Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Interested in setting up an asterisk server? This 47 minute video tutorial with John Todd is excellent. Particularly interesting for me, as I’ve been struggling with a generic x100 FXO card, was the way that the Sipura 3000 can be used for both FXS and FXO.

Hat-tip to Febeke Okafor!

PhoneGnome founder David Beckemeyer has posted some interesting statistics about PhoneGnome users on his blog.  He breaks out calls terminated on the PSTN, an ITSP, other PhoneGnome users, and free peering to other interoperable VoIP systems.  The interesting numbers?

• 16% of PhoneGnome calls terminate on another PhoneGnome, which means that the marketing programs he has used to encourage people to purchase a second PhoneGnome for family and friends are working.
• Just 39% of calls are placed via the PSTN.  That’s a pretty dramatic impact.

The promise of Coghead, which Om Malik wrote about yesterday, is that it will broaden the base of people who can create applications for the web. Coghead, which is not yet in a public beta, combines forms development, database, and business logic, to allow the creation of line of business applications. 

Their claim is that users won’t have to write any code, nor download any software, to make this work.  It makes for good marketing.  My bet, however, is that enterprise will tell them they want the Coghead server installed on premise, and that only the simplest applications will be possible without resorting to any code.

If history is any indication, however, this will be well accepted.  The previous generation of desktop developers segmented into skilled c/c++ programmers, line of business programmers (the VB / Paradox / Access gang), and macro programmers.  The actual universe of skilled hardcore types in that world was (and still is) tiny.  The vast majority of developers in the previous generation were using tools like VB and application based macros.  Coghead is betting that this generation of web developers will segment in the same way.  It’s a good bet. 

Thursday’s Daily Media News revealed that ABC has been in talks to disable the ad-skip features of DVRs.  Like the other big dinosaurs of the entertainment industry (the RIAA and the MPAA), ABC apparently thinks that by haulting the progress of technology, they have a fighting chance to preserve their industry. 

Like VoIP, the DVR is a classic example of an industry-disrupting technology built on the premise that intelligence should move to the edge of the network.  By putting computing and storage at the end of the broadcast transmission, DVRs give consumers the ability to catalog, time-shift, and store their favorite programming.  As anyone who has ever used a DVR will testify, it completely changes the experience of television.  The better DVR’s, like TIVO and REPLAY, can even search out programming you might like based on previously stated preferences, and observed viewing habits.

Rather than fight progress, as ABC’s resident dinosaur Mike Smith seems to be suggesting, ABC could work with DVR manufacturers to introduce better advertising. For example:

1. DVRs know viewing habits, which advertising is skipped and which is watched.  Why not tailor future advertising to the viewers habits?  There is an opportunity for an contextually driven advertising play, like Google Adsense, here.  You could pre-load the DVR (most of which are now internet connected) with 30 second video spots tailored to the viewers habits, and play advertising which is more likely to be watched.
2. By using ad skip features, DVR users have said that their time is valuable.  The data to determine what’s on the television already exists in the close captioning stream, and the program guide. DVRs could disassemble programming, and reassemble it based on content.  For instance, how about a personal program of the latest hockey highlights of my favorite teams?   What would targeted advertising in that personalized stream be worth?

By working with DVR manufacturers to develop a Google-like advertising model, the networks might be able to preserve or increase their revenues.  Fighting the DVR by jamming more badly targeted and unwanted advertising to the consumer will simply drive more people to the internet to satisfy their entertainment needs.