Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Comcast has acquired Plaxo. In a deal worth $170 million dollars, Comcast is buying Plaxo in order to add social capabilities to their networks. We discussed the fit with Comcast, and concluded that it was a really smart buy. 

We also discussed Verizon’s endorsement of LiMo yesterday, and were lucky enough to have some very knowledgeable individuals on the show.  Frankly speaking, it would be hard to imagine, given what we learned, any developers making a commitment to LiMo.  As one individual stated “it’s a completely closed system that is a disgrace to the name Linux”.  The fees alone are massive:

• Founding Member $1.6M for 2 year commitment
• Core Member $400K/yr
• Associate Member $40K/yr
• No membership required to use the developer application level APIs, just acceptance of the License

Here’s the kicker: members that are not Founders or Core Members are required to agree to contribute patents to promote a patent freeze against the LiMO platform over proprietary software but don’t get access or rights to the software without subsequent license and cost. So unless you play big, you really are not playing.

Interestingly enough, the conclusion of the group was the Nokia is likely to win big here, given the immaturity of Android and the closed nature of LiMo.

On the call: Jeb Brilliant, James Swinger, Andy Abramson, Jeanette Fisher, Adam Somer, Greg Manto, Ian Hood, Bill Volk, James Body, Peter Childs, Tom Howe, Randall Howard, Todd Spraggins, and Greg McQuay

 

 Squawk Box May 15 [35:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around what it means to combine a spreadsheet with a wiki.  Yesterday, Google announced a new feature on Google Spreadsheets called “anyone can edit”.  Create a model, pop it up on the web, and let people start editing… even anonymously.

Crowd-sourcing complex formulae?  Fact checking numbers?

What am I missing?  What are the user scenarios for mass collaboration on a spreadsheet?

Oddball combinations are sometimes the most serendipitous.  Celebrity author, and editor of Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson will be speaking at the Ottawa Tulip Festival on the topic of the Long Tail.  Tickets are $75 for reserved seats or $50 for the general area.

I think I’ll go.  Perhaps I’ll bring my N95.

Congratulations are due to my pal, and VoIP industry maven, Andy Abramson.  He was just recognized by none other than The Industry Standard in their top 25 B-Z list — the bloggers outside the A-List circle that you should read.  To me this is a breakout moment for Andy.  This kind of recognition outside the VoIP circle says to the world that you should be reading Andy, period.  Opinionated, smart, sometimes crusty… get your daily dose of Andy at VoIP Watch.

It’s no secret that VON is in trouble, and maybe dead. Jeff Pulver has resigned from the board of Pulvermedia, the people we all knew and loved that were part of the organization aren’t there any more (check out my pal Carl Ford’s group What should Carl Ford do next on Facebook, for example), and the industry has been wondering what will become of the community.

I am flattered that several people have pointed to my daily SquawkBox podcast as one way to continue to hold the VON community together. That wasn’t my intent, but I am happy to see the podcast evolve in that direction. With the SquawkBox I was simply looking for an effective way to showcase the iotum Conference Calling service on Facebook, and turned to my first love — technology — as a topic base. I rather think that over the long term events like Telco 2.0 and eComm will start to take the place of VON. However, recently people have said things to me like “I think this is special”, “SquawkBox is to podcasting, what twitter is to blogging”, “So you’ve got your own Gillmor Gang!” and other nice things. I’m especially flattered to have the show compared to Steve Gillmor’s show. He’s a journalist, and I’m the CEO of start-up with a blogging hobby. Big difference, and I’m honored to be in such august company!

So:

1. If you’re interested in continuing to participate in a community of like-minded technology industry people, feel free to join the daily call. You can find out what the topics are for any day by joining the Alec Saunders SquawkBox group on Facebook, following my twitter feed, or subscribing to my Hictu feed using your blog reader. I broadcast the topics of the call there mostly daily using a short video clip created using Luca Fillighedu’s Hictu system. Sometimes I miss a day when things get really busy at iotum, but following on Twitter is usually a pretty good way to keep up with it.
2. We love having guests on the call. If you have a topic that you want to discuss, or if you have a product announcement that you’re making (hint to all those PR folk out there jonesing for coverage for their clients!), then send me email to schedule a time. NOTE: I will not take requests for guests on the day of your announcement. I honor embargoes, scrupulously. I simply want to have a chance to prepare for the interview so that I can do the best job for both the guest and the listeners.
3. We love having guest hosts on the show. It makes for better content because the interviewer has a different angle on the topic, and occasionally I really NEED a guest host, especially when I travel. If you’re interested in being a guest host or a co-host on the show, then please contact me. This is a great opportunity for people to dabble in podcasting who don’t want to make a full time commitment to it, by the way.

SquawkBox is distributed on iTunes, by the way. I was pleased to learn that in just 4 months we’ve gone to a full slate of grey bars for popularity. Don’t know what that means in absolute terms, but it can’t be bad, right? If you’re an iTunes user and would like to subscribe, click here.