Archive for: services
There has been a lot of talk about Skype and now Gizmo5 this week, so we thought we would let everyone know about 5 new VOIP service that are on the rise.
Truphone (www.truphone.com), London, became the first true Internet calling application in Apple’s App Store when the company introduced Truphone for the iPhone a year ago; it’s now available for the iPod touch, BlackBerry, Nokia and Android devices. Truphone enables free to low-cost mobile calling over available Wi-Fi or local wireless networks for owners of iPhones and other smartphones who travel out of their home service areas. It’s especially advantageous for international travelers who want to make inexpensive calls from their mobile phones wherever in the world they may be. Further, Truphone eliminates the uncertainty of expensive roaming charges altogether, so people who call using Truphone know what they’re paying and what they’re getting. And calls between Truphone users are always free. The company’s Truphone Local Anywhere service, coming later this year, aims to eliminate the high cost of calling other countries by making all calls “local.” Truphone Local Anywhere will become the mobile service of choice — delivering cost savings and convenience — for anyone who travels, or lives abroad and needs to stay in touch with family, friends and business colleagues, wherever they may live.
ShoZu (www.shozu.com), London, is an intelligent social media hub currently used by people worldwide to enrich connections with the people in their lives by effortlessly exchanging video, pictures and commentary between mobile devices and favorite social networks, photo sharing sites and information resources. The company’s patented technology provides fast, easy, one-click uploads of photos and video clips from the mobile to the Web, full-resolution photo and video delivery without compression, an emerging suite of services that push content to the phone, the ability to work in the background even if a connection is dropped, and other unique features that simplify and enhance the user experience. The company was founded in 2000 and has formed partnerships with some of the leading players in the mobile ecosystem, including Motorola and Samsung.
Boingo Wireless (www.boingo.com), Los Angeles, is the global market leader in Wi-Fi. Boingo makes it easy for consumers to enjoy Wi-Fi access on their laptops or mobile devices at more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide — including airports, hotels, cafes and metropolitan hot zones — with a single account. Through its Concourse Communications Group, LLC subsidiary, Boingo operates wired and wireless networks at 20 of the top 100 North American airports.
Hi Def Conferencing (www.hidefconferencing.com), Hoboken, N.J., from Citrix Online is a multi-party communication service that delivers crystal-clear quality and realism in audio get-togethers. The service uses advanced audio processing of up to 5 times the bandwidth of legacy telephone systems, making it easy to hear the subtleties of participants’ speech, accents and inflection – dramatically improving comprehension. Hi Def Conferencing also brings clarity to what users pay. As a predictable, fixed-fee service, it eliminates the billing surprises typically associated with other conferencing services. For a flat monthly fee, high quality conferencing is within the reach of everyone – encouraging ad hoc group collaboration with family members around the world. Participants access Hi Def Conferencing easily over traditional landlines, mobile carriers or broadband VoIP services, such as Skype.
iotum (www.calliflower.com), Ottawa, is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. iotum’s business is to design and provide a simple, supportive and intuitive environment to enrich business conversations. iotum’s products and services bring greater meaning and productivity to typically stale and static multiparty communications and meet the growing teleconferencing needs of a broad range of customers across many industries. Iotum’s flagship service, Calliflower, makes it easy for people to plan and participate in engaging and meaningful conference calls that bridge business and social networks.
“Oil is to the global economy what advertising is to the web ecosystem. Cut it off and the whole thing shuts down”
That quote came from a renowned scholar at my former university in England.
My name is Niyi and I’m the Founder of Trafficspaces (I’ll get to what Trafficspaces does in a second).
Focus on that quote. It is quite seems particularly poignant in the current economic environment. It seems like no matter what we do, our dependence on oil just seems unassailable, even to our own detriment. It seems to me like we have a love-hate relationship with the “black gold”. Without it, we can’t seem to power anything. In fact, without it, we’ll all probably lose our jobs!
Advertising is pretty similar. Many people dislike ads on websites (especially the annoying banner ads) but unfortunately, the truth is that without ads, most websites, blogs, will go out of business and mass-appeal tools like the Google search engine, Gmail, Facebook, and possibly even Twitter will be unsustainable. I shudder at every “Catch the Monkey” ad like everyone else so I’ve been particularly intrigued to discover if there is a middle ground somewhere – something that gives publishers more control over what appears on their site and doesn’t leave them short-changed by some dodgy, fly-by-night ad network.
My team and I have just created a new ad management platform called Trafficspaces. We’ve solved three common problems:
1. Losing potential advertisers
“If you build it, they’ll come”. So true, but if they come and they are ready to pay, and you are not ready, they’ll leave (and may not come back). Way too many potential advertisers are lost because publishers expect them to fill a form in order to advertise. Where is the automation?
Imagine if you had to call an airline over the phone in order to book a flight, and there was no Expedia, Orbitz, Ebookers etc. It will be a pain and the airlines will make less money.
The solution – provide your own self-service system to process payments, and help them get started
at their convenience. Facebook and Myspace have spent millions doing exactly this. Most publishers can’t afford to do and that’s were Trafficspaces steps in. You can get your own white-labelled self-service ad platform from $4.99 a month.
2. Earning way below potential
I once spoke to a very large newspaper firm who relied mostly on Google for ads on their website. They received a $5,000 check every month from Google and they weren’t impressed. It turns out that their site generates about 10 million impressions per month and understandably they felt short-changed. “I wonder how much Google got paid by the advertiser” ranted their Online Editor.
Recently, Michael Arrington of Techcrunch mused about dumping his long term partner Federated Media because his advertisers (who had to go to Federated Media’s site to place ads with Techcrunch) were spending a disproportionate proportion of their budget with other sites on FM’s network. Basically, if Techcrunch had its own self-service system, they’ll keep more of the advertiser’s budget.
The point there is that publishers need more control. The traffic that cannot be filled by your direct sales, or through your self-service system can be sent to Google or any other ad network. This is particularly important for those who get a lot of site-targeted ads. That is the best way to maximize your revenue.
3. Managing ad operations easily
This part is actually quite important because a lot of publishers I know don’t want to get bogged down with the intricacies of monitoring ad campaigns, optimizing the ads, and preparing reports. They don’t want the complexity that comes with OpenX. They just want to approve the ads with one-click and forget about it. “Keep it Short and Simple” as a close friend said to me. If you are one of those publishers, then Trafficspaces is for you.
Conclusion
Our goal was to give publishers more control. More control over what appears on their sites, and more control of their revenue. But most importantly, it had to be done through a system that was easy to use. The response so far has been great.
If you want to try Trafficspaces out, visit www.trafficspaces.com
There are so many url shortening websites on the web these days and more and more are popping up every day. Today I was using stumbleupon when I was bored for a couple of minutes and came across a bit of a different take on url shortening. JumboURL is the complete opposite to url shortening, its a url extending service.
JumboURL claims to be the second website of its kind on the net and I’m surprised it wasn’t the first. I’m not entirely too sure what the point is of this service. Why would you be looking to extend you url? Anyways, its an interesting service and decent site to check out.
Im spending a lot of time in the office recently and I’m one of those people who cant work without music playing really loud in the background. I’m sure its not just me who thinks better when music is playing loud, so I thought I would put together a quick list of the top 10 free music streaming service that are currently available. Some of these services can only be used in specific countries, but I’m sure this will change in 2009.
Pandora – Pandora is now just a USA based service. However, Pandora is a great service for those in the USA and im surprised if most people in the USA don’t already use it. Pandora is basically a music radio service which lets you listen to customised radio stations.
Last.fm – I have never really understood Last.fm myself, but they have a great service in which will let you stream music from certain artists. Some have full tracks for free to stream, but others have videos or some nothing at all.
Seeqpod – Seeqpod is basically Google for music. Seepqod is a search engine that allows users to find whatever music they want to listen too. Seeqpod can only find music that can easily be downloaded on the net, so it can be limited with some artists, plus sometimes the tracks might be corrupted and not completely work. However, it is great for making playlists.
Spotify – Spotify is a new music service that has launched out of Sweden. I have been using Spotify for several months now, even though it is in private beta testing. Though the music is streamed, it is played instantly and is partly supported by the famous P2P technology. Currently the service is only available in Finland, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden and UK. Spotify has to be the best music streaming service I have used in 2008.
Myspace Music – Myspace is of course the worlds largest social network and Myspace Music is just an add-on of this social network. With Myspace Music users can search for pretty much any artist in the world and stream the music they have on their profiles. Remember it is limited to only the music the artist wants you to hear.
Rhapsody – Rhapsody has a nice “listen FREE” search option at the top of its homepage, an excellent way to entice people to sign up for its premium service. Once you find the artist you are looking for then you can play any of the songs in their catalogue for free. However, then I realised streaming is only for the USA.
Imeem – Imeem is a mixture between music streaming service and social network. On Imeem to stream music all you need to do is to search for the artist you want to listen to and then the majority of the time they will already have an Imeem account.
Deezer - Deezer is a mixture between Seeqpod and Imeem. Deezer has some social networking aspects but mainly it is just a great music streaming service that is very easy to find the music you are looking for. All music on there is legal and free and artists actually get royalties from your streams.
Skreemr - Skreemr is very similar to Seepqod and it is just basically a search engine for music online. Skreemr is a free service that picks up free music from across the internet and allows you to play it easily. However, unlike Seeqpod they don’t allow users to make playlists.
Lala – Lala is one of the new music streaming services on the block. Lala provides free streaming to only USA users. There is a limit on how many times you can listen to a track for free, but you also have the option of purchasing that stream for $0.10 so then you have can unlimited plays. Additionally, if you want to take the tracks off the site then there is an option of $0.79 for the download.
You can preview First Page and Second Page before downloading.
The two pages of Google Cheat Sheets cover info on: A list of all Google domains, PageRank, Google Form Elements, Google Services, Query structure to access directory listings and many more.
