Industry News

Many people have speculated why Google is giving away free voice calls from Gmail. “SKYPE killer!” “A shot across the bow of Facebook!” “The beginning of the end of every non-Google social anything!”

But maybe it’s just more of the same from Google.

According to Google's First Quarter 2010 10-Q, 97% of revenue comes from advertising. No matter how you slice it, Google is in the advertising business, not the telephone business, or any other business for that matter.

Yes, let's face it. It's Friday before a long weekend. This means you may have some trouble focusing on work while you're plotting your 5 PM exit strategy, pondering whether Hurricane Earl will bother your trip, dreading the traffic to the beach, or planning your BBQ grocery list.

If you thought this was going to lead up to a helpful tip to get your focus back, think again.

Check out this mechanical snake from Carnegie Mellon students:

When Google does anything, it’s big news. First it was Google Voice, then it was Google Wave, and last week it was the new Gmail upgrade that allows users to call out to the PSTN. Let’s quickly go over some of Google’s existing ‘voice chat’ tools.

Google Chat/Talk is probably more commonly known as the built-in IM client in Gmail. It allows voice and video chats but is limited to PC-to-PC only.

I’ve thought long and hard about the proper role for a CEO. At Junction Networks specifically, the main focus of that role has changed over the years, but I like how Fred Wilson puts it at the AVC.com blog:

“A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.”

It's back to school time around here, a time when parents breathe a sigh of relief and teachers do just the opposite. In the back to school spirit, here is an entertaining auto-attendant message for a high school in Australia.

Supposedly, this message is a statement to the community parents who had put the school under fire for their attendance policy.

This post is by Mike, CEO of Junction Networks

Over at the American Express OpenForum site, Guy Kawasaki wrote an excellent post about how too much money can be a bad thing for startup companies. Ed Sim who runs the Beyond VC blog wrote a similar article back in 2006, which I've kept bookmarked.

Counterpath recently added support for iOS 4 multitasking and multiple SIP accounts to their mobile Bria application. We currently have multiple people in the office extensively running the app on their phones, and it's been working great—definitely something we will mention to our customers looking for a mobile solution.

This is a shameless Wow this is freakin cool! blog, inspired by Jason Fried's tweet about The Land of Giants.

Featured on designboom.com, The Land of Giants recently won the 2010 Boston Society of Architects Award. According to designboom.com, The Land of Giants were "originally designed for the Icelandic high voltage electrical pylon competition back in 2008."

This blog is by Tim, our SIP Maven.
Wired Magazine has an interesting article today called Death of the Phone Call. In this article, Clive Thompson discusses the shrinking amount of time we spend on the phone. Thompson cites a recent report from Nielsen, claiming that the average length of cell phone conversations has fallen from around 3 minutes in 2005 to less than half that today. Plus, people are making fewer numbers of calls.

Leo came across this video while perusing the web. We haven't reviewed Fring for the iPhone 4 yet; but I have to admit, this looks pretty cool.

I also have to say I like Fring's video series in general. That's one company excited about VoIP! While people can be tough critics on the web, this video has 38,724 views and counting. So, from my perspective in the marketing department of a small business, this has been a successful channel for them to get the word out. Kudos to Fring.