and they ran away. As in, forget the autograph, let me just have a moment with you. Let me just say hello.

So careful how you do it though.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Voice Is Not Dead, Dumb Voice Should Be

This is icon for social networking website. Th...Image via Wikipedia
TechCrunch: The Phone Call Is Dead: Text is just easier.
I have a few different phone numbers. I think I have three. Does that mean I am a huge fan of the telephone? Hardly. The opposite is true.

I tried to cancel my Yahoo Messenger number. I think I did. And they billed me anyway. My bank filed a complaint on my behalf. They gave me a new debit card. But that transaction went through. Felt like Carol Bartz was balancing the Yahoo budget on my back.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I Do Want A Wicked Fast Web

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBase
CNet: Chrome could preload pages for 'wicked-fast' Web: Google has begun work on a feature to let Chrome load pages before they're needed, the latest instance of the company's relentless focus on Web performance..... scheduled to arrive in the browser's code base in February .... When a person clicks on a preloaded Web page, the browser could simply activate the page rather than load it..... Google has many other fast-Web projects under way, including a technology called False Start to speed encrypted Web pages, rewiring Web server communications with the SPDY protocol, support for the WebP image format as an alternative to JPEG, and switching to the libjpeg-turbo library for when JPEG images need to be drawn.
Maybe Google is a software company and it is coming from a coding angle, but the road to the wicked fast web I would like to travel is one where competition is introduced into the broadband sector and prices come down, speeds go up, like in some other countries. It is one of those People-People-Rise issues.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Paying For Phone Calls Was Always Ridiculous

This is icon for social networking website. Th...Image via Wikipedia
David Pogue: New York Times: Google Shakes It Up Again With Free Phone Calls: Google .. shook up Web searching and advertising. It shook up free, Web-based e-mail services .... shook up the way companies go public. .... Calls to American and Canadian phone numbers are free ..... Calls to other countries are very cheap ...... If you have a free Google Voice account too, then you can get incoming calls, too. ..... it’s increasingly clear that one day, the Internet, not the outrageous cellphone companies, will connect our calls. The ultimate, of course, would be free calls from a phone, to a phone ...... even closer to the “free calls from a phone, to a phone” ideal. Now it’s free calls “from a computer, to a phone.” .... What if Google released an app like that for Android phones, or the iPhone? .... for the first time in history, make unlimited free phone-to-phone calls.... It would completely change the game .... the Internet-as-phone-company paradise that almost certainly awaits us.
Paying for phone calls was always ridiculous. And it still is. Now that we have computer to phone free calls, Google should go ahead and stop pretending, and I know it already has the technology. Get this ported to the smartphones, and we already have it.

The reason you should not call someone or not talk to them long is because you don't have time, not because you don't have money.

Google Voice Blog: Make And Receive Calls In Gmail

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

OpenVBX: To Manage Your Office Phones

Image representing Twilio as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBase
Fred Wilson: Open VBX
With Open VBX you get free software to build telephony services and a web based telephony cloud to provision the numbers, calls, text messages, and way more. ...... We believe that free and open software opens up markets and new capabilities much more quickly than closed and expensive software products. ........ there are a number of ways to make money with open source software. The most obvious one is the "Red Hat" model of building a services and support business on top of the open source software. Red Hat has revenues of almost $600mm per year and boasts a public market valuation of over $5bn. MySQL, which also used that approach, sold to Sun for $1bn. .......The Wordpress software is available open source. But they also operate a hosted version at Wordpress.com that is a commercial effort.
Al Wenger: Twilio Announces OpenVBX
Twilio has done it again: taken something that was previously complicated and made it super simple. This time they set their sights on business telephone systems ...... Like Wordpress, OpenVBX has a plug-in architecture that makes it super easy to extend functionality and to integrate other systems. ...... how many times have you punched in a bunch of information to an automated system only to then have to repeat all the information when you get an operator on the line? ...... I can’t wait to get rid of the existing PBX at Union Square Ventures and replace it with an instance of OpenVBX. I can then connect the foursquare plugin to let people now which city and time zone I am in!
Twilio: OpenVBX
Using Twilio's Cloud Communications platform, you never have to worry about scalability, reliability, hardware investments, or long-term contracts. You just pay as you go, and a free $30 trial gets you up and running without a credit card...... As developers, we've built websites, skinned blogs, and integrated CRMs for customers. But phone systems, that was somebody else's problem.
OpenVBX.org
OpenVBX is for companies and collaboration.
TechCrunch: Twilio Releases OpenVBX, An Open Source Google Voice For Businesses
Ever since it launched in late 2008, Twiliohas a knack for making cool products. ...... has the potential to disrupt business-oriented call routing services in a big way — Twilio is describing it as a sort of Google Voice for businesses, with more flexibility ...... integrated services, like text to speech, voice transcription, voicemail forwarding, and SMS messaging. ....... One plugin Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson showed me hooked into 37signals’ Highrise, a web-based contact manager. Using this, you could automatically check to see if the phone number of an incoming call was already in your contact database, and route the call to a certain sales rep accordingly. A second plugin (which was actually created by a third-party developer) hooks into Foursquare, allowing you to change your telephony settings depending on where you’re located........ When you use OpenVBX you’re charged Twilio’s normal rates, which run $1 per phone line per month ($2 for a toll-free number) with usage charges of 3 cents per minute (or SMS). ........ an enterprising developer could tweak OpenVBX so that it’s perfect for restaurants, and then resell it as their own service. Twilio still gets paid through their per-minute and phone line charges, and the developer can charge a hefty premium on top of it.
GigaOm: Twilio Launches Roll-Your-Own Google Voice
Twilio, a San Francisco-based startup whose platform and services marry voice to the web world, is launching OpenVBX, an open-source web application that is in essence a roll-your-own Google Voice. With it, you get toll-free and local phone numbers, which can in turn be used to route calls to existing cellphones and landlines. ..... I’m still playing around with a demo version Twilio shared with us — I’ll update the post when I’m done.
GleepLog: Virtual Telephony Changed Today
Twilio flew me out to San Francisco in March to get a look at an early version and I was very impressed. We had a weekend hackathon and created plugins for it… but more about that later. ....... It didn’t make sense for us to continue building OtherNum anymore. Instead I chose to pursue some sub-niches instead of primary PBX-like functionality and to work on plugins for VBX. ..... VBX is an open source web application that interacts with Twilio’s API to implement advanced telephony functions normally found in expensive equipment. It’s exactly the right solution for businesses with virtual offices, remote personnel and startups. ...... If the power goes it in your office your $10,000 PBX is going to go offline. ...... you’ll never have to shell out cash to add extensions or voicemail boxes...... pull it up in a browser and enter your Twilio credentials..... You want to have your PBX interact with your Twitter or FourSquare account or change its behavior based on time of day. You want your PBX to interact with Chirbit, MyCaption.com or BART. If you had a hardware PBX it would NEVER happen. ...... I wrote the plugins for Chirbit, FourSquare and MyCaption during that weekend in San Francisco. The FourSquare plugin caught the attention of a bunch of people including TechCrunch, GigaOM, Albert Wenger and Fred Wilson. My head was spinning all morning! ..... Mark Condon wrote a plugin that allowed you to define prompts in English and used Google APIs to translate your text into French, German and other languages and then speak it to the caller. ..... Jonathan Kressaty wrote multiple plugins, one of which allows you to change the behavior of your phone system depending on the time of the day. ..... I think it’s a great product in a really cool space and it’s going to push the virtual telephony world forward a few notches and in a hurry.
Jonathan Kressaty: A Warm And Long Anticipated Welcome To OpenVBX!
Ladies and gentlemen, the way you perceive a phone "system" is about to change..... OpenVBX, an unbelievably killer, deployable, web-based application that allows you to setup an unlimited number of phone call and SMS "flows", allowing individuals and businesses to have an easy to use, manageable virtual phone system. ...... "Like Google Voice has done for consumers, OpenVBX lets business users control when and how they are reached. It also provides a modern web user interface for managing voicemails, sending and receiving text messages and managing phone calls from the browser. Users can drag-and- drop custom business phone applications, such as automated attendants, menus, team dialing, and shared voicemail inboxes for their company phone numbers." ....... I was first introduced to OpenVBX in March, and even when it was in a still-pretty-rough state, it was one of the most impressive apps I've ever seen. You could do nearly anything with a phone call - setup menus, prompts, voicemail with transcriptions and email/text notifications to recipients, and what you couldn't do you could build with an extremely extensible applet and plugin architecture that requires minimal knowledge of PHP. ....... As of today, I have five applets/plugins available for OpenVBX that I've worked on in the last few months: a "scheduler" applet that lets you dictate a call or SMS flow based on the time of day, an applet called "curling" that will perform an HTTP GET request to any URL and say back the contents of the page to the caller, a "restart" applet that will send your flow back to the beginning, a "call log" plugin that shows all call activity for your entire Twilio account, and an "installer" plugin that lets you easily upload a zip file of a plugin so you can avoid using FTP in order to install new applets. ..... We've been using OpenVBX on and off at Ripstyles for a couple weeks now, and it's been amazing. Being able to have a multi-thousand dollar phone system for pennies per call makes perfect business sense, and it's honestly quite enjoyable to use.
Fred Wilson, October 2009: Business Model Jujutsu
The big moment in the history of TACODA (a company we invested in early this decade that was sold to AOL in 2007) was when they went from charging customers to paying customers.

SlideShare: Twilio Voice Applications with Amazon AWS S3 and EC2






What I want Google to deliver: ad-supported free phones.
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Monday, August 24, 2009

Something's Rotten, It's Not The Fish


The Truth: What’s Really Going On With Apple, Google, AT&T And The FCC TechCrunch how the Google Voice application hurts “the iPhone’s distinctive user experience.” ..... over the last few months Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features. The Google Voice App takes things one step further, by giving users an incentive to abandon their iPhone phone number and use their Google Voice phone number instead (transcription of voicemails is reason enough alone). Apple was afraid, say our sources, that Google was gaining too much power on the iPhone
This is a generational conflict. Apple and Google belong to two different generations of tech. This small iPhone app conflict is symbolic. The larger conflict between the two brands is to be seen in the smartphone arena where Apple sees the phone as a smaller desktop, and Google suggests there is nothing much to download, all apps should be web-based.

A happy ending would be if the costs for calls start sliding down dramatically. How do you do that? Serve ads like for search.

Weekend Reading
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Saturday, April 04, 2009

Five Years Of Gmail: What Would Gsus Do?



How time flies! Gmail is five years old already. That is ages in internet time. I was an immediate convert and an evangelist. It is more than extra space, it is different, I would rant and rave. There still are people around who have email but who are not on Gmail. I try not to judge. But I will have to admit, it's hard not to.

Begs the question, what will Gmail be like in five years? It is hard to predict. I will give the Steve Jobs answer. When asked what the iPhone will look like in five years, he said, I don't know. He said he could not have predicted five years earlier there would be maps on the iPhone, but you got maps. So it is not easy to predict what technological breakthroughs we will see over the next few years that will make new, exciting features possible.

But I do have a wish list.

(1) More Space

That was Gmail's first selling point. The least it could do is stay up with the hunger of the power users. Say if you offer 50 GB, and only 1% of your users use 10 GB or more, you still get to boast that you are offering 50 GB, right?

If the internet were to end up with a trillion websites, Google should not be complaining, right? More pages, more searches, more ads, more revenue. Gmail is the same way. More email inside that Gmail account, more ads you get to serve. So why complain?

I am especially thinking of my friend Sree here. I read his piece in Forbes earlier, and I am unhappy that Gmail has been bleeding his wallet.

(2) Two Inboxes

One for people I have emailed at least once, and one for the rest. I should not have to create a new, private email account just because I became famous, right? This arrangement would also add to Gmail's already great spam filter. I mean, if I have never emailed you before.

(3) My Gmail Should Be My Phone Number

One global phone number. I hope all the hype about Google Voice is true. There is talk Google Voice is to be integrated with Gmail. Swell.

(4) Video Mail



Video chat is great, but so is text chat. There is text chat, and there is text email. So there needs to be video mail.

(5) Social

Keep adding social elements to the service.

(6) Better Integration

I should be able to go from my Gmail account straight to my Google Reader account, and why not? Maybe there are a few other services to integrate.


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