Since the launch of Chrome for Mac, it quickly became my favorite browser. Lightweight and very fast, it’s a mixture of ingredients that, in my opinion, make it the perfect browser. Moreover, the availability of  browser extensions help you forget all the additional features you can get with browsers like the popular (but very heavy and slow) Firefox.

All that said, I find myself spending more and more time with the browser than any other app in my Mac, I basically use the browser for almost everything.

Here is my basic toolkit:

Mail: Gmail

Calendar: Google Calendar (in sync with iCal)

Contacts: Google Contacts (in sync with my Droid)

News: Google Reader through Feedly

Twitter: Hootsuite / CoTweet / Seesmic Web

Facebook: Facebook

ToDo: Remember the Milk (in sync with my Droid)

Notepad: Evernote

Chat/IM: Meebo

Can I call Chrome a sort of OS in the OS? Last but not least, Chrome threats tabs as independent processes so you can kill one without having to shut down the entire browser, something other browsers can’t do.

Unfortunately, there are still some apps I can’t replace easily, like Lightroom, Espresso (CSS/HTML editing for my blog), LittleSnapper (screenshots) and a few others. But it’s pretty clear that I’m already using Chrome OS (sorta) and it works very well.

What about you? Would you use Google Chrome for everything?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Remember The Milk for Gmail… for Google Chrome! (rememberthemilk.com)
• Got Milk? Using Remember the Milk for Task Management (profhacker.com)
• Feedly + Google Buzz + Conversations ” Building Feedly (dccrowley.posterous.com)
• 18 Must Have Google Chrome Extensions (maketecheasier.com)

A few days ago I read about the new click to call service for Facebook launched by VoIP Company 8×8 (US only), “8×8 Connect”. Both Om Malik and Andy Abramson shared their thoughts on the service, so I’d like to add my 2 cents to the discussion, being click to call the main business my company is embracing and since it is slowly becoming the #1 revenue source for us. First of all we must define what click to call means. From Wikipedia:

Click-to-call (CTC) refers to the process of converting web-based traffic into direct telephony communication between an end user and some other entity. CTC originates out of the older PC2PC telephony whereby a client is downloaded onto your own personal computer to “talk” to the same client downloaded into the other party’s PC for the conversation (with vendors such as Net2Phone).

It is important to highlight that we can define a few different types of click to call, depending on how these are offered to the market.

Consumer Click to Call

In this case, a person who is subscribed to a certain VoIP service, has the ability to place a button on his website/email to let others call him/her to the phone number provided by that VoIP service. In most cases this phone number is linked to an IP phone or a Softphone. Moreover, people using that click to call feature usually have to use their PC to make the call. The call is free for both the customer and the user.

Business Click to Call

It is similar to the previous case (service offered by a VoIP provider) but the users have now the ability to use it through a call back. This means they can insert their phone number into a form and the system will call them back and connect to the company. A company agent will be likely taking the call from an IP phone. The company will be charged for the call.

Premium Click to Call

In this case users of the service will get some sort of benefit from using it: call to a lawyer for a consultancy, call to an “expert” to get advice and so on. It could also be a way to engage a prospect. In this latter case, the example made by Andy in his posts fits very well. Think of Linkedin offering a service like that, similar to the “InMail”, but through a phone call…

Mobile Click to Call

Most of the times we are referring to a call activated by clicking on a link placed on an app / browser of a smartphone / mobile phone. The user is charged for the call, unless a toll free number is called. In the latter case, sometimes different toll free numbers are used. Usually no VoIP is involved.

Lead Generation / Customer Engagement Click to Call

This is the market where my company operates with Sitofono. In this case a business that wants to engage more users online and convert website’s visitors into customers, activates a click to call service like Sitofono. Free for the user, paid (flat) by the business. In this case the business hasn’t to be subscribed to any VoIP service since the click to call service calls their regular phone number and 99,9% of the users use the call back capability (no PC to Phone since just less than 0,001 % actually use it). Some providers charge per call (pay-per-call) so depending on the number of lead opportunities the service created (not Sitofono, for various reasons). It is important to point out that in this case the placement of the button is crucial since the more calls the business receives the higher the probability to finalize a deal is. For this reason this type of click to call can be splitted into a few sub-types

The list above is not exhaustive, but it covers most of the options available in the market. The monetization strategy for those various click to call options is different and it usually depends on a mixture of elements: target market, available features, target users and so on.

All that said, let’s get back to the Facebook case. Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide where users tend to use a few different methods to interact with each other, mostly through comments to notes/images/wall posts etc., messages, chat sessions and, last but not least, there is an important role played by “pull information“, where users post news and info to their wall or their fan/product page where other users can consume them. The service introduced by 8×8 offers a new for people communicate on Facebook, something that could be used in place of a normal phone call.

The final goal is clear. 8×8 President Dan Weirich confirmed it in the press release:

“Many Facebook users are small business owners or employees in larger enterprises who will use this application in their personal and business lives and will hopefully look to 8×8 when seeking business communications solutions in the future. Making this technology available to a wider audience is something we believe will help 8×8 establish itself as the pre-eminent brand for next generation communication solutions.”

In a word, advertising. Their main business is to provide communication solutions to businesses and enterprises and Facebook is a great way to reach out a wider audience. Good move. I like it because my company does the same with our Sitofono. Owners of Sitofono can place their service on their fan/personal page so that others can see it and, hopefully, get it for their business too. Different business model behind it, different products, but same way to get the most out of Facebook. Here is an example: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cagliari-Italy/Continuita-Territoriale/62498776632?ref=ts

There is a downside, though. The problem is the context where a service like this from 8×8 has been placed. People on Facebook will never use a service like that to call each other and, most importantly, from everyone who comes across their homepage.

On Facebook, taking care of privacy is rule #1 and this service certainly doesn’t help. Andy suggests that a service like this could make more sense on LinkedIn (Premium click to call described above). I agree, but with LinkedIn in the middle. It could be a great alternative to the “InMail”, a service that LinkedIn charges for. I bet that also on LinkedIn most people would rise huge walls to protect their privacy and most calls would end to a voicemail.

Despite this, I can confirm that companies that use Facebook at its best, are getting calls from our Sitofono, so it all depends on how people use the service. I don’t think a click to call placed on a normal Facebook profile would be used too much, but the story is different if we talk about a company/brand that use their page for marketing and promotional purposes. And this could make the difference for 8×8 Connect, too.

In conclusion, I’ll keep looking at this space very closely and I look forward to seeing more and more people using services like that on Facebook, despite I think that most Facebook users will still use it in a different way and trying to take care of their privacy carefully. What do you think?

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Basics Of Vo Ip For Consumers (slideshare.net)

It is official, today FREETALK Connect has been announced and this is a date you should bookmark since a revolution starts today.

Thanks to FREETALK Connect, any small and medium business with up to 50 users, can add the power of Skype to their telephony system, bringing inbound and outbound Skype calling to any office phone. Jim Courtney, who is collaborating for In Store Solutions, the company behind Freetalk Connect, well summarizes the main features provided by this innovative appliance:

accepting inbound calls made via Skype, a Skype Online number, a SIP client, Asterisk (IAX2) or the PSTN, via either an analog line or a VoIP service provider.

• incorporating Find Me, Follow Me features

accept calls on local analog phone lines, local or remote VoIP phones, mobile phones anywhere or remote PSTN-accessed phones – all provisioned within the PBX.

placing outbound calls over Skype, SkypeOut, a SIP-connected VoIP service or an analog PSTN line.

managed voice mail including consolidation of voice mail and email into one mailbox

This innovative piece of hardware and software comes from the partnership between InStore Solutions, the company popular for providing high-quality audio devices for Skype (I reviewed one a few months ago and another one, the Freetalk Wireless headset, will be reviewewd soon) and Jazinga. From the today’s press release:

FREETALK and Jazinga collaborated in designing the FREETALK Connect, featuring a do-it-yourself (DIY) technology approach that can be configured in less than 15 minutes, enabling users who are not tech savvy to use it without formal training. This new class of DIY communications system allows anyone with basic knowledge of computers to install and maintain the office phone system.  SIP, Skype and traditional PSTN phones can be plugged into the network, and the FREETALK Connect auto-detects and configures them. An onscreen wizard guides the user through setup. Adding users and administering the system after install is equally simple.

I’m really looking forward to trying it out, I have a few ideas in mind that will definitely leverage the powerful engine inside this great device. If you want to get more technical details, follow Andrew Hansen on Twitter.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype Dialtone: 22 million online. (skypejournal.com)
• Skype at the Tipping Point? (fastforwardblog.com)
• Skype for iPhone Update Includes Landscape Mode, Still Lacks 3G Support (techstartups.com)

If you want to get a better idea of what “cloud telephony” is, or just want to start discovering what it could mean for your business, you can’t miss Cloud Communications Summit in Miami taking place on January 20-22.

Organized by pal Thomas Howe, better known as Mr Mashup, this summit wants to give you a clear background of what cloud telephony is and how it could become reality for your company. The speakers are the best you can find in this area, including Tom himself, Irv Shapiro, Jack Rynes, Dan York and more.

My experience in “cloud communications” is all about my company’s customer engagement service Sitofono. What makes Sitofono a great choice for companies who want to implement an effective solution for engaging potential customers on their website is that everything is in the cloud. Companies which want to activate it don’t need to install anything, don’t need to change their business processes, don’t need to disturb their IT manager. This is a big deal, both for us (shorter sales cycle) and for them who can get immediate value from the service.

I pasted the program of the summit down here, for your convenience. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it this time but I really miss Rich and friends. If you’ll be luckier than me, enjoy ITEXPO!

9:00 am
Introduction to Voice Mashups
Speaker: Jason Goecke, VP Innovation, Voxeo
An introduction to the concept and architecture of using voice as part of modern web-based applications. Concrete voice mashup examples will be demonstrated, along with the business cases that support them.

10:00 am
Communications Enabled Business Process Fundamentals
Speakers:
Jack Rynes, President, Jaduka
Patrick Murphy, VP Business Development North America, VoiceSage
Get a detailed overview into using communications technology to improve business processes, and learn the fundamental methods and techniques used to do so.

11:00 am
Vertical CEBP
Speakers:
Irv Shapiro, CEO, Ifbyphone
Patrick Murphy, VP Business Development North America, VoiceSage
Examine CEBP techniques for the financial, logistics, debt collection and health care fields.

12:00 pm
Cloud Telephony for the Enterprise
Speakers:
Troy Davis, CEO, Cloudvox
Dan York, Director of Emerging Communication Technology, Voxeo
Evan Cooke, Co-Founder and CTO, Twilio
Come discuss tradeoffs in deploying communications applications behind the firewall, with a hosted partner or through elastic mechanisms such as Amazon’s EC2.

1:45 pm
Unified Communications vs. CEBP: A lively debate?
Speakers:
Dan Miller, Senior Analyst, Opus Research
Don Van Doren, co-Founder and Principal, UniComm Consulting
Unified communications and CEBP stand in stark contrast. This session features a lively discussion between unified communications and CEBP experts, explaining the differences and similarities not obvious at the surface.

A few days ago I posted an article about VoIP as the “industry of the decade“, meaning that VoIP has been the industry with the highest growth in terms of cumulative revenues. 2008-2009 has also been an important period in terms of market consolidation. Ribbit has been acquired by British Telecom after a very short period of time since their inception and at the end of 2009 Jajah has been acquired by Telefonica O2, a very good way to close the year for my friends in Mountain View. Not to forget the GrandCentral – Google deal happened one year before, in 2007 and the Google – Gizmo deal happened at the end of 2009.

Image via CrunchBase

Image by hansdorsch via Flickr

Image via CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

All that said, there are a couple of players in the growing field of mobile VoIP/IM for which I think the time to seriously look for an exit has finally come. I’m talking about companies like Fring, Rebtel, Nimbuzz, Truphone, Palringo. It’s worth noting that Mobivox, another player in the mobile VoIP space, has been the first to be acquired a few months ago, offering to the buyer, Sabse Technologies, a strong intellectual property and a very powerful platform for voice recognition and navigation. The amount of the deal was undisclosed so I bet it hasn’t been as high as the one paid for Ribbit or, higher, for Jajah. And we can’t forget that Sabse is also the company behind the acquisition of Jaxtr (always in 2009), another innovative VoIP player.

Ok, let’s get back to the main subject of this post. All the companies mentioned above are well positioned to offer a very strong platform to a potential buyer, together with a very interesting user base (for some), despite they are not properly competing in the same market. Each of them has its own peculiar features and all of them are quite different from each other. Rebtel is much more than a mobile VoIP player while it doesn’t offer a real VoIP service (in the form of voice over 3G or Wifi straight from the mobile phone) while Palringo has focused its efforts on offering an integrated multi-platform mobile IM, very powerful and well designed. I don’t want to look into the details of the features offered by each one, but I want just to point out that all of them could potentially be under the radar of a potential buyer in 2010. Who could it be? Well, there are a couple of options, IMHO.

First, a pure landline operator. In this case the acquisition could offer them a way to quickly come out with a mobile offer, not dependent to the underlaying mobile operator. Second, a mobile/landline operator, offering an alternative way to create packages and offering a more enriched internet / IM experience to their customers. Third, a pure ISP, with the aim to create a new revenue stream and bundled DSL+ mob VoIP packages to their users. It’s pretty clear that these examples are quite “obvious” and there could be more sophisticated reasons behind a potential acquisition.

It’s also worth saying that the players mentioned above are not US-based at all, but European and Israeli. If we look at the previous most important acquisitions, we can see that EU operators are shopping more than US ones. BT and Telefonica O2 made very good moves by acquiring Ribbit and Jajah and I expect that another important move will come from a big player in EU. Not to forget that Skype is again a company potentially under the radar of a potential buyer and, as some people guess, it could be a big US operator.

In conclusion, I predict something important will happen in this field during 2010 and my guess is that it will happen very soon (Q1 or Q2). What do you think? Are we going to see one of the popular mobile VoIP players mentioned above going to be acquired? Will Google have a role, again?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nimbuzz Takes on Skype with New Calling Out Service (gigaom.com)
• On iPhone, Apple Still Not Allowing VoIP Calls over 3G (gigaom.com)
• Nimbuzz Comes to Android. Nice. (gigaom.com)

Going back to 1999 / 2000 when I was involved in the startup of a new VoIP company, Abbeynet, and the launch of an innovative (but not that lucky) VoIP service, Chocophone, I certainly coundn’t ever imagine that the VoIP industry was going to become the “industry of the decade“.

Yes, because it looks like VoIP has been named the industry of the decade thanks to the impressive accumulative revenue growth, according to a research made by IBISWorld. They identified the top 10 best / worst performing industries of the past 10 years and VoIP came out #1, with an astronomical distance from the #2, Search Engines.

What are the numbers? Well, according to the research, despite VoIP started accumulating revenues since 2002 only, it scored an impressive +179035.8% (!!!!), while Search Engines “just” a tiny 1655.9%.

According to this research, VoIP will continue to be #1 in the next decade, too, with a forecasted growth close to 150%.

I have to say that while I’m very impressed by the numbers, I’m not surprised by the results. Telecom Operators will continue to transform their networks into powerful VoIP infrastructures capable of delivering high-quality triple and quad play services and the latest moves by big telecom operators like BT (acquisition of Ribbit) and Telefonica O2 (possible acquisition of Jajah) can’t but confirm this trend. Last but not least, Google will play a very important role with Google Voice thanks to Gizmo, VoIP company acquired a few weeks ago, and I bet more and more old and new service providers will embrace VoIP as an additional service to be provided by default to their customers.

I can just say I’m very proud to be part of this big revolution and I wish my company could be able to contribute to that percentage more and more in the following years.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why BT Is Rethinking the Voice Business (gigaom.com)
• Google Acquires Gizmo5 VoIP Service; VoIP Coming to Google Voice? [VoIP] (lifehacker.com)
• BT’s Ribbit releasing Google Voice competitor (news.cnet.com)

A little bird dropped me a DM on Twitter pointing out a new feature added by VoIP service Rebtel today… and I immediately jumped to Rebtel’s website…

In a nutshell, they added Skype as one of the ways users can connect to each other through Rebtel. This basically means three new features:

1) Now you can choose Skype as the way to call your contacts. Activating this option from Rebtel’s “My Contacts” page will basically start a Skype call to the number assigned by Rebtel to your contact.

2) Now you can receive calls on your Skype. Rebtel will try to route an incoming call to your number to Skype first, then, if not available, the call will be routed to your preferred phone as usual.

3) If the contact you want to call has a Skype account, you can call there by using the local phone number Rebtel assigned to that contact with your regular phone.

I used Rebtel as my primary VoIP service to call my family and colleagues when I spent a lot of months in San Francisco. Now Rebtel added a new way to save even more money through their service, optimizing costs for the final user not only when on the go but also when available to talk from a computer.

What to say? Smart move.

I finally find some time to give you my take on the recent deal by Google and Gizmo5. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to read the news yet, Google acquired the San Diego based VoIP company Gizmo5 for 30 Millions $.

What does it mean for the big G and for the whole VoIP space? Well, Gizmo5 has demonstrated to be the best SIP-based VoIP service out there, letting users make VoIP calls from their PC, IP phones, mobile phones and other devices like, for example, the Nokia N800, offering inbound numbers and offering a service that let users make VoIP calls to Skype users, too.

Last but not least, Gizmo5 was integrated into Google Voice, something that let you do very interesting experiments like the one described in a (very popular) post I wrote many months ago, that is how to make calls from Google Voice to Skype.

Ok, but why was Gizmo5 integrated into Google Voice? I would like to point out that thanks to this integration I could get Google Voice connected to my desktop IP Phone in Italy, something otherwise impossible since I don’t live in US. In other words, the integration of Gizmo5 into Google Voice was, to me, a very important feature that could definitely make the difference.

Now, let’s go back in time when Google Voice didn’t exist yet. For those who forgot it or never knew about it, Google Voice was built around GrandCentral (acquired by Google more than two years ago), the company that offered “one number for life” and was created by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, now Product Managers at Google Voice. GrandCentral could also benefit from pal Andy “VoIP & Wine” Abramson’s support and consultancy, the person who actually recommended the integration between Gizmo and GrandCentral.

All that said, how much do you think the fact Gizmo5 was integrated into Google Voice counted for this successful deal? In my opinion, a lot.

What I’m trying to say here is that smart guys like Andy, Craig, Vincent and, last but not least, Michael Robertson (the man behind Gizmo5) made the first step towards this deal a few years ago or, let’s put it another way, were creating the foundations of what could potentially become the main disruption in the VoIP space of the past fifteen years. Impressive, right?

Hats off to these guys and congratulations to everyone involved. Take a look at this interesting article by Wired for more interesting comments by Andy Abramson about the deal.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google buys Gizmo5 for Google Voice (news.cnet.com)
• Google makes Gizmo5 acquisition official, drops few details (engadget.com)
• It’s official, Google buys Gizmo5 to provide PC to phone calls (downloadsquad.com)

A few months ago I wrote about Phweet, a service that promised to give voice to Twitter. Today, I received an email by my friend Frederik Hermann at Jajah informing that Jajah is launching a new service, called Jajah@Call, that lets Twitter users easily call each other through Twitter.

The usage is very easy: just send a tweet in the form “@call @user” and a call will be made to @user through Jajah. The service is currently available to a restricted number of Jajah users (it must be activated through Jajah user area) and it is free (up to 2 hours and US numbers only). The cool thing is that you don’t need to know @user’s phone number neither to reveal yours (I want to call a person, a name, not a number, it makes a lot of sense). Here is a video that shows how it works.

While the service is definitely very well designed and the user experience is very easy (much easier than Phweet, actually, since it relies on a widely adopted service/platform), I have doubts it can drive a significant percentage of new users / minutes to Jajah’s service. In my opinion, it is a matter of “communication sets” and in this case these sets don’t overlap (or just slightly). Let me explain.

The number of people we call or we are willing to call every day is usually very well defined:

1. friends

2. co-workers

3. family

4. people we do business with

In general, during a working day, 2 and 4 and the kind of people we deal with the most i.e. people we usually talk to by  phone most of the time.

When we use Twitter, there could be users who belong to the categories above whom we  interact with, but usually there is a fifth category that is

.5 twitter users we enjoy chatting with

There are a number of Twitter users I exchange messages with and whom I enjoy “twittering” with. Do I ever need to talk to them by phone? Will I ever need to call @sageeb, @jebbrilliant, @elliottucker, @larrylisser or @tek, just to name a few Twitter users I chatted with today? Changing communication mean is usually a painful process since “tweets” and “phone calls” belong to different contexts. I can tweet while working, a tweet doesn’t take much time and it is asynchronous, while a phone call needs time, concentration, it is synchronous and I usually make phone calls only if I really need them, otherwise I prefer using short messages or email. Last but not least, I don’t exchange tweets with 95+% of people who are involved with phone calls with me.

An example? Would I ever use @call to call a co-worker? Why should I? Clicking the quick-dialing button on my desktop/mobile phone is much easier. What about a person I do business with? Never.

Ok, that’s me, not the market. But it would be very important for Jajah to perform a detailed marketing research to try to figure out what kind of Twitter users this service is targeted to. It would be a big problem to end up realizing that the target market of a service like this overlaps with Twitter user base just a bit.

That being said, Henry Ford used to say that asking what their customer wanted was useless since they would have said “a faster horse”. So praises to friends at Jajah who are adding a very innovative service to their portfolio of web-activated telephony services. Then, only time (and users) will determine whether this service will be successful or not, in the meantime take a look at Stuart Henshall’s post on Jajah@Call vs Pwheet.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Phone calling coming to Twitter (textually.org)
• Call me on Twitter with Jajah’s @call (patphelan.net)
• Phone Calls Come to Twitter. (thenextweb.com)
• Phone calling coming to Twitter (cnn.com)
• Make Phone Calls on Twitter With @Call (mashable.com)

A few weeks ago I received a new FreeTalk Everyman headset that promises to deliver a crystal clear audio quality  for just $22.88. Yes, I’m not wrong, I wrote $22.88 only.

This new headset is optimized for the new SILK Audio Codec provided by Skype that delivers a very high quality by sampling voice not at the standard 8Khz (PSTN voice badwidth is around 3.4Khz) but using a 12Khz bandwidth for voice (that is 24Khz sampling rate…), the so-called HD voice.

By using a higher bandwidth human ear can percieve a much higher quality and the SILK codec makes sure that noise is taken away (a higher bandwidth means more noise).

All that said, this new headset lets you take advantage of the quality delivered by the codec mentioned above at a very cheap price. Moreover, thanks to a USB dongle, I also solved a big problem I had, that is my Macbook’s microphone jack is broken You can also unplug a standard 3.5″ stereo jack out of the USB dongle in order to use the FreeTalk Everymen on any MP3 player.

Last but not least, the package is pretty unique since it is eco-friendly. Wow!

In conclusion, a very good deal for anyone shopping for a new headset. I tried lots of great headsets in the past 10 years but I can assure you this is the one with the best balance between price and quality. Thanks to Jim Courtney for adding me to the list of bloggers who had the pleasure to test this out.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Which Headset Works Best For Skype On A Mac? (mneylon.com)
• HD Voice: Blowing Past the Limits of Yesterday (pulverblog.pulver.com)
• Skype Unveils Its Very Own Headset (thenextweb.com)
• SquawkBox August 13 – FREETALK Everyman (saunderslog.com)