At least someone had the smarts to put a place together for them to share the good times. Lots of good people looking for a new home.

Technorati Tags: Earthlink

Filed by Ken at 5:43 pm under Technology
No Comments

The other day I wrote Hey Yahoo - Knock, knock. Is anyone home? And my friend Stuart responded again with comments and thoughts of his own about the larger picture of PR and how business organizations use the current suite of Internet tools.

This morning I got an email note from Christine Mohan at Dow Jones pointing me to Kara Swisher’s piece on AllThingsD.com, a news site Kara and Walt Mossberg launched in May. Kara brings further validation to the observations Stuart and I made.

Yahoo No-Sacred-Cow Vision Quest, Day 43: The Reorganization?

Is Yahoo headed for yet another corporate reorganization?

As many of these as the Internet giant has had over the last year, another could not come soon enough.

Yahoo ranks are clearly becoming more restless and increasingly attracted to potentially greener and less volatile pastures, as its co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang toils away on a 100-day, top-to-bottom contemplation of the business he had promised investors he would undertake on July 17.

Sources at the company, including many jumpy employees who have been thinking about leaving, say there will be massive management and division changes soon.
[Read full story]

Kara has depth of resources into Yahoo that I just don’t have. I know some people there, but most of my speculation about trouble is simply what I perceive from the outward signs. But at the heart of things, she nails down the same view that I have - “a worrisome trend for the struggling company.“

Yahoo, former darling of the Internet is a struggling company. Beyond that, a company in crisis. It’s becoming more apparent every day to those of us who watch. Yahoo is floundering badly and needs guidance and leadership. And they need it quickly.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, company in crisis, Kara Swisher

Filed by Ken at 6:41 am under Technology
No Comments

Ok, first, I don’t really like the word mashup. It’s too unpolished and raw for what happens in many cases. It lacks elegance. On the other hand, it gives a graphic visualization of what occurs when things collide.

When smart friends collaborate and mashup their efforts, I pay attention. Tickling the fringes of my radar some something Stuart Henshall and Dina Mehta are working on. When it comes to smart people…people who really grasp a grand and global vision, they’re a couple of the smartest people I’ve ever know. They’re the kind of people we all hope we get to work with on some project at some point.

I’ve know they knew each other for quite some time, but have no idea how long they’ve been doing this together. Maybe I’m just slow to catch on. It’s clearly been around for a while. That they started doing this in 2005 speaks to their foresight and vision.

 

Mosoci provides the research, tools and connections that lead to more innovative communities. We help you think upstream, accelerate learning and gain unique insights that create new products, services and markets.

We help companies big and small, global and local hold effective conversations about change. We love consumer products; new media, communications (VoIP, mobile) and technology. We are deeply engaged in Web 2.0 initiatives which are creating revolutionary new best practices for relating to you and me as users, customers and brand communities.

We are passionate about our work, our expressions and our views and in particular the emerging mobile social world. We are neither generalists or experts; rather we are synthesizers. We know all of us are better than any one of us; our approach is collective and collaborative.

We bring together a remarkable community of early adopters and sage advisors, all with a ruthless curiosity about the future. We have a deep knowledge of mobility, social media, product definition, and their underlying technologies.

Stuart Henshall and Dina Mehta set up Mosoci in 2005 after collaborating virtually through blogs, social media and tools from 2003. Our experience and services cover the globe with leading companies each seeking a strategic edge. Each engagement is customized to context and may run from days to months depending on your needs.

Technorati Tags: Dina Mehta, Stuart Henshall, mosoci

Filed by Ken at 11:55 am under Technology
8 Comments

It must be a really slow day at The Register. Making news about two non-newsworthy companies jockeying for the most ignominious flameout failure in telecom history is funny, but not exciting.

Vonage attacked by defunct rival

A flare-up from SunRocket

It’s a bit like fending off a house fly while you’re locked in mortal combat with Godzilla.

As it continues to battle a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit from telecom behemoth Verizon, VoIP pioneer Vonage is now facing a suit from the remains of SunRocket, the Virginia company that recently shut down its internet-based telephone service.
[Read the the story on The Register]

Technorati Tags: Vonage, SunRocket, failure

Filed by Ken at 9:41 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
No Comments

This might be more aptly title an open letter to Jerry Yang at Yahoo.

A little over a month ago, my friend and colleague Stuart Henshall posted Yahoo 100 Days and….? He said -

Yahoo 100 Days and….?
100 Day plans always worry me. It’s like a signal that McKinsey or BCG is coming in. Then they will magically have the answer in one hundred days. What ails Yahoo is simple. Their Ad model is obsolete. So in one hundred days can Yahoo figure out how to put the ad model into the hands of you and me. Solve that and open up on Identity and you have a revolution. Do it right and it changes the rules for Google. Take it further and we can have some control over what is searched and on the expiry of data.
[Read Stuart’s full post]

I’m also going to use the same CNET news story quote here that Stuart used -

Still no cure for what ails Yahoo | CNET News.com
On a conference call with analysts after the earnings report, Chief Executive Jerry Yang said he would “spend the next 100 days or so mapping out a strategic plan” and conduct a “top to bottom review of our business.” “I have a great sense of urgency to move fast and in a focused way,” Yang said. He promised there would be “no sacred cows” and talked about three key topics: insight, openness and partnering. Specifically, the company will de-emphasize underperforming products and “set a new bar for the Yahoo culture” by “prioritizing teamwork, leadership and a desire to win.”
[Read the whole CNET News story]

Stuart is ever the voice of reason. And he generally thinks three to four steps (or more) ahead of me. He’s reasoned and thoughtful when he writes, whereas I often shoot from the hip.

Stuart’s observation on Day Two of the 100 Days Jerry Yang announced was his hope for at least 5 radical items.

If you read here at all, you know I restrained myself from jumping in. I’ve not been silent about Yahoo ever. The CNET article called Yahoo a sinking ship, and form an outsider’s perspective, it’s going down fast.

In recent conversations with other blogging colleagues, one thing that’s been astounding is that Yahoo has gone what we’ve begun to call radio silent. Like a ship lost at sea, they are off the radar, status unknown.

Well Jerry, your 100 days are 1/3 gone and many of us are wondering just what the heck is going on at Yahoo. And when we’ll hear from you again. You have some of the brightest minds on the planet working there. Sharp, energetic, creative people who not only understand Yahoo’s business. They understand Internet business. They’re engaged in other places and have their fingers on the pulse of what’s going on out here.

I hope while you’re radio silent you’re talking with and listening to people like Jeff Bonforte and Daniel Raffel and not just talking in an echo chamber. If you’re staring into the abyss with a deer in the headlights look, please don’t let the great people at Yahoo all ride that train until it derails. I hope you aren’t doing all the talking and failing to listen to the people who made Yahoo what it was. Because it can be again, but not if you fail to act.

One hundred days on the Internet is like ten years in business a couple of decades ago. You’re letting everyone else surge forward without you, while you sit there quietly in the corner, giving the appearance of doing nothing. That’s not a good sign. You generously gave yourself a hundred days, but I have to tell you, on the Internet, you’re only as good as what you did yesterday, maybe what you did this morning. And right now, you and Yahoo aren’t doing anything but losing ground and falling behind.

Like I said, Stuart’s a thoughtful and reasonable guy. My and my six gun from the hip are more curious just what the heck is wrong with Yahoo. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Jerry Yang, Jeff Bonforte, Daniel Raffel, bright minds, sinking ship

Filed by Ken at 4:45 pm under Technology
No Comments

Ok, so I haven’t been involved at all in Chris Brogan’s Grasshopper’s group. I was briefly before he moved it from Facebook to Ning. it’s an interesting concept, and I hope it goes well. I watch and it seems to be starting off well. For me the naming is a bit reminiscent of the old “frogs in a wheelbarrow” analogy in a way. I also felt like I didn’t really fit in with the gang congregating there. Different interests, focus points and networks. Still, my interest in social networking and how we all work together leads me to peek in every now and again.

Today I’m compelled to ask why Google has it in for Chris and his efforts. Ok, please note tongue firmly in cheek there. And I know Chris will take this all in the good fun that’s intended, but here’s the top Google ad that comes up for me:

This doesn’t really say anything about Chris and his great work. It surely does demonstrate what a broken concept Google’s ads are. That search engine just isn’t as perfect as they would have us believe.

Technorati Tags: Grasshoppers, Chris Brogan, Google

Filed by Ken at 6:55 pm under Technology
2 Comments

First, happy birthday to my friend Shel Israel, one of the nicest guys I know.
Shel posted 6 Observations on my 63rd birthday, and I think these are so important, so valuable, that I wanted to add my own thoughts to Shel’s points. He said six points then listed nine. Some triggered some quick thoughts I want to share.

Stay curious - Or in the words of an old psychology professor of mine be awake. There’s an innate curiousity and awareness in all of us, but we too easily suppress it and focus on less important things that we allow to become more important. An inquisitive, childlike curiousity about everything is perhaps the most powerful tool we possess.

The 10% factor - This is much like a project where 10% of the progress can require 90% of the effort. 10% of the world who are assholes can suck the life out of us if we let them. They are our cross to bear, but we can’t let them ever take the forefront in our daily lives, our conversations, or our thinking.

Life is a limited time only deal - Shel said it best…choose wisely. But I think we also need accept that we’re human. We screw up and make mistakes. We need to get over them more easily that we often do and move on. Tedium is our enemy. Carpe diem should be our daily motto (and carpe noctum at the end of the day. It reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. We cannot simply seize the day. We need to grab it by the neck and throttle it.

Disruption is more interesting that incumbency - Change is inevitable. Change is the only constant. Life is change. Incumbent technologies are boring. Incumbent businesses are boring. Incumbent politicians are boring. Boredom leads to a death spiral of apathy. Be a disruptor.

Be useful and generous - Reminds me of a quote from Rex Hudler - “Be a fountain, not a drain.” We need to add value.

Exercise is medicine - And the older we get the more we need to take our medicine. We get one body, and in the end, how we take care of it largely determines how it will take care of us.

Technorati Tags: Shel Israel

Filed by Ken at 5:12 pm under General
3 Comments

Today my pal Andy Abramson posted this

Leading From the Back

Ironically, I started on this post on Saturday, but being my wife’s birthday weekend, I left this sit. It seems Om was thinking along the same line and penned his piece which I hear has a lot of the hedge fund types and Wall Street sharpies questioning eBay the same way in their minds.

When problems arise you can judge a company by who is out in front.
[Read Andys full post]

For me the analogy goes a bit farther. Andy cites how Craig and Vincent at Grand Central stepped out openly and honestly. Craig demonstrated leading like a lion in his open post.

The leadership we’ve seen from Skype (and eBay) has been quite different. You can read Andy’s description. It’s right on the mark. Skype leadership has been like ostriches, sticking their head in the sand and letting the minions be the visible ones taking the flack.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Skype has really fumbled an opportunity to prove they’re the brash lions they once were. They’re trapped in their own world, listening to their own voice in the echo chamber.

It’s clear to me that the Google purchase hasn’t changed Craig Walker. He’s still learding like a lion. Has Niklas Zennstrom (and by extension Meg Whitman and Henry Gomez) had that brash lion-like leadership crushed?

Sure Skype survived and came back, but I’m frankly more unimpressed than ever with how they conducted themselves through this outage.

Technorati Tags: Skype, GrandCentral, lions, ostriches

Filed by Ken at 5:10 pm under General
No Comments

Filed by Ken at 4:05 pm under General
No Comments

Looking good at 100 years old.

Technorati Tags: Seattle, Pike Market

Filed by Ken at 5:02 pm under General
4 Comments

I take some personal pride in this bit of news.

Jaiku brings conversations to mobile - Our new S60 client is now available for download

August 17th, 2007

You’ve heard us talking about it, possibly even had one of our lovely beta testers telling you how great it’s going to be; now it’s out in the wild, and ready for you to download.

The main push of this release is to let you bring the rich conversation you’ve been enjoying on our website with you out into the world on your S60 mobile, and man, has it done that. Our beta users have been saying things like “I almost never bother with the website these days” (but don’t tell our web-dev team that) and “One of the most polished S60 apps I’ve seen.”.

Personal because the fabulous folks at Jaiku allowed me to be the first to display and talk about this new beta some time ago in part 1, part 2, part 3

And I’d like to thank them for listening when I really pushed. I’d like to think I helped them really see the value in bringing bloggers into their early beta. And I’m looking forward to their continued success.

Technorati Tags: Jaiku, Symbian, mobility

Filed by Ken at 2:57 pm under Mobility & Handheld, Portable Pleasures - PDA/Smartphones
1 Comment

Ok, there isn’t a lot of precedent here. I can think of one major telecommunications interruption in my liftetime - The Hinsdale fire on Mother’s Day in 1998. A fire caused a catastrophic outage in an Illinois Bell central office that took the phone service out in a large degree. Obviously local service was disrupted, but the building was a vital hub for long distance services as well.

More recently, there was a huge power outage in the mideast that took a lot of things out of service, but notably not the telecom systems or the Internet. They both routed calls around the problem area without much of a hitch.

I’m not alone in my observations over the past year that Skype has been turning into a telco. So what happens when a telco goes dark?

Here’s the news as of this moment on Skype -

UPDATED 16 August, 2007 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging in to Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience. Latest updates

So if your telco or wireless carrier say Verizon, Qwest, T-Mobile. AT&T, went dark for no explanation other than the preceding, what would you do?

Sadly the hardest hit are most likely the third party businesses that leverage Skype as a key part of their business. But it begs a telling question for people who like the calls for free aspect of Skype. How do you feel now that you’re getting your money’s worth?

I for one, am pretty unimpressed by the quality of information. I’ll be blunt. “it’s a software issue” can’t mean too many things. It can me we failed to patch for a vulnerability and a malicious exploit bit us. It can mean that proper quality controls weren’t in place and something was deployed prematurely, without adequate testing. It can mean reliance on an operating system that failed in some way.

No matter how you slice it, “a software issue” clearly means someone, somewhere failed to provide due dilegence. There is no way around that.

It does give pause to think about service sustainability and survivability.

Technorati Tags: Skype, service outage

Filed by Ken at 1:45 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
2 Comments

We’ve been working behind the scenes at the Realtime Unified Communications Community with NetIQ in preparing a series of four webinars.

In this series, I’ll be talking about some of the challenges of moving from the planning stages of VoIP deployment into the operational phase. Each brief talk will be followed with live product demonstrations by NetIQ showing their comprehensive suite of solutions.

The first episode of this four-part series will take place live on the web on Wednesday, August 29th, so you have plenty of time to sign up and come join us. I hope to see you there.

Ken

Ready. Set. VoIP.
The VoIP life cycle from Pilot to Production

In the “Ready.Set.VoIP.” web seminar series, Ken Camp, noted author of IP Telephony Demystified, and Mark Slavens, NetIQ Corporate SE for VoIP solutions, will take you through management of the VoIP life cycle—from network assessment, pre-deployment and ongoing monitoring to reporting and future expansion plans.

In part one of the series, Ken and Mark will focus on network readiness assessments and how taking stock of your resources will help you:

• Know your potential VoIP capabilities by provide a network inventory
• Warn you of potential shortfalls and measures to upgrade your network
• Set quality expectations for the network currently in place
• Avoid project paralysis before the pilot program begins

Too often organizations deploy VoIP without fully knowing the impact of converging voice and data traffic on a shared network. Don’t be left with dissatisfied users and system downtime. Whether you have already deployed or are just considering an implementation, listen to find out how a VoIP network assessment can benefit your enterprise environment.

* Register Now

Technorati Tags: NetIQ, webinar, live events, partical pointers, Ken Camp

Filed by Ken at 9:53 am under Unified Communications
No Comments

Owen Linderholm is one of the most widely respected folks in the tech sector. I’ve only met Owen once, at the O’Reilly ETel conference last March. We’ve not traded a lot of email or ever spoken about anything of substance. But his work at tippit reaches far and wide. If you’ve ever read VoIP-News, DailyWireless, Dailyiptv, ITSecurity or ITManagement, you’ve seen representative work.

Recently Owen gave me the great honor of asking me to join in a webinar presentation as part of the ITManagement efforts. I couldn’t be more pleased. I hope you will all check the headline link below and come join us on August 23rd at 1PM Pacific time.

Webinar - Network Tsunami: The Coming Wave of Video, Audio and Rich Media that will Wash Away your Corporate Network in 2008

The latest generation of highly interactive applications and rich consumer content is already causing problems for corporate networks. Video blogs (vlogs), hosted business applications, YouTube, ever-larger presentations attached to emails and videoconferencing are starting to clog up corporate IP networks designed for simple data exchange. This will only get worse as rich media become part of more business communications.

Join ITManagement.com and Nortel Networks on August 23, 2007 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET as networking technology experts Ken Camp and Dan DeBacker share their knowledge of rich media and their effects on corporate networks, including strategies for avoiding catastrophe. They will address major – but manageable – risks that enterprises will encounter with the newest generation of media-enhanced applications. Sign up today for this exclusive webinar.

Technorati Tags: unified communications, video, Ken Camp, webinar, Owen Linderholm, ITManagement.com

Filed by Ken at 2:42 pm under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
No Comments

I recently killed off a tag meme that hit me because I just don’t really care for those tagging games. Instead, I want to point you to two blogs I discovered as a result of an earlier tag meme. Both are ones I added to my regular reading and now watch closely. And what follows is from the “about” pages from the two blogs.

Conversationware
Unifying Communication
My name is Matt Lambert, I’ve been spouting on about unified communications software for about 12 years.

I’m interested in the convergence of communications applications for business and their users.

With a background in unified messaging, I hope that I have at least some perspective on the unifying of communication modes, and it would be good to contribute to any discussions I can find. There are so many new developments lately, by some very clever companies, so material shouldn’t be far away.

I work for a U.C company based in Winchester U.K, but this is very much a personal project, which means I should be able to say what I like.

Having said that, in full disclosure I market best of breed solutions including AVST CallXpress, Captaris Rightfax, Avanquest TMS, Alcatel My Teamwork and so may be somewhat biased, in spite of best efforts.

I’ve been reading Matt’s writing for quite a while now. He brings a real voice of reason to the Net and presents soem very well-balanced, and well-founded observations.

Gokul Blog — A conversation on VoIP, IMS, Cisco and Just about Anything
Gokul is a VoIP/IMS professional and has been in this field for the last seven years.  He has worked in couple of startups EdgeAccess Inc in Florida,USA and Nexge Technologies,IIT Chennai, India. In between these assignments, he was working with HCL-Cisco for couple of years. He hopes to run his own company someday. Gokul has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering majoring in Telecommunication from University of South Florida,Tampa.

He is currently working in Chennai(India) as a Technical Specialist.

Gokul writes in other places, but this is, for me, a new place to pick up some great insights.

Just a couple of pointers to places I find interesting that I think you might like too.

Technorati Tags: VoIP, unified communications

Filed by Ken at 5:48 pm under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
2 Comments

Ok, it has to stop somewhere. I’m not really keen on the tag games that have no point and fly around. I know they’re lots of fun for lots of people, but most of the time, they just don’t interest me. My good friend Peter tagged me below and I do always respond to my friends as best I can.

Tagged by Andy! Ken, Benjamin, Dameon, and Jon — You Are Now IT!

Jeff Pulver’s second iteration of blog tag is on! — I was just tagged by uber-blogger Andy Abramson — who was tagged by Alec Saunders initially.

Okay, Ken Camp, Benjamin Higginbotham, Dameon Welch-Abernathy (PhoneBoy), and Jon Arnold — you are now officially IT!

I’m afraid that tags, our precious Internet resource are become an endangered species. So to save this global treasure, I’m killing this branch of the tag madness family tree here by not spreading this any further.

Technorati Tags: stop the tag madness

Filed by Ken at 8:47 pm under General
2 Comments

I know I’ve shared this before, but this week I’ve been subjected to a plethora of charts and graphs again. It’s so easy to distill them all into one, that I’ve done so in an effort to simplify presentations for those of you who build them.

Here is, quite simply, the graph of everything. You need no other graphs.

Technorati Tags: graph of everythin

Filed by Ken at 4:52 am under General
No Comments

TMCNet’s fabulous Internet Telephony Expo takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from September 10th - 12th. I’ll be moderating two panel discussions, but I will be on site for most of the conference. I arrive on Sunday September 9th and will be free that evening for dinner or meetings before the show gets started. I’ll probably have to head out by 11am on the 12th to catch my flight home.

For all the tech companies and folks I’ve met with or talked about meeting with, now’s the time to start scheduling our briefings. Last year I did 17 briefings whie at the Expo. This year I can’t do nearly as many, but I do want to chat with as many folks as possible, whether it’s in the exhibit hall, in the hallways, over coffee or as a scheduled meeting.

Drop me a line if you’re going to be there so we can make sure we’ve got the chance to talk.

Technorati Tags: ITExpo, Internet Telephony Expo

Filed by Ken at 9:03 pm under Unified Communications
No Comments

Yesterday I posted Browsers and potential danger mentioning a talk by Dan Kaminsky. Dan graciously stopped by to let me know his slides are now online at his Doxpara Research site. His site is always a great resource and you can get directly to his slides for Black Ops 2007: Design Reviewing The Web.

Technorati Tags: InfoSec, Dan Kaminsky, DNS rebinding, Black Hat, browser vulnerability

Filed by Ken at 2:53 pm under InfoSec, Information Security
1 Comment

I was one of the very early Twitter adopters, but over time I drifted to Jaiku for many reasons. But I’ve never completely abandoned Twitter. I’ve simply been a very casual user.

Realizing that I still have many friends who don’t use Jaiku and hang out solely on Twitter, I’ve been trying, really trying to use it more the past week. I’ve noticed two things.

First, you really can’t ever go back home again. I don’t feel the spirit of camraderie and fun I once felt there. Even longtime Twitterfriends seem detached and not really responsive in many cases. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I don’t feel at home there, like I did for so long.

The other struggle I have is the welcome screen. I’ve gotten this welcome more times that I can remember in the past week.

So what’s up that you guys can’t manage network traffic designs for a service like this? You’ve been at at long enough one would think you could keep the stuff running. And none of these new features you’ve been tweaking for a year ever seem to really show up or make things better.

I want to still like Twitter. I want to still use Twitter. I want to.

Technorati Tags: Twitter

Filed by Ken at 9:17 am under Technology
No Comments