Technorati Tags: jeff pulver, luca filigheddu

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This news this morning makes me really happy. Peter Csathy’s SightSpeed, a high quality video call/conferencing service, is going to be acquired by a very big name in the computer market, Logitech, very popular, among the other things, for their high quality webcams.

I blogged so many times about SightSpeed and I really love that service, reason why I’m very happy for Peter and his team in San Diego. This is a great deal for both, since Logitech can now provide an effective way to give more value to their webcams, for both the consumer and business market. And it seems that SightSpeed is the 3rd company Peter succesfully sold.

Moreover, I really would like to congratulate Andy “everything I touch becomes gold” Abramson, since SightSpeed is the Nth company he’s involved with in terms of PR or in terms of board of directors which has been sold recently. Wow.

Details of the deals are summarized below.

Logitech International (SIX: LOGN) (Nasdaq: LOGI) today announced that the company has agreed to acquire privately held SightSpeed Inc. of Berkeley, Calif. for approximately $30 million in cash. SightSpeed is an award-winning provider of high-quality Internet video communications services. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in early November.

The acquisition of SightSpeed will provide Logitech with video calling technology and a software and services development team that can be focused on future video calling initiatives that can enable cross-platform video communications with an intuitive, lifelike experience, for people sitting in front of a personal computer or with their family in a living room.

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Technorati Tags: andy abramson, Business, Logitech, luca filigheddu, peter csathy, sightspeed, Video

This year, in March, it has been one of the best conferences I ever attended (together with GigaOM’s Mobilize). Aside from the high level of the subjects which are covered and the top-level speakers, the other innovative side of this event is how it is organized and managed. Previous speakers and attendees are continuosly involved in the organization of the next one, from the choice of the venue to the way to better promote it.

A promotional banner will be available on the sidebar of this blog until the beginning of the conference and if you need further details, just click on it or go straight to http://ecommconf.com.

By the way, call for speakers is now open and if you want to submit your proposal, do it as soon as possible since I bet they’ll run out of speaking slots very quickly.

Technorati Tags: ecomm 2009, emerging communications, Events, lee dryburgh, luca filigheddu

Vidtel’s big challenge is becoming the world’s first DSL video telephony service. For a very cheap monthly fee (can’t remember the details, but in the range of $30-$50) you get unlimited video calls and landline calls worldwide (almost) plus the device. Moreover, the service will not be limited to a certain country only, but will be available everywhere.

During the P&P Expo they were using a Grandstream video telephone which was working really well. Unlike mobile video calls, which wide adoption is prevented by some usability issues as the difficulty to be involved in a video call while on the go as well as for privacy issues, I think video calls at home might potentially become a major trend in the future.

All that said, my only concern is about the lack of match between their potential users’ demographic and the “normal” people. Advanced users would rather choose Skype or Sightspeed (both free) over a solution like Vidtel (BTW, Asus just announced the first Skype video phone ever). On the other hand, a grandpa who wants to see how cute is becoming his new grandson is likely not willing to use a service like that because of the lack of DSL connection in their home, probably (or a router…).

Anyway, the service is now in closed beta and should be available in December through selected channel partners (undisclosed at the moment). BestBuy?

In conclusion, aside from some reasonable concerns I have, it’s definitely a great service and, at first sight, a very challenging goal. Good luck to Scott and Mariette (his wife, VP of Marketing) for this new adventure (prestigious analysts wrote about them already).

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, luca filigheddu, scott wharton, sightspeed, skype, Videophone, vidtel, VoIP

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I’m not used to post articles which could be too technical, but in this guest post Tsahi Levent-Levi, Product Manager and System Architect at Radvision, explains in a very easy to understand way how mobile video calls work and how VoIP is a fundamental underlaying technology. Thanks Tsahi for the contribution.

*****

3G-324M Success is Dependent on VoIP
Today’s mobile video telephony is done using a circuit switched protocol called 3G-324M. It exists in almost every 3G handset in Europe and Asia Pacific. For 3G-324M to be successful, it needs VoIP.

3G-324M is a standard that is used for mobile video telephony. As a standard, 3G-324M is a point-to-point standard, where the actual protocol kicks in once an end-to-end “pipe” has been opened between the two handsets doing the call. The protocol itself doesn’t take care of any of the nitty-gritty stuff of routing, billing, dialing, etc – anything more complex than a simple point-to-point call is done out of the scope of the protocol and in the application’s logic.

That being said, a large number of services have been deployed in the past years for mobile video telephony, which can usually be split into two types of services:

• Bidirectional video
• Streaming video

3G Gateway – the missing link
To enable such services, a 3G gateway is required. The main reasons being:

• VoIP market is larger in terms of companies developing server side solutions, making it easier to use for deploying services
• 3G-324M couples signaling and media streams together, making them harder to split and process separately – a common process in VoIP (think media servers and softswitches).

They way a deployment would look like depends on the type of services required.
1. Bidirectional video

Bidirectional video is what 3G-324M comes to solve. It enables people to connect to each other in a video conversation. These services include video mail, announcement servers (video ring back tones), conferencing, etc.

Today, there is no other way to run such services on mobile handsets – at least not “out of the box”.

For bidirectional video, the 3G gateway is connected on the operator’s IP network to a softswitch, which in turn provides services through media servers and other resources within its own network or through SBCs connected to the internet or other intranets.
2. Streaming video
Streaming video includes a single direction video session, almost always from a server somewhere to the mobile handset. It includes Video IVR systems and other media streaming applications, such as tapping into cameras on the Big Brother reality shows.

There’s a competitive technology to 3G-324M in streaming, which is RTSP. It is also available on most 3G handsets today, but there is a difference: where 3G-324M is activated simply by dialing a number and calling, using RTSP requires entering WAP services or browsing around, making it a bit more clunky to use.

The use of these two technologies, brought some of the operators to deploy such services through both mechanisms simultaneously. This means that you can provide such services through either a 3G gateway or using a streaming server.

Article written by Tsahi Levent-Levi, Product Manager & System Architect at Radvision

Blog: http://blog.radvision.com/voipsurvivor

Technorati Tags: h324m, luca filigheddu, Mobile, radvision, Real Time Streaming Protocol, tsai levent-levi, video calls

Video posting is not available yet… anyway stay tuned, more exciting news will follow very soon:-)

The integration with Hictu! took just a couple of days thanks to Hictu’s new set of APIs and the great support we got from HelloTXT.

HelloTXT is currently all you need if you want to update your status / send a “micro” blog post on various social networks and microblogging services. The list of supported services is impressive and I know for sure they are adding many more in the following days.

Users can update their status by using the very well designed user interface as well as Google Talk, SMS or email.

The services you are subscribed to are displayed on the right sidebar of your HelloTXT interface and you can also populate your posts by uploading pictures (through TwitPic) or videos (by embedding it).

A history of your posts is always available and you can check where and when you posted what.

They also have a very simple and usable mobile version that can be used to update your status while on the go. This is how it look slike on my Nokia N95:

What to say, congrats to HelloTXT for the fantastic service and the great job they are doing and I’m really proud my company’s video micro blogging service Hictu is now available on HelloTXT as well.

Still not on HelloTXT? Join it here.

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Technorati Tags: Hellotxt, hictu, luca filigheddu, Micro-blogging, video microblogging

Thanks to a voice pattern recognition engine, users can get the level of lies/love they are getting from the other user, making a video call even more funny and interesting. After the call they get an MMS with all the statistics of the conversation in terms of honesty, love and so on.

What to say, definitely a big differentiator for services like those. TelcoBridges will be attending the upcoming IT Conference and Expo taking place in LA from Sept 16th to Sept 18th, so if you are nearby, take some time to have a look at this company.

Technorati Tags: Lie Detector, luca filigheddu, Multimedia Messaging Service, Pattern recognition, telcobridges, Value-added service, video calling

Both of them joined the Qik’s board of advisors and I believe they will offer a very important contribution to the growth of the company. They have been key figures in Netscape, Ning and Opsware (recently acquired by HP) and this investment proves that the guys at Qik are definitely doing a great job.

The financial terms have not been disclosed, but I believe that’s a secondary aspect of the deal. The contribution of people like those can be priceless sometimes.

Congrats to my friends Bhaskar and Jackie!

Technorati Tags: ben horowitz, Deals, luca filigheddu, mark andreessen, Mobile, netscape, ning, opsware, qik, Social Media, video sharing

How to apply? Since many people are taking a break in this period, you may want to wish them to enjoy themselves (or maybe not, if you are at your desk and your colleague just left to the Caribbean…).

Ok, now you can do that. You just need to subscribe to Hictu (if you need an invite, please just drop me a line or leave a comment to this post) and to record your video with your vacation greetings for your friends and family, from today July 28th to Aug 20th, 12am PST. Then, share it with them (you can easily find the “share” link on your video) and ask them to leave their video comments on Hictu. For those that are subscribed to Twitter, I also remind you that your posts can be automatically shared on Twitter too.

If your friends are not subscribed to Hictu yet, you can easily send them an invite from your personal page.

The video greeting that receives more video comments (from unique users) is going to be the lucky winner of a brand new Apple iPhone 3G. The winner will be officially announced at the end of August on this blog.

If you have a blog with many visitors and you want to leverage them, just install the Hictu Video Comments plugin for Wordpress and publish a blog post with your video embedded on it. Video comments to that post made by using the Hictu plugin are allowed too!

What are you waiting for? Go to www.hictu.com and record & share your video for your friends, family and colleagues, it’s gonna be fun.

BONUS: the best video (i.e. the video the Hictu team will like most) will become the “favorite” and will appear on the Hictu homepage for 1 month.

Technorati Tags: 3G, Apple, giveaway, hictu, iphone, luca filigheddu, micro video blogging, video blogging

I really like this service and can guarantee that, yes, “italians do eat better” You can also subscribe to their Hictu channel through the RSS feed here.

To start, here is the original “Spaghetti alla Carbonara“, a delicious and famous recipe with pasta.

Technorati Tags: food, italian food net, luca filigheddu, spaghetti alla carbonara, video blogging