Thursday, February 7, 2008

VoIP Inc shutters network, takes $24m hit

by alec on February 7, 2008

VoIP Inc is taking a $24 million hit, and laying off staff as it regroups by closing down it's network and call termination business to focus on it's patented click-to-call advertising system.  It was inevitable, as small companies that built termination networks in the early heady days of VoIP failed to evolve fast enough to stay out of the way of larger businesses like Level3 and XO.  VoIP Inc is one of the smart ones that was able to developed a protectable value added business.

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Pay-Per-Play Audio Ads

by alec on February 7, 2008

I'm trying a new product from NetAudioAds called Pay-Per-Play.  The premise is pretty simple.  Sometimes when you visit this site you'll hear a 5 second audio clip as part of the experience.  It seems as if it might be less obtrusive than the text ads.

Let me know what you think.  

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Squawk Box February 7 – Google Apps, iSkoot + Cisco, and Nokia bid for Yahoo?

February 7, 2008

Google Apps Team edition launched today.  Google Apps Team Edition is a free service that lets people within the same e-mail domain collaborate easily with Google Apps, a package that includes Docs, Calendar, Talk, and Start Page.    Does anyone believe Google's protests that they're not really competing with Microsoft anymore?  We discussed and concluded… This [...]

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Dealipedia: Michael Robertson’s latest

February 7, 2008

Bad boy Michael Robertson is mixing it up again, this time with Dealipedia.  Dealipedia is a Wiki of deal terms, showing who made what, when the deals happened, and so on.  Formerly the province of expensive services like Dow Jones, Robertson wants to make this information free, using the same model as Wikipedia – user [...]

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mig33 targets the US with Blackberry

February 7, 2008

Most of mig33's 10 million users are from outside North America.  With their roots in south-east Asia, and their focus on mobile devices, mig33's subscriber base has come from youth in countries where the primary way to access the internet has been via mobile phone.  Today they rolled out their first products that are specifically [...]

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Voicemail that doesn’t suck

February 7, 2008

Ever wonder why voicemail systems seem to universally use the 7 key to skip to the next message?   I'll give you a clue… the 7 key also includes the letters PWRS underneath it.  Yes, "S" is for "skip".  That was pointed out to me in 1985 when yours truly was a student programmer working on [...]

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Obama loses silicon valley

February 7, 2008

Hot on the heels of our Super Tuesday aftermath SquawkBox session with Jesse Hirsh yesterday comes CNET's Declan McCullagh with Obama loses Silicon Valley to Clinton: Is anyone suprised?. The point that McCullagh makes is that online popularity doesn't necessarily translate to the ballot box — a point Jesse made yesterday when he said: Ron [...]

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