Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Andy Abramson published a piece over the weekend offering some suggestions for FWD's new Facebook voicemail application.  His comments are dead-on for all VoIP applications today, suggesting that integration with the customers existing services is critical to success, and I am sure that the FWD team must be already planning to do some of these.  I was particularly pleased at the way that he highlighted the iotum FREE Conference Call application on Facebook as an example for others.  We built it to work with any phone, to notify people of calls using a common and widely deployed technology (SMS), and to be a tightly integrated part of a popular portal.

One of our goals in building FREE Conference Call was to provide a great Facebook experience.  Conference calling is one of those services that, increasingly, people are expecting to have as an integrated part of other services which they already use.  We didn't want to download a Java client, or do something else that felt like a bolt-on to Facebook.  We thought it was super important that the experience be as natural an experience as possible, within the Facebook metaphor.  And it turns out that there are lots of Facebook experiences that we can exploit, so expect to see more Facebook integration in an upcoming release.

And, speaking of integration, one of the most requested features after we launched was for better calendar integration.  On Friday, the dev team snuck a button labelled Export onto the call page.  After you RSVP you can press that button, and an iCal calendar entry will be mailed to your email address.  Invitees that aren't Facebook users receive the iCal request by email.

Is Vonage's day finally done?  It certainly seems that it might be the case. 

Over the weekend a good friend phoned me about his home office.  He does three or four hours of business calling per day, and wants to start doing more of it from home. He wanted to know what the best choice for phone service for him might be. "What about Vonage?  Skype?  How's the Quality?"

I suggested he try Skype and something pretty radical…  "How about just going with the phone company?", I suggested.  Bell Canada has a $25 / month add-on which gives unlimited North American calling.  Add that to Bell's $35 / month and for $60/month you have the same services that Vonage supplies.

Now, I can just hear you all clamouring "Vonage is $20 cheaper!".  True.  My experience with Vonage on DSL, which is what my friend is using for broadband, isn't one that I'd recommend for business calls.

So he's going to try SkypeOut to see if he can live with the quality and likely he will also get that second Bell line.

Bell has demonstrated that they can match the pricing of VoIP services like Vonage, and they can do it on high quality PSTN circuits.  So where does that leave VoIP?  What about Vonage? Well, it's time to evolve.  Applications and other value added services have to become the new money makers.  We've been talking about these services for years, but it seems as if 2007 is the year they must become reality. 

And here's some historical perspective.

• I penned a little ditty called the Voice 2.0 Manifesto a couple of years back suggesting some directions. 
• The spiritual godfather of the VoIP industry, Jeff Pulver, has been writing about Purple Minutes since at least 2000.
• Andy Abramson has been theming his talks Me Too, Me Also, Me Different for some time as well. 
• And the grand man of disruptive voice services, Martin Geddes, explains why he has gone cold on VoIP. 

Last week's Internet Telephony show saw a number of announcements including this fun one from video ringtone sharing site Vringo.  The company announced a deal with Meez allowing Vringo users to use one of the many popular Meez avatars as their video ringtone, rather than just video.  As usual, there's no charge. 

For Vringo users wanting a more customized experience, or just a fun and different character, this could be a big hit.