While it is sponsored by Microsoft, there is at least some real numbers and investigation comparing RIM’s BlackBerry 4.0 and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 Messaging and Security Feature Pack mobile email solutions.
SmartphoneThoughts has the scoop, and you can download the full whitepaper here.
A post by Mathew Ingram and one by Mike Urlocker on the recent Vonage IPO really sum up my point on VoIP. Voice is truely free. No longer is it a money-making commodity. Voice service is like the free toaster you get when opening an account at a bank. You know, functional, easy to use, simple, free, and occasionally not worth what you paid for it.
Yes I know that you are really paying for it in some form, you still are paying for the bits traveling down your broadband connection. But if you use one of the VoIP services like Skype you can simply get rid of a $40/mo. bill by getting rid of your POTS line.
Of course many people simply give up on a home phone and go with one or more mobile phones, and I must say good for you on that decision. The traditional concept that Voice service is something of value is changing. While there are still millions of land lines, they are definitely on the downward slope.
The reality for any communications provider is that they need to understand what their real value to the market is. Its quite simple really – a big fat data pipe. Whether wired or wireless, the simple fact is that all communications services most consumers need are all IP based. Simply sell a data pipe of varying sizes, offer premium services that have SLAs attached to them – people will pay for a line that have some kind of guaranteed uptime. Increase the uplink speeds, and remove any limitations on consumer server hosting.
Hey, many of us have terabytes of personal data that we stream to ourselves as we travel around the world – make it easier for everyone to do this.
Yeah, I’ve gotten off-track again, but the point is that the market is radically shifted in the last several years and voice service is just one of many components to make up communications in the 21st century.
Update: Here is a nice post at TechDirt Wireless that talks about VoIP being more than cheap voice service. I couldn’t agree more, though I ranted mostly on the cost aspect – the real benefit is using voice service in new and interesting ways. Check out what Mike Masnick has to say on the topic.
Technorati tags: skype, voice-communications, voip, vonage-ipo
It seems that Performancing has been having some difficulty the past few days. The details are a bit fuzzy, though it seems that their systems are receiving data, but are unable to keep up on processing it.
On Saturday, May 27th, Nick Wilson mentioned that they were working on the issue:
Just to let you know that we’re aware of the reported metrics problem and are on the case Please give us a little time to work out whats going on and how to sort it and I’ll post back here when we have any news.
It looks like the problem started around mid-day on Saturday, and has continued on for the past four days. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to view your metrics while the system is having issues.
I’ve been using the metrics for a few months now and view them as very accurate and have been helpful to me in understanding my traffic patterns. The loss of Performancing right now is only slight – I am mostly using it for my own curiosity, though I’m anxious to view my traffic for the last few days.
Did anyone else get an email message from Skype this afternoon indicating that a number of calls were going to be free through the end of this year. If the call originates in the US/Canada and is directed to any US/Canada Landline, Wireless, or Skype number, that it is free.
Calls to friends and family on Skype have always been free. Now we’ve made calls within the US and Canada to all phones totally free till the end of the year.
Starting from today it doesn’t matter if it’s a Skype-to-Skype call or a call to landline or mobile phone – it’s free as long as you’re calling from within the US or Canada to US or Canadian phone number.
How can we do this? Well, we hope our customers will support us by using Skype to make international calls at incredibly cheap rates, or by buying stuff from our store – like Skype Voicemail, perhaps an accessory like headphones to make using Skype even easier, or even a cool ringtone to personalize your Skype.
Very cool!
Ok, here is a neat new service: BackupMyBlog
TechCrunch has the details on the new service that is currently in beta.  The BackupMyBlog service performs an automated backup of your blog once a day. The service will then email you a status report on the backup.
Great stuff, I’m trying it out on RickMahn.com to see how the service performs and evaluate the reporting features. Should be interesting, I’ve been looking for this type of service for awhile.
😢
“We are not enemies but friends.”
Live your life.
Completely.
Without fear.
Live it with Love, compassion, empathy, tolerance and joy.
Treat every person with the kindness, respect and dignity they deserve by the very virtue of being a human being.
Out riding this rainy, wet spring. Got 1,000 miles on the clock with more to come this season. #IMRG #IndianMotorcycle
Watching early seasons of #GoldRush. Fun seeing @GoldrushRick in season 3! Hope his new season is off to a good start!
Oh yes I did! https://www.instagram.com/p/BsRDO9ogSO0/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=1kha5yzhjq3ot
