Alec Saunders SquawkBox

I had an opportunity last week to chat with Joe Heitzeberg and Lori Roth of Snapvine about the Snapvine API, which launched today. The Snapvine API, now freely available at www.snapvine.com/api, uses lightweight JavaScript that can be implemented in a minimal amount of time and gives website owners immediate benefits:

• Increased engagement by allowing users to add their voice to any photo or text element, through the mic on their computer or by dialing a telephone number from one of 15 supported countries.
• Viral distribution of content with a ’share’ button for users to easily post photos and voice content to MySpace, Facebook, or other web sites.
• Increased site traffic and enhanced SEO (search engine optimization) via a branded link on all shared content that takes users back to the originating website.
• Quick and easy client-side integration with media hosting and bandwidth provided by Snapvine.

And with the announcement of their API, Snapvine also announced a mittful of partners. After all, an API with no developers isn’t worth much.

Now I have to say that Snapvine’s product offering — the ability to be able to create recordings and add them to different web components — doesn’t do the company’s vision justice. Today, however, with the release of the API, we get an inkling of that vision. And here, in CEO Joe Heitzeberg’s own words, is more elaboration.

 

 Joe Heitzeberg [1:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

They’re a bunch of internet guys, who think that voice has a place in every application, and that the way to voice enable a social network is through the voice interface we already all have — the phone. Hallelujah!

Some described it as a ballsy move today, when Fring announced the availability of their client on iPhone.  The folks at Fring are doing this without Apple’s blessing, using the Jailbreak installer.  Are they thumbing their noses at Apple, or just trying to steal a march on the inevitable waves of similar applications that will follow?  Only the Fring team know for sure.

Fring lasted only a short time on my iPhone I’m afraid.  The thousands of contacts I maintain in my Skype, MSN, and GTalk buddy lists took too long to load.  Further, I couldn’t actually dial-out using Skype out.  The Fring team characterize this release as a pre-release, and I would have to concur.  After a few hours of play, I uninstalled it.   Nevertheless I was impressed at both the application itself, and the technical wizardry required make it operate in the background on the iPhone.  To my knowledge, no other application has that ability.  So I’ll try Fring again, after a future update.

If you have a lighter weight buddy list than I do, and a jailbroken iPhone, you may want to check out Fring.  It could be just the thing for someone needing inexpensive calling and a multi-headed IM solution on iPhone.

We discussed, we debated, and we argued the meaning and pulse of the mobile web.  And in the end, as Russell Beattie did, we concluded that the mobile web as it was conceived, is dead.    Moore’s law, the lack of common standards, and the indifference of North American carriers have all conspired to kill the mobile web dead.  There is no mobile web.  There is only the fact that the web is becoming mobile.

We also had a lengthy conversation about Apple’s iPhone SDK, developer programs, and whether or not a “Jailbroken” iphone developer might be penalized by Apple.  Fring was the example we talked about, as they have defied Apple and simply gone ahead and built an application for iPhone.

The Economist article on mobile nomads was sadly a casualty of time.  We ‘ll discuss it tomorrow instead.

 

 Squawk Box April 15 [39:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There are several interesting threads on mobile this morning that are worth drawing attention to.

The first is Mowser founder Russell Beattie’s declaration that the mobile web is dead. His thesis is that as browsers become more sophisticated, standard content will do. As an acolyte of Moore’s Law, I don’t necessarily disagree with Beattie. Why then the success of services like DoCoMo in Japan?

Next is the Economist on the impact of mobile communications in our lives. A wide ranging piece, it examines everything from relationships to urban planning. Hand in glove with this one was this fascinating study of the impact of the mobile phone on relationships amongst young palestinians. When young men give their paramours cellular phones in order to covertly converse outside the supervision of fathers and brothers, what happens next? Is it liberating, or a new kind of domestic bondage?

Join us at 11 AM on the Squawk Box where we discuss these topics and more…