Disruptive Telephony

Forget email, post your support questions to a group chat! Continuing my experimentation with Skype 3.0, I have to say that the persistent group chats are an intriguing aspect of the product.  Back when the 3.0 beta was announced last fall, I joined the "Skype English Blog Chat" and the interesting fact is... I'm still in there a couple of months later.   Now, the reason that I am still in there is because I never went to the top of the chat window (pictured on the right - click for a larger view) and clicked the "Leave" button.  Because I haven't pressed "Leave", I will stay in this group chat indefinitely (or until a Host kicks me out, as Jaanus has indicated he is now doing to inactive members).  This group chat membership survives through shutting down Skype, power cycling your computer, etc.  In fact, it becomes part of your Skype configuration, so even if you login to Skype on a different PC, the group chat is available to you. 

Two other interesting aspects.  First, when you return to the group chat, the history of the chat is available to you. So you might be gone from it for several days, but when you return you can browse through the history to catch up on what occurred.  When you request the history, it gives it to you in batches, i.e. you see the first X amount of time and then you can get more of the history. 

Second, if you don't want to receive an alert every time a message is posted, you can type "/alertson <text>" as in "/alertson dan" and you'll only get an alert when that text is typed in a message.

So what does this have to do with product support?  Well, the folks at Skype have been using this particular group chat as a vehicle for people to communicate issues with first the Skype 3.0 beta and now the released Skype 3.0.  Several of their developers and/or support people lurk in the forum and answer people's questions.  It's been interesting because I've learned a good bit about Skype simply by reading the Q&A that go by.  If you read the image in this post, you'll see that I posted there about an issue where Skype was advertising it's Unlimited Calling for $14.95 but when you went to buy it, they were going to charge you the full price of $29.95. I sent an email in to Skype support and was told I would get a response in 72 hours. I also posted to the group chat and received an answer back there about 12 hours later (I still haven't received an email back As I hit Publish I flipped to check my email and there was a response).

Now obviously Skype can't use this for all their product support.  It's not scalable and besides the group chat feature only supports 100 users.  But it's an interesting use for the tool.  It also has to be interesting for the Skype developers and product managers to see how people are actually using their product.  FYI, if you have Skype 3.0, you can join the chat still.

(And yes, using a group chat for technical support is hardly unique or new... people have been doing that IRC, Jabber and more for years... yes, I know that.  But it's interesting to me to see Skype now offer that.)

Checking out SkypeJournal before starting work this morning, I noticed their post "SecondTalk: Skype in a Virtual World" about a new tool to allow people to "easily" use Skype in SecondLife.  Intrigued, I read the blog announcement, press release (back on Jan 16th) and FAQ and decided to try it out.  I'll suppress the standard rant about SecondLife technical issues and say that when I was finally able to get in to SL and to the right place, I was able to obtain a "headset" that I could "wear" to theoretically communicate with others via Skype.

Now I will say that the process of obtaining and configuring the headset was not exactly intuitive.  I had to:

1. Touch the appropriate sign to be given a headset and then accept it into my inventory.
2. Drag it from my inventory to the ground near me.
3. Right-click on the headset on the ground (which I initially couldn't find) and edit the properties to put my Skype ID in the "Description" field.
4. Click on the headset again and "Take" it back into my Inventory.
5. Click on the headset in my Inventory and "Wear" it.
6. Turn it "on" by typing "/1 on" in the Chat bar (which meant opening the Chat bar up)

 After all of that, I wound up with this headset on my virtual ear and received a message from a "scan" that there was someone else in my vicinity who was able to talk (i.e. was also wearing a SecondTalk headset) and asking if I wanted to talk.  (I didn't right then.) My understanding is that as long as I have the thing "on", I will will receive these type of messages and be able to talk to others.  (It is apparently connecting out to some external server run by Centric that is connecting SecondTalk-wearing users. In the spirit of experimentation I'll try hard not to get hung up on the security ramifications of that.)

You can see the headset on my avatar in the pic to the right (click to enlarge - taken when I later returned to sit in the Crayon diner).  Now, given that I didn't really have time to spend in SL and there didn't seem to be any other SecondTalk-equipped folks around when I was there, I never actually got to try it out.  But I did see this one incredibly fundamental problem with the whole setup:

IF MY CPU IS ALREADY JACKED TO 100% BY THE SECOND LIFE CLIENT, how in the world is Skype or any other VoIP application going to be able to work with any kind of quality?

Just to test my real-world headset, I tried making a Skype call while SL was running, just using regular Skype and not the SecondTalk thing... and couldn't get Skype to work because, as I mentioned, SL was jacking my CPU to 100%.  Now, maybe it is just my PC and its CPU, memory, video card, etc., but everytime I run SL my CPU goes to 100%.  Actually, this is true on my other PC as well.  Now I understand why... there's a lot of rendering going on within SL.  But to me it does beg the question of whether or not something like this could actually work.  It's an interesting idea because SL definitely could use voice communication... but at least on my systems I'm skeptical of how it could work.

I don't know... I'll have to try it out again sometime when I have some time to do so.  Anyone else try it out?

In the "P.S." to my recent post about the iPhone, I mentioned that Cingular doesn't provide service to Vermont, and so I'll not have the opportunity to try out an iPhone anytime soon.  In fact, it turns out that Cingular/AT&T won't be available here at least through 2009.  On the front page of yesterday's Burlington Free Press there was an article aptly titled "In Vermont, Apple's iPhone is The i(can't)Phone".  As Ken has ranted, this is what comes of having the product locked into an exclusive agreement with a single provider.

It also turns out that Vermont is of course not alone.  Pretty much any state with rural areas is out of luck:

That means the iPhone will be unavailable in, among other locations, all or large portions of Alaska, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, upstate New York, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

As you'll note, the article goes on to point the irony of the January 9th announcement by Steve Jobs when Vermont Governor Douglas had just stated in his inaugural address on January 4th that his administration will be committed to making Vermont the first "e-state".  As you'll further note, the Governor was holding up a Blackberry.

And yes, if I were so-inclined, I could probably do what the owner of the local Apple reseller said he is going to do, which is drive down to Lebanon, N.H. to get one (about an hour away for him)... but I'm not that interested.  :-)

This isn't about VoIP, per se, but I continue to be fascinated by the ongoing battle between Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to be the set of tools through which you work with the Internet.  One of the latest salvos to catch my eye was the announcement that Google's software will be pre-installed on some Samsung handset models.  So now you'll get essentially Google's Desktop product on your mobile phone.  I wouldn't be surprised to see similar announcements from Yahoo and Microsoft.  As a consumer and user of those various services, it's rather interesting to watch the ongoing skirmishes... kind of like watching giant kids in a playground... all circling each other and fighting, while we sit on the side and observe.

We certainly do live in interesting times.

I love it when I see the collision of a variety of my interests.  Here O'Reilly combines VoIP, open source and social media (a wiki in this case) all in one effort: Bruce Stewart is looking for people to "Help Create the Asterisk Cookbook".  Here's his request:

We’re looking for two kinds of contributions. First, we’re looking for problems you’d like to see solved in the book. If you need to make Asterisk do something and just can’t figure out how, let us know. We’ll try to solve the problem for you. Second, we’re looking for more advanced Asterisk users to contribute solutions to problems that they’ve faced.

And Bruce has a wiki set up for people to use to contribute.  This is interesting on a couple of different levels.  First, it's a major publisher going out to a community to directly involve them in writing a book. Second, they are using a wiki for all the collaboration. (And yes, other authors have reached out to communities and have used wikis for public collaboration, so this isn't necessarily a new idea.)  And third, the topic being Asterisk, I'm sure they'll wind up getting recipes from a ton of people who have scratched their various itches and solved peculiar problems using Asterisk.  In fact, it will probably could have been titled "The Itch-Scratcher's Guide to VoIP."

I'll be intrigued to see the result, not only of how the collaborative process works for O'Reilly, but also for the actual book.  The fascinating and fun part about Asterisk is that because the code is wide open for anyone to tweak to their heart's content, people can scratch itches and solve problems that are so particular to them that no commercial vendor in their right mind would ever spend the time or resources to address the issue. There's just no real market for it beyond that one company/organization. But that entity can turn to Asterisk and either program it themselves or pay someone to develop the feature or fix for them.  If they make their code public, it might just turn out that there are some others out there who might have the same or a similar itch.  And the itch-scratching continues...

So it will be fun to see what recipes emerge.

As everyone has been hyping the iPhone, it was entertaining to see that Ken Camp is decidedly not a fan: "iPhone? iThinkNot" After providing links to a number of the VoIP bloggers who wrote about the iPhone, Ken starts tearing apart what he's seen and read.  Here's a taste of the full post:

It will be mediocre at anything, at best. In my words, it will be crap.

The touch screen will be a disaster. The closed interface assures that it's another all your tunes calls stones Apples are belong to us. Apple is the worst offender and not understanding open standards and extensibility on the planet. Worse that Microsoft.

The iPhone is just an iPod. With a jazzier, and doubtless a less functional interface. And yep, it might make phone calls every now and then too. If you're on the right carrier in the coverage area. We'll lock you in to Apple and Cingular proprietariness all with one key.

Limited features, locked in to a single carrier, not open to third  party software. And using the argument that third party software might take the telephone network down? Gimme a break.

So how do you really feel, Ken?  ;-)

With the torrent of media hype about Apple's new iPhone, one of the things that has surprised me is the lack of discussion about one of the aspects of the device that I find truly disruptive... it will be running a full version of MacOS X.  Now, granted, with 15 million blogs and countless web sites commenting on the iPhone in the past few days, I'm sure I've missed some where people have discussed this aspect, but to me it's a key element.

Consider this... if you have the full capabilities of MacOS X (which we don't yet know for certain but all of the Apple info seems to indicate it will have full MacOS X) - and you also have WiFi support and/or Cingular EDGE support - why not simply run the Mac version of Skype or Gizmo?   Or Yahoo Messenger or AIM? Or anyone else's softphone that runs on MacOS X?

The phone then becomes an extension of your contact/buddy list and can provide that kind of connectivity wherever you can get a WiFi or EDGE connection.  That to me is one of the fascinating aspects of the whole play.  The phone as an application platform - with a "standard" commercial operating system.

I suppose I should note that first out "announcing their support" for the iPhone was the folks over at Jajah (from where I got the picture), but unless I'm missing something there's not a whole lot for them to do.   You go to a web page, enter in the number you want to call and Jajah calls you!  With that in mind, it could be said that any web-based "click-to-call" service will be "compatible with the iPhone".  I mean... you'll be able to start using Google's click-to-call right away as well.  Now, perhaps there is more to Jajah's "support" than just seizing the moment to ride the coattails of the iPhone announcement (they do, after all have a Jajah Mobile version of some type - I'd try it, but it won't work on my Blackberry from what I can see), but in any event it's a sign of the type of services that I can see being enabled as the iPhone rolls out.

Regardless, the iPhone will definitely be interesting as it allows Mac-based VoIP to be extended out to wherever the phone can have data coverage, be it WiFi or EDGE.

P.S. I'd definitely take one to try it out... oh, wait... that's right... Cingular doesn't offer service (or at least numbers) in Vermont!  I'll just have to live vicariously through others (or suck it up and get a number elsewhere and constantly be explaining to people in VT why I have a phone with a NY area code).

After seeing this post at Engadget, I, too, have to truly wonder whether this is for real or some sort of very elaborate hoax.  The Nikko Home Electronics website has more info...  well... actually it has a big Flash object that obviously took some time to create. 

It appears there are two models: 1) The "C.S." or "Communication System" and 2) the "M.E.S." or "Mobile Entertainment System".  Gizmodo has a video of the MES from the floor of CES this week out in Las Vegas, proving that there is at least one working model of that system.

I have to say that the light saber as a phone is certainly amusing and destined to warm the heart of any Star Wars fan.

I don't know if it is actually for real, but hey, it would be amusing if it really is.  (And if Nikko wants to send one my way for review, my shipping address is....  ;-)

You would think that Apple, being as big as they are, would certainly have taken care of the right to use the name "iPhone" before they launched, wouldn't you?  The fact that Apple went ahead and launched anyway really astounds me in light of Cisco's ownership of the trademark.  Instead there is first news of ongoing negotiations and then today's news of a Cisco suit against Apple.  It boggles the mind a bit... I mean, obviously Apple had a very hard deadline of MacWorld, and I could imagine someone at Cisco playing hardball knowing that Apple had to sign before MacWorld and holding out for the best deal. 

But now what?  I mean, now that the product is announced and everyone is all excited about it, what kind of bargaining position is Apple in?  You could easily see someone at Cisco now saying "Well, since the product is going to be so popular, let's add a few more zeros to that licensing agreement price."    Is Apple perhaps counting on public opinion to paint Cisco in a bad light enough that Cisco will relent?  Hard to see that happening, especially given Cisco's own "product launch" of the iPhone name a few weeks ago.  Is Apple thinking that they can always fall back on calling it "applephone" or something like that if Cisco won't give way?

Very strange indeed... it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

UPDATE: CANOE Money has an article up with more detailed information.

As the IM protocol wars continue with AOL, MSN/WLM, Yahoo, etc. all just now starting to actually allow interconnection between their competing IM systems, I have to confess to always having been a personal fan of Jabber and it's XMPP protocol.  Maybe it's the fact that it's got an open source side to it.  Maybe that it's XML based.  Maybe it's just that I liked that anyone could set up a server and start using it. In any event, I've always been a huge fan (and generally have Psi running with a Jabber ID of [email protected]).

So with that in mind I was pleased to see the announcement yesterday that Cisco's Unified MeetingPlace will now support Jabber clients through the Jabber XCP framework.  From what I can see of the announcement, Jabber clients will now be able to interoperate with Cisco's collaboration server.   What I'm naturally curious about is to wonder whether this is limited to Jabber's commercial Jabber Messenger product (through some means) or is XMPP support being baked into Cisco's product natively, in which case conceiveably any XMPP client could connect to the server.  There, are, naturally, many Jabber clients out there (including, interestingly, Google's GoogleTalk...).

Interesting news, in any event, and congrats to both companies.