Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Third time's the charm, they say.  After reading Joanna Stern's recent review of EQO, I decided to try it again.  This is the third version of EQO I've tried since first meeting Bill Tam and his team at DEMO 2006, and it's pretty good.  Gone are the problems with dropped data connections. It synchs well with MSN and Google Talk,  although nearly 4000 contacts in my BlackBerry address broke the contact importer.  It's also an acceptable multi-headed IM client for BlackBerry, which I could easily see using a fair bit. 

Thursday my BlackBerry started playing an odd ringtone, which I didn't recognize at first.  It was Bill calling me using EQO.  Voice quality was good, although there was a slight echo (audible to me only) whenever I spoke.  Unlike schemes which transfer the voice over a data connection, EQO is using the PSTN.  When you make a call using EQO, it finds a local dialing number, connects you to it, and then transfers the coal to EQO's VoIP network, where it's delivered at the other end.  Business model wise, EQO is disintermediating the long distance carrier, just as a calling card would, or a VoIP service like Skype or Jajah. 

Net net: I had a few hiccups getting it rolling, but all in all it wasn't a bad experience. If you have one of the supported handsets, you may want to check it out. 

Big splash made by Facebook yesterday.  Perhaps bigger than anyone imagined.  Zuckerberg's vision of Facebook as a social networking utility is real.  It's especially impressive how well it has been executed. They are playing to:

• remove the need for developers to build individual social networking structures.  Want to build a new social network about sharing movies?  Start with your facebook friends and groups, and add a movie ranking system.  Seems as Flixster might already understand this, as they've jumped aboard with their social network now presented as a Facebook widget.
• make it possible for social network users to consolidate their networks into a single infrastructure moving forward.  I don't need to participate in those other networks if Facebook is the networking platform.
• build a compelling distribution channel for social applications.  Add a new applet to your Facebook profile, and everyone in your network gets notified.

Wow!

Mashable has a list of 30 of the new Facebook apps, and more are coming.  Go browse my profile if you want to see the Splashcast widget in use as well.  I created a quickie slideshow of some recent photos in about 5 minutes, just to test it out.  It's down on the right side.

If you believe that Facebook is right, and that social networking is now a utility for other applications, then:

• What do you do if you're a VoIP player, like Skype, that runs a closed social network?  Fight them or join them?  Smaller players like YackPack are already jumping on the Facebook bandwagon with their WalkieTalkie. 
• What do you do if you're a portal player, with an ambition to own your customers' identity? Facebook's move has the potential to niche Google pretty solidly in search. 
• How about a traditional social networking application like Plaxo or Linkedin (two of my mainstays!)?  I added a little widget called The Online Phonebook today, which keeps phonebooks in synch.  And how much effort would it be to build a recruiting application on top of Facebook, especially since the target market is … college students.

Food for thought. 

Doesn't it feel like wireless data is just about to happen?  The vision that everyone has been speaking about for at least the last five years just feels palpably present.  Over the last few weeks we've seen a bunch of VoIP startups from a year ago launch retooled versions of their products, which are now even better on wireless — Jangl, EQO, Mobivox to name three.  This morning's NY Times carried an article about how CitiBank and Bank of America have launched online banking… via your cellular phone!  Heck, even Mobio got in the act with their announcement last week that they've included a widget in their platform to help you find cheap gas.

But you know, it's still too hard. Some of the hurdles we developers of mobile applications face include:

• Browser support is awful.  If you thought it was hard to write decent web apps that take into account the differences between Microsoft, Mozilla and others implementations of the standards, wait until you try writing for a mobile device.  Your problem just got ten times worse.  Some of those browsers (like the latest from Nokia) are pretty good, but heaven help you if your customers try to use your browser apps on… a BlackBerry.
• It's slow and expensive.  Yup.  You're constantly asking yourself "how much bandwidth will this consume?", and designing around the fact that pages just don't load that fast.  Worse yet, users pay by the kilobyte at prices that would make any self respecting ISP blush.  Next generation technologies promise to deal with the speed issues. Some are also talking about flat rate plans to deal with the pricing issue, but don't hold your breath.  Flat rate plans are only going to come about as a result of significant market pressure or regulatory action.
• Platforms are fragmented.  In the PC world, you can target Windows, Linux, or the Mac.  In the world of the mobile, the problem is much more difficult.  Sure there are Symbian, Microsoft and BlackBerry operating systems, plus a few others.  And sure, J2ME was supposed to provide a cross platform solution, but it's really nothing a thin veneer that still requires you to target the device directly.  The real issue is the near complete lack of an upgrade path from one version of the platform to the next, and the differing APIs supported on each platform version.  A real world example: RIM recently released, amid much hoopla, APIs for BlackBerry Messenger, which has been around for nearly two years now.  These are APIs that we should use in a heartbeat at iotum.  But because they are only supported on the very latest BlackBerry OS 4.2, which a minority of BlackBerry users have today, we've chosen not to.

We've still got a long way to go, but it's looking better all the time.  And certainly, judging by the number of entrants into the mobile applications field, a lot of others are seeing that opportunity too.

The NY Times David Pogue reviews GMail for Mobile, Yahoo Go 2.0, and Teleflip this morning.  The premise?  Anyone can have the email capabilities of BlackBerry on their existing handset. Of course, he also points out that Gmail Mobile doesn't refresh the messages until you open it, Yahoo Go 2.0 is big and slow, and Teleflip delivers your email in 120 character SMS packets.

My advice David?  Get a BlackBerry.

Jangl rolled out a pretty intriguing new service today.  The pitch?  They claim to have assigned a phone number to every email address on the internet.  Go to Jangl's home page, and enter the email address of someone you know, and it connects you… on the phone of your choice.  Publish your unique jangl URL (mine is http://callme.jangl.com/alecs@exmsft.com), and anyone will be able to call you… all without you revealing your true phone number. You can even embed the whole thing in a graphical widget if you like…. as below.  

So am I excited?  Well, it works based on not just who you are, but also who the people are trying to reach you.  It's a New Presence application… discerning your communications intents based on the identity of the person trying to reach you and your preferences.  The really cool thing? It's not a new identity scheme… it's just leveraging the identity you already have in your email address.

Jangl announced masses of other new features today too, but by far the most interesting was the marriage of email address and phone number.