Does free voice calling still work?

Free is word that will attract hordes of user. Most of the folks are spoiled by freebies. When I read about Jaxtr new feature that allows free voice calls, it just occurred to me that they are still struggling to find the revenue making business model. The management shake up has not done much to their business strategy. What we are seeing from jaxtr is the “me too” play, which many other competitors are already providing.
















Jaxtr announced a new service called FreeConnect.Using this service, members can make unlimited free mobile or landline calls to other jaxtr members worldwide. This is achieved by providing local numbers to both jaxtr members. This is not something new that has been invented by jaxtr. Rebtel, another mobile and landline VoIP startup has been supporting this model for a long time now. They started selling this feature for $1 unlimited weekly. Not many countries were supported when I checked them long time back. Jaxtr claims to have more than 10 million users in 220 countries.


I’m not sure how jaxtr is going to support this free calling. The international calls could be routed via a VoIP backhaul network. However, there is money involved in connecting a mobile or landline via local PSTN network. Other clients like Skype use P2P, and between skype users it’s free because the call is carried all the way via internet. There are lots of other companies like mig33, jajah, fring, mobivox etc that also support similar service with some variation.

The fundamental business model behind free service is weak. The users who like free service will always look for free service. These are like spoilt kids who will not change their habits. Free doesn’t generate revenue for the company. Free model is adopted by companies that look for registering tones of users and look for some bigger player to acquire them. With the economy going south, I’m skeptical this will be a viable option. Though freemium model has some credibility and is a proven model, iam not sure if that can be applied successfully in the case of jaxtr. Om has an excellent article on this topic. Some of the companies like jangl, talkplus, eqo that treaded this path either closed or they are struggling. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, social voice apps are as good as dead.

For international calling cost comparison, check out the following website LowCostMob. Good job guys!

Finally back from India after a long break

Wow! This was one of my very hectic and awesome India trip. I had good family moments to relish. The memory will linger for a longtime. We had two marriages in our family. I sometime wonder why we spend so much money and time on Indian marriages. I guess we could cut down spending lavishly on these marriages and instead use some of the money to help people in need. I know I didn’t do that. Maybe, I will, in future.

Another incident that hurt me the most is the Mumbai terrorist attack. The attack was very catastrophic and brutal. I don’t have words to express the horror. I was glued to the TV for almost 3 days. The pictures and videos still linger in my mind. I’m angry and helpless, so are most of the Indian citizens. I’m not an expert on terror, so will refrain from making any comments on the topic. However, killing innocent people and justifying the act should be condemned by every religion. People who justify such ACTS are fanatics and don’t deserve to be called human being. My thoughts and prayers are with all those families who lost innocent lives.

One thing I missed the most is blogging. With all these activities, was not very active with my blog. Hope to catch up with all that I missed. Stay tuned! .

Nimbuzz is ruling the Mobile IM and VoIM arena

Looks like Nimbuzz is doing great in the Mobile VoIM and Mobile Chat arena. In addition, they have found the revenue model that has been elusive to most of the other Mobile VoIP, VoIM and IM startups. For folks that don’t know nimbuzz, here is a quick summary; Nimbuzz offers a social interaction service combining (geo) presence, IM, and VoIP. The free application is available on the mobile phone, PC and Web, for (group) calling, instant messaging, (group) chat, file sharing across popular Instant Messaging communities and social networks. Recently they partnered with studiVZ, which counts over 12 million users spanning across Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. To me, nimbuzz sounds more like a meebo of voice.

Iam not sure if they are making any money right now from revenue sharing, though they claim to have 10k users logging in each day. Talking about partnership with social networking reminds me off Jangl ; they had partnership with many social networking sites. In the end, we all know what happened to them . It’s an open secret that making money out of social networking is like raising money via IPO in this market condition. All that said, what's most promising here is the instant user base they get with this kind of partnership. This might make them hot for acquisition. Fring, Mig33, eqo beware or follow nimbus model. There are very few startups that can survive in this arena.

Here is some good news to iPhone users; Nimbuzz is now available for the iPhone. This gives users additional capability to chat with facebook or myspace users in addition to Yahoo Messenger, MSN, Skype and Google Talk













Here are some of the features supported by iPhone app:
• Landscape-chat makes it easy and fast to type
• Call your IM buddies all over the world for free on your Wifi connection: Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger (MSN), Google Talk
• Chat with social network friends: Facebook, MySpace, Gadu-Gadu, studiVZ, Hyves

You can find more information here

Web telephony platform arena gaining momentum

Looks like web telephony platform startups are doing great in these troubled times. Earlier BT acquired ribbit , the – “Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company” startup. Last week another platform player intelepeer raised $18 million dollars to expand their business across different regions. This week, ifbyphone announced series B funding of $4.6 million. Existing investors Origin Ventures and Apex Ventures led this round as well. These platforms expose API’s using which developers can build web apps enabled with voice/sms/messaging. The good thing about these API’s are, they enable developing complex apps very quickly without the need to understand the core telecom technology. This, by itself, is a big game changer. Another web telephony platform startup jajah has been quite for sometime now. Either jajah is up to something big or they are lost in the economy turmoil.

This week Ribbit launched their web phone platform . The platform was in beta for over a year now. The company claims to have more than 7,500 developers signed up for their service. They will be presenting the platform at Adobe MAX. In addition, they announced a killer app challenge with prize money of $100, 00. This should definitely boost their developer numbers. I like what they call “Bring Your Own Network”. What this means is- The Ribbit platform can connect to the network in two ways: via MPLS links or a SIP interconnection. So even operators can partner with ribbit and offer platform-development-as-a-service to their customers over their networks.

Intelepeer AppworX open communication platform and voice peering grid network gives application developers the ability to create high-quality interactive voice, video, SMS, data and other rich media services that boost productivity while reducing telecommunications and operational expenses through the hosted business model. A communications-as-a-service (CaaS) offering, IntelePeer AppworX is ideal for increasing collaboration among business application users, fostering closer connections with customers and introducing communications-enabled business processes that drive efficiency and deliver cost savings.

Compared to ribbit, Intelepeer claims to have partnership with more than 50 customers leading global carriers and service providers – letting those carriers complete calls more cheaply internationally. Also, software companies (MS, WebEx), carriers (BT, AT&T, Verizon) and online businesses (Facebook, TMCnet) are already using its service to integrate phone services within their applications. WebEx uses their platform to assist in an emergency response system.

Another hosted web telephony platform company to mention is IfByPhone. Ifbyphone also provides hosted platform to build telephony applications. They support bunch of features like Call Routing, Smart Conference call, Smart Click-to-Call, Phone-Me-now etc. Worthy of note is that Fierce Voip voted them as Fierce 15 VoIP companies . Check out their developer site for more information

For more Telco 2.0 platform companies, read my earlier article

High-Def conference startup Vapps acquired

Citrix systems gobbled Vapps, a startup that provides audio and video conference for 26.6 million dollar cash. In the troubled times where we hear only about layoffs and company closures, these kind of news is soothing. High definition voice is nothing but good voice quality, which is achieved by recording the voice at a higher sampling rate (16KHZ). Also, “wideband” codec’s are used to for the voice calls to support high quality voice. Check out the website for more information on High Def conference

Here are some of the features supported by Vapps hi-def conferencing:
• Max 25 participants in a conference
• Free Web Controls, Recording & Hand-raising
• No Reservations needed
• Skype Call Duration – Unlimited
Skype participants have no additional charges and can call in for an unlimited amount of time

Azure which is one of the biggest investor in Vapps, said that it got a 3.6 times return on its investment over 18 months. So this turned out to be a good investment for azure.

Hope we get to hear more M&A news such as this. In the troubled times, keeping ourselves positive is very important. Though the acquisition amount may not be bigger, but it does convey the message that there is still lot of money with big companies.

Obamas weekly address on YouTube

Iam sure this must be another first time, a president of USA, is giving weekly addresses to the nation via internet. It’s a milestone in the adoption of new media. Looks like obama’s campaign team is net savvy. Even his campaign was all about facebook, YouTube, twitter etc. I was rooting for obama all along and iam so happy that he won. The win was symbolic and very inspiring for lot of folks who believe in achieving greater heights. I’m sure lot of folks would agree with me that this kind of phenomenon will never happen in India. It will just be a dream.

Check out the YouTube video of obama’s first weekly address:

Google adds voice and video to Gmail

Earlier we were able to switch to chatting from gmail, now Google added voice and video support to gmail. Users can now initiate voice and video conversation via browser. I’m not sure if we can initiate video conversation via Gtalk. This feature enables seamless experience of all in one, mail, chat, high quality voice and video. In order to use this feature, users need to download and install the voice and video plugin . As always, these features are developed using open internet standards such as XMPP, RTP and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat


Check out the video for more explanation




Looks like Google is finally trying to bring in all its disparate services together in a seamless fashion. With the addition of more features like whiteboarding,conference etc could be a perfect beginning to enter Unified Communication play, which is a strong hold of Microsoft,avaya,cisco to name a few. I’m sure this must be a wakeup call to some of the video chat clients like skype, sightspeed etc.

Here is what Google has to say about the launch:

“Our team is spread between Google offices in the US and Sweden, and video has really changed the way we work. Collaborating across continents and timezones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click "Start video chat" than to get on a plane! And when I do have to visit another Google office, I can use Gmail voice and video chat to check in with my family”

Startups, economy, and the survival

Off late it’s all about startups and their survival. Not a day goes by without hearing about pink slips and startups closing. Well, this is what happens in a bad economy. Even the elections focal point this time is all about who can handle the recession well.
I found this article, 10 lessons to learn from startups heroes very interesting and thoughtful. Thought of sharing with you folks


Ten Lessons Startups Can Learn From Superheroes

I have been reading lot of articles that suggest how startups can come out of this recession. Cost cutting is by default the first option for companies to survive the downturn. Hope we can come out of this recession sooner than expected.

Here are some additional articles I liked:
Rules for startups
why to start a startup in a bad economy
How to save money running a startups- 17 really good tips

Android Source Code released as promised

Google announced the availability of android source code today . Android is one of the most promising product of Google. It better be. This will give them a major boost in the mobile market, where the advertisement arena is still wide open. This should be a boon to all those developers that want to build innovative apps on the mobile. Though the android market may not be as big as iPhone, given the fact its open source, u can expect hordes of developers to flock the platform.

From a mobile platform standpoint, it’s a complete end-to-end solution built on linux kernel. In addition to the OS, it has lot of other middle ware tools that can be used to build different applications. Developers can download the entire source code from here.
The source code includes:
Linux kernel
Middleware
Android runtime
Application Framework
System library
Graphics
Media codex
Dialer
Contacts manager
Google rich miner etc

According to Om, numerous companies are playing around with android platform to build a slew of gadgets-- everything from set-top boxes to navigation systems to mobile Internet devices to smart picture frames. Also, he states that Google has started talking to leading universities – MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon – to develop teaching programs around the OS, ones in which students would be given lessons in Android UI, for example, or taught about the uses of Android as an embedded environment.

For techies,Currently android source can be built on linux and Mac and not on windows. To build the source on linux, you need to install ubuntu. The source code is around 2.1GB in size and requires around 6GB to build.

Check out the video:

Economy crisis, Not again!

This is like déjà vu all over again. The economy is spiraling down like a roller costar. It’s really sad. For the past couple of days, all I hear is- economy crisis, stock meltdown, global meltdown and VC panic. OMG! Not again. Last time when the internet bubble occurred, my startup had to close. It was a one of worst moments of my career. That was the day I decided not to work for startups anymore. Alas, It’s been more than 6 years after that, here iam working for another great startup.

What’s more worrisome is that VC’s are acknowledging the economy facts and pulling the strings from every corner. Some of the VC’s like sequoia and benchmark are already cautioning their portfolio companies. Check out this presentation from sequoia

Sequoia Capital on startups and the economic downturn

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: depression recession)

Some other interesting links:
Sorry, Startups: Party's Over
What will the crisis mean for VC?
VCs to Entrepreneurs: Seed-Stage Startups OK. Others? Not so much
Sequoia rings the alarm bell silicon valley in trouble
Benchmark capital advises startups to conserve capital

One of the popular mobile VoIP and IM aggregation startup EQO slashed around 60% of its work force . Another video comment startup seismic cut down 7 of its employee

So folks looks like tough times ahead. We need to be strong and stay focused in this troubled times. I have gone through this trauma earlier and trust me it’s not fun. Hope the market recovers faster than what analyst and critics predict.