Yes there is money in API’s

Dameon has written an excellent article asking “Is There Money in Voice API’s” for Gigaom. This article has some of the best comments I have seen since long time. (Check my comments as well). I couldn’t resist talking about this topic. I agree with dameon that startups cannot just open up Voice API’s and call that as a business strategy. But I see lot of potential in these API’s. In general, API’s regardless or whether it is voice, messaging, video, music etc has a great potential to make money. The question really is who gets the Pot of Gold. I see a great future for mashup applications that can render data from different platforms filtered and customized as per user’s taste.

The way I look at API is; it’s just an additional avenue for companies to make money. For e.g., twitter opened up their platform with API’s that can be used to build applications on top of it. We saw tones of apps that were built and some (summize, twirl etc) of them were bought. So what did these apps do to twitter; 1) they increased the usage of twitter, 2) Developers built innovative apps that pulled data from different third-party servers. 3) Twitter branding. Similarly if you look at other products like YouTube, Last.fm, Google Maps, Flickr, Yahoo mail, Friendfeed etc. All these products provided API’s using which developers could build applications. Here is some statistics from programmableweb ,
There are currently 3209 mashups with 822 API’s.

There are some folks that are pure API providers like ribbit, who are into the platform play. The model here is to provide API’s for developers to build standalone applications. What is missing here is the branding. For e.g., I can build a mashup application that can pull up Youtube video and a matching flickr picture. There is already a brand called YouTube and Flickr. However, in the case of ribbit, they are just a pure platform player. So the branding is missing here. In addition, ribbit business model solely depends on the developers. It makes money only if the developers succeed in building compelling apps.

Another concern that most of the folks raised was standardization of these API’s. I couldn’t agree more with these folks. I guess there should be some kind of standards that needs to be followed with these API’s. If not, we will see the repeat of SILO models, where every API’s shall be proprietary and you might end up learning 101 different languages.

I still wonder what the deal with operators is; I mean they are ones that should have been playing a bigger role in pure platform play. With the infrastructure in place, all they need is glue that bridges the platform and the API. Isn’t this the IMS role?

Windows mobile gets a true mobile VoIP client.

Jajah, today announced that it’s enhancing its mobile sip client to support both incoming and outgoing voice call via wireless data network. This is interesting. I’m surprised by Japanese mobile operator EMOBILE move to support such a client. If a consumer has unlimited data package, he is as good as getting unlimited voice calling. When would we have something like this in USA.

By providing users with their own local DID (Direct Inward Dialing number), users can be reached by dialing this number. The voice is carried over the data network. For a monthly fee of $5, EMOBILE customers can purchase their own DID, or Direct Inward Dialing number, for their Sharp EM•ONE Ultra Mobile Device running Windows Mobile 6, which turns their device into a fully functioning mobile phone, without a cellular connection. This local number operates as any normal phone number. It can be used to make and receive calls, and can be stored in a phone or address book. Calls are routed over JAJAH's IP-telephony network so customers take advantage of JAJAH's low calling rates.

This is what Jajah CEO has to say about the news:

"Through our collaboration with EMOBILE, we were the first in the industry
to deliver pure voice over mobile broadband," said JAJAH CEO, Trevor Healy.
"With added call functionality and a personal direct number, we are not only
enabling the consumers desire for a truly connected life on the go, but
taking another leap forward in the future of mobile communication."

There are lots of clients that support MVoIP outgoing calls like fring, mig33,truphone( uses WIFI) etc. What’s interesting in this news is the involvement of the operator that wants to support outgoing/incoming voice call using data network. Jajah is making the right moves and iam sure they are positioning themselves for a big buyout. Apparently there are rumors about Google being a potential buyer. I can see so many different possibilities here. Well, for now, iam just gone pass this rumor. Stay tuned folks.

1 million iPhone and 10 million Apps

Wow, this is pretty amazing. According to apple , 1 million iPhone have been sold the past weekend. It took just 3 days to reach the milestone.

What Steve Jobs said:

“iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”

Another milestone is about apple’s app store. iPhone and iPod touch users have already downloaded more than 10 million applications from its app store since its launch last week. A total of 800 native applications are now available on the App Store. More than 200 are available for free and the rest charged less than $10 dollars.

What Steve Jobs said:

“The App Store is a grand slam, with a staggering 10 million applications downloaded in just three days,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Developers have created some extraordinary applications, and the App Store can wirelessly deliver them to every iPhone and iPod touch user instantly.”

Cool iPhone apps video

With the iPhone store going live, there are so many applications that have been added to the app store. Check out some of the cool apps video below. More on Techcrunch.

Limbo



Shozu


Loopt



Pandora radio



Foreflight



Remote control for iTunes and Apple TV

Wetpaint reaches 1 million wiki’s

Wetpaint, the social publishing platform that allows users to make wikis and social networking sites easily announced that they have exceeded one million wikis Web sites in their diverse network. This is indeed a great milestone. Congratulations to the folks at wetpaint.

They are celebrating this milestone by announcing the “The 2008 Golden Paint Can Awards”
Here is more information about the same

“To commemorate the one-million site milestone and celebrate the best Web sites and contributors across the Wetpaint network, Wetpaint is also announces today the first annual “Golden Paint Can Awards.”

The awards feature a roundup of the 70 best sites nominated across 15 categories, including: “Heart & Soul - Best Cause Site,” “Mating, Dating & Relating - Best Romance Site” and “Weird and Wonderful - Best Site that Defies Description.”

Wetpaint will determine award winners by three methods: judges’ choice, community voting and statistical data. Participating judges include Sam Decker of Bazaarvoice, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, Matt Harding of wherethehellismatt.com, Lee LeFever of CommonCraft, the editorial staff of BuddyTV and other notable online personalities.

Voting begins today and concludes at midnight EDT on Tuesday, July 22, 2008. Wetpaint will announce winners the following day, Wednesday, July 23.

To view the Golden Paint Can Awards Web site and vote for your favorite Wetpaint sites, visit Golden Paint Awards . To create your own free Wetpaint site today, visit WetPaint

SMSGupShup is no Twitter!

SMSGupShup the Indian Twitter startup is making waves with the number of users it has amassed so for. Pretty impressive. I have read lot of article where SMSGupShup is compared with twitter and in fact they call SMSGupShup the “twitter with no downtime”. Comparing SMSGupShup with twitter is in itself a compliment to twitter. Twitter is like a benchmark to all these startups that are playing a niche in Group Communication arena. Whenever there is a new search company they always compare that with Google; Why, because Google is the one that lead and showed the path for search. I see the same trend with twitter. I’m sure twitter had its bad moment for so long; I guess its time for twitter folks to buckle up and show the world what they have in them. Really! I love twitter, period.






Another thing I beg to differ with folks that compare twitter with SMSGupShup. Here is why I feel they are different
• Twitter is micoblogging tool using which users can post a short message up to 140 characters on anything and everything they want to share with their friends and follower. It doesn’t have concept of group. Where as SMSGupShup is built as a SMS Group Communication application where in user’s can create a group and invite friends to join the group.
• Twitter doesn’t really support a group creation or invitation to join the group. However, they support follow and notification options using which anyone can follow anyone and receive updates if notification enabled.
• SMSGupShup has no concept of individual users, it’s a group based communication. So users can create group, join groups and post messages to the group.
• Users that follow me on twitter become my implicit group, and any message that I send to twitter is broadcast to the entire group (My followers with notification ON receive the message). If one of my follower replies to the message, it’s not broadcast to the entire group, it is just sent to the message originator i.e. ME. Where as in SMSGupShup, if a member of a group sends a message, its broadcast to the entire group and any reply from the members is again broadcast to the entire group. This something similar to a group chat, except that it can be done using SMS message.

According to pluggd.in, Om and Micheal , SMSGupShup has raised around $10 million dollars funding. SMSGupShup has over 7 million subscribers and 300,000 publishers. The usage is more on Mobile than Web interface. In India, SMS message packages are very cheap compared to USA and other countries. Also, incoming SMS message is free where as you get charged for incoming message in North America. This explains why the usage of service is more SMS based than web.

The trigger for writing this article was based on this paragraph I read from VentureBeat article, which talks about how tribes were using SMSGupShup as a communication channel. Bravo SMSGupShup

“ I’ll close with a vignette that illustrates the magnitude of the need. One day the GupShup spam control team noticed several messages that looked like gobbledygook to them. So they sent these suspected spammers account termination notices. They didn’t expect the response: messages not just from those senders but from many others, pleading with them not to terminate the accounts. It turns out the messages were in a language called Hmar, only spoken by some 65,000 tribal people living in the hilly regions of India’s northeast. There are now several Hmar groups on SMS GupShup; the tribal group sees this as a major communication channel. Being too small to attract mainstream media, the group also sees SMS GupShup as their main form of media and a way to save their language and culture from extinction as they assimilate into the Indian mainstream.”

3G iPhone craze, this is unbelievable

This is unbelievable. Engadget reports that folks have already formed a line at 5th Avenue Apple store. Apparently, these guys want to break a world record of sort for standing in line a week or so earlier. Huh! Isn’t that weird. A week earlier for a mobile phone. Well, looks like July 4th long weekend seems to be boring for these folks to do something interesting.
Pics courtesy, Engadget

VC's love Nimbuzz, give $15 million

Holland based Nimbuzz , a mobile VoIP startup has raised a $15 million second round led by South African media firm Naspers’ Myriad International Holdings (MIH) digital arm. Currently it supports more than 22 brands and over 500 models. It supports different clients for PC, Mobile and widgets for social networking. So far, the company has raised a total of $25 million dollars. The new money shall be used to support Windows Mobile, Phone and Android.

Here are some of the features that nimbuzz Mobile supports:
• Call
• Chat/Chatrooms/Groupchat
• Text messaging
• Share photos, music, video
• Send voice messages
• Manage address book
• Set status
• Buzz (get friends online)

The list of IM clients it supports is very impressive. From nimbuzz mobile client, users can interact with Google Talk, Skype, AOL, Windows Live, Yahoo Messenger, jabber, MySpace and facebook. Nimbuzz is not lone warrior in this arena, there are quite a few startups like Fring, Mig33, TruPhone that support similar features.

It has close to a million users with 5000 users signing up everyday. That’s impressive. However, not sure what is their revenue model. It’s kind of interesting how they could raise $15 million dollars without any solid revenue generating strategy. Apparently they claim to have deals with 10 major social networking and 3 mobile operators. That kind of explains the VC’s interest towards nimbuzz.

Off late, we are seeing lot of startups that want to play the social media aggregator and unified interface role. I guess by the time Yahoo OneConnect is made public, we would have tones of other clones that pretty much do the same thing with a small twist here and there. The potential in these apps are huge and iam sure there is room for multiple players. If you guys know of any mobile clients that does the same thing, let me know.

Top news for this week

Nokia acquires Symbian
Gizmo5 to use jajah platform
Microsoft to acquire powerset
Microsoft acquired Mobicomp
The master(Bill Gates) bows out
Microsoft acquires mobile data backup and restore company MobiComp
30 must have firefox plugins

Jaxtr, We are not dead yet!

Jaxtr raised another 10 million dollars in a second round of venture capital led by Lehman Brothers Venture Partners. It brings the company’s total raised to $20 million. I was little surprised by the funding, but digging more revealed jaxtr new business model. Finally, there is a revenue generating business model. They are venturing into the international voice calling business. With the Voice widgets for social networking proving to be a failing business model , jaxtr is doing the right thing by moving towards supporting international voice calling. Apparently, cheap international calling card company IDT IDT generates around $2 Billion in revenue. This move puts them in direct competition with jajah, mig33, mobivox to name a few.

Some of the folks like Pat, Om and Luca are not really impressed with this whole deal. I partially agree with these folks on what they have to say about the product and funding in general. I have always criticized jaxtr for their lack of solid revenue generating model. So far, they have amassed a huge user based with their free beer model. I’m not sure how much money it’s generating through jaxtr café.

So enough of bitching; For a change I wanted to highlight some of the positive things about jaxtr, and why they will comeout a winner:
• Jaxtr currently has more than 10 million users in 220 countries after about a year in business. Facebook has 70 million user and they are yet to figure out a business model. Same goes with tones of other Web 2.0 startups( twitter,ning,friendfeed etc)
• Cheap International voice Calling is a proven business model. The potential is huge and has enough dough for multiple players
• Ad based voice and SMS will be successful in future
• As the founder of Linked In, Konstantine Guericke, chief executive of Jaxtr, knows and understands the dynamics of social networking.
• The new round of funding is led by Lehman Brothers, one of the top VC, which validates their product and vision
• Jaxtr café has potential to generate revenue through ads

Ok, I’m not gone talk about the downside in this article. Will save that for future. For now, I wish Konstantine and team a big success.