Alec Saunders SquawkBox

I had a chance to look at some of the demo videos last night, and was going to spend more time on them this morning, except that the DEMO video server seems to be down.  Of the ones I saw:

Dash: Finally, a navigation system that makes sense for every day.  Dash adds local traffic, and a clever web interface, to the mapping functions that every other GPS provider on the market delivers.  I’ve resisted buying an in-car GPS because, frankly, I know my around the town I live in.  But Dash is different.  It actually provides value to people who already know where they’re going. Their demo was good, but probably lingered a little too long on the preliminaries.

Photobot: Automatically optimizes photos, and stores them for you.  I imagine a lot of people will be interested in this.  I’d want to see it optimize a few photos before I turned it loose on all my pics.  Nice demo.  Short, sweet, compelling message.  No major errors.

Plugged Inc: Search audio content by keyword.  They want to be the Google of podcasts. Cool demo.  Everyone will be able to use this.

Jajah Inc:  I’ve written about how much I like the product, but the demo stank.   Two talking heads discussing the product without showing it is a pitch, not a demo.  Sorry guys. 

MVox: Wow!  I think this was a great demo.  Sally got to the product quickly, showed her product well, including the impact of the array microphones, and managed to carry off the running Star-Trek gag very effectively throughout the entire performance without detracting from the message.  Perhaps a few too many props, but other than that a great showing.

Cascada Mobile: Cool concept, ineffective demo.  The demo team didn’t spend enough time on the product and its benefits.  Too much preliminary stuff about the market. DEMOgod status evaporated when President Neil Closner started to read from a press release in the middle of the demo.  Too bad.  It’s a cool idea, and one that mobile carriers would definitely find compelling.   

A couple of weeks ago, Bill Volk, Andy Abramson, and I spent the day at AOL with the AIM Phoneline team.  During that day, we, and the AIM Phoneline team, recorded a series of podcasts hosted by Andy.  For your listening pleasure, here they are:

• Ragui Kamel, Senior Vice President, AOL Voice Services
• Alex Quilici, Vice President, AOL Voice Services
• Sharon Kasimow, Director, AOL Voice Services Product Management
• William Volk, CEO, MyNuMo
• Alec Saunders, CEO, iotum

Don’t they sound great?

Russell Shaw’s Nine reasons why JAJAH Mobile Suite is no threat to cell OR VoIP completely misses the mark.  He writes that JAJAH is no threat to mobile because:

1. Most cell users are already in the midst of their service contracts, and aren’t going to stop using the alloted minutes they are paying for. Even if JAJAH’s on their mind.
2. Cell users on discounted minutes (who must pay comparatively lofty per-minute rates during peak hours) are not likely to be the same technology early adopters that will ditch it all for JAJAH.
3. Since non-early adopters tend to associate with other non-early adopters, they aren’t likely to know other JAJAH users they can actually use this service with.
4. Cell power users with pricey plans are, generally speaking, of a demographic that’s more friendly to innovation. Yet since they are already set with their calling plans, why would they want to change their way of calling?
5. Power users might tend to look down on these services as promotional-driven rather than function-driven.

The point of JAJAH for Mobile is that the savings occur transparently.  On the Nokia N70, which I have, when JAJAH kicks in the only way I know that the call is being dialled by JAJAH is that a JAJAH logo appears on the screen beside the number as it’s being dialled.  It’s a completely transparent experience!

1. I am contract free.  You’re darn right that I am going to change the North American roaming minutes I’m paying for to a more attractive plan. 
2. It doesn’t matter if the people I am calling are on JAJAH or not.  What matters is paying 2.5 cents per minute (plus 10 cents for airtime) on only long distance calls instead of 11 cents + airtime on ALL my calls.
3. As a cell power user with a pricey plan (my bill is over $500 per month) this matters a great deal to me.

The only thing holding me back at the moment is their (hopefully) soon to be announced Blackberry client.  I like what I see on the N70, and can hardly wait for it to be available for my primary handset.

JAJAH is pretty clearly not a threat to the cellular phone industry, but it’s definitely a threat to their lucrative long distance business.

UPDATE:  Luca Fillighedu has similar doubts to Russell Shaw’s.  I am wondering if the experience on a non-Nokia handset is so intrusive that it ruins the overall calling experience.  Hmmm…

I’ve been meaning, ever since VON, to convene a virtual gathering of the bloggers roundtable that we had.  There was, of course, considerable discussion of video blogging at the end of that round table, which prevented me from asking the one question I really wanted to ask the panelists:  How should the communications industry think about video? Brough Turner posted some preliminary thoughts a few weeks ago, but let’s try to dig a little deeper here.

This is obviously an important question.  Jeff added an entire segment to the conference to focus on video, in part because he sees the coming disruption in the same way that he saw the disruption of VoIP a decade ago, and in part because he believes that this is something that carriers should have in their sights.  It seems as if Jeff is really trying to steer VON to becoming a communications show, rather than just a voice show.  In fact, I asked Jeff about this, and he said:

What has happened is that VON has met the challenge and grown up and in fact based on the “who attended” reality of VON, we have become a non-so-mini version of what was Supercomm/Globalcomm. Our topics cover the heart of the issues facing the future of communications and we are reflection of the greater industry that we represent. VON is really no longer a VoIP show. But guess what? It never really was. We were always about IP Communications. And in 2006 this means that we follow the major trends and make guesses on where things are going to go. Yes we share vision of tomorrow in the content and we deliver products of today on the show floor.

There are obviously some very interesting things going on here.  Aside from the cool streaming video which Jeff showed during his keynote, there were many questions about the role of video. It’s clear that video calls aren’t a big use today, but new uses like ”show my friends what I am doing” are very compelling.  When coupled with social networks, these are particularly interesting businesses.  

Anyway, prompted by Tom Keating’s swipe at Jeff’s focus on video this morning, I was reminded that I hadn’t yet asked this question.  So, panelists — respond on your own blogs, or respond here — but I’d like to know what your thoughts are.  And bloggers of all walks, please feel free to join the discussion!

Tom Keating took a humorous swipe at VON this morning.  Well, at least, I am going to treat it as humor, and pre-suppose that he doesn’t want to create bad feelings between the two giants of the IP Communications tradeshow world today — TMC and Pulvermedia. 

Tom quoted Voxilla’s Chamberlain as saying that traffic was down.  He also quoted Garrett Smith with a similar view.  But you know, my team, on the AOL booth, was run off their feet for the whole show. We had a very different experience.

Getting value from tradeshows is a real art. 

1. Begin with solid, achievable objectives.  Is it PR? Lead generation?  Business?  Know in advance what you want to achieve, and how you’re going to achieve it. 
2. Make sure the audience that you need to achieve those objectives attends the show and knows that you are there.  A trade show is nothing more than an opportunity for face-to-face meetings.  Figure out what meetings you want, the objective of the meeting, and define a successful outcome.
3. Message your objectives clearly to your audience — on your booth, brochures, and in presentations.  How many booths have you walked by at a show where you haven’t got a clue what is being sold?
4. Pre-book as many meetings as you possibly can.  Get on the telephone, weeks in advance, and set the meetings.  The worst time to set the meetings is at the show. At that point, you’ve left your objectives up to chance.
5. Follow up religiously.

iotum went to VON to achieve three things:

1. Support our new partner AOL in recruiting developers at their boot.
2. Recruit Asterisk business for our company, and close some Asterisk deals that we had been working on.
3. Meet the press, and explain the momentum we have achieved recently. 

We did great.  We have more post-show follow up than we can possibly handle, and some great business deals which we will be able to announce shortly.  Tom’s post about VON complaints, when compared to our experience, really shows the gulf of experiences which are possible at a trade show. 

If you’re going to spend the money on a trade show exhibit, make sure you do everything you can to maximize your ROI.  Preparation is key.  The disappointed exhibitors are usually the ones who didn’t.