IP Communications and Beyond

Apparently bucking the current trend of "downsized" conference attendance, Ingate's workshop on the first day of the Internet Telephony Expo in Miami Beach is packed with an overflow crowd.

While this is a clear signal that SIP trunking is still a red hot IP communications topic, it is also a very promising indicator of heathy attendance at the show in general.

According to Mike Genaro, TMC's VP of Marketing, pre-registration is up 35% from last year's event, and it appears that many are actually showing up.

I'll be blogging regularly from the show and will keep you apprised of as many major developments as possible.

I'm onboard my American Airlines flight heading down to Miami for the upcoming Internet Telephony show - with a day of much needed R&R before it starts - and I'm testing the new Gogo inflight wifi service for the first time.

At a cost of $12.95, I can surf the Web, send emails, and enjoy all the great apps I've loaded on my iPod Touch - a device that is quickly becoming my Internet appliance of choice - and which I'm using to write and post this blog entry. Typing is a bit slow on the Touch's miniscule keypad, but the cool factor outweighs any frustration at this point.

I was curious whether gogo blocked VoIP calls, and to my delight I discovered that the fring app worked like a charm, enabling me to access my Skype account to send text chats - and once I receive the new Apple earbuds I ordered with an integrated mic - make VoIP calls. Sweet!

So far, the wifi service is extremely stable and fast, and I wish gogo huge success. Inflight Internet has been a long time coming, and I for one am ecstatic that it has finally arrived.

While I hate to beat a dead horse, so to speak, I've just become privy to some disturbing news regarding persistent confusion regarding the state of the Fall VON.x trade show.

As many of you may be aware, several weeks back a bunch of reports made their way around the blogosphere that many registered attendees of the canceled VON Europe event were unaware of the cancellation and made long treks to the venue in Amsterdam, only to find an empty building. Apparently no attempt was made to alert attendees to the cancellation -- something I found quite disturbing and painful to hear.

Now, word is that a number of exhibitors who had signed (and probably paid) up for a booth at the Fall VON.x trade show that had been scheduled for October 27-30 in Boston are under the impression that because the show website is still up and exhibitors are still listed, the show is going on as planned. It's fairly clear that no one is home and tending to the website, as the information listed is old and dates back to before Pulvermedia was closed down.

Likewise, the deafening silence from the responsible parties also doesn't do anything to dispel the persistent confusion and expectation that VON.x is on as planned. I'm not sure what else to do besides this blog post to let people know that the show is off, but perhaps a few poor souls who are still unaware of the demise of Pulvermedia and who read this will be saved some needless pain and suffering.

Every now and then, one of the benefits I like to convey to readers of my blog is an advance peek at some important development or industry-related news of which I'm privy due to my various connections and relationships.

Here's a bunch of such news items -- all related to the goings on at the SIP Forum -- (and in the interest of Full Disclosure you should remember that I'm the President and Managing Director of same.)

The Forum will be issuing a number of announcements in the coming weeks, but because you're reading this, you're getting a nice advance notice on them.

First, the SIP Forum's membership has enjoyed a major surge in membership (both in dues- paying corporate Full Members and free individual "Participant" members) over the last few months. When I first joined the organization in late 2007, the Forum had 25 Full Member companies. Now, the count is up to 46. Check out the current Full Member list here.

The Forum has also experienced a doubling of general membership, which now hovers around 5,000 people from all around the world.


One of the main reasons for this growth is the expanding support and momentum behind the Forum's SIP trunking initiative called SIPconnect, which provides an industry-approved set of rules and guidelines for accomplishing trouble-free direct IP peering between SIP-enabled IP-PBXs and SIP-enabled VoIP service providers, and the growing realization within the industry that achieving interoperability is key to sustained and long-term growth. Here's a link to an analyst whitepaper I authored about SIPconnect.

Other Notable SIP Forum News includes:

Microsoft has Joined the SIP Forum and has committed to actively contributing to the SIPConnect work. Yes, the big gun from Redmond has formally joined the SIP Forum as a Full Member company, and has released, for general distribution, their view of how SIPconnect could be constructed for the upcoming version 1.1 of the specification. This is based on their own extensive experience with their OCS product and extensive discussions with Enterprises and Service Providers.

The SIP Forum has created a depository of SIPconnect 1.1 Scoping Documents, which currently includes the Microsoft document mentioned above, and will be the location of other member contributions as they are made available.

CableLabs -- the joint industry standards body of the North American Cable operators -- has also joined the SIP Forum as a Full Member and CableLabs and its member companies are also committed to contributing to the SIPconnect 1.1 effort.

Broadsoft is also contributing extensive documentation related to their SIP trunking experience, and has agreed to make available their extensive documentation of experience with SIP trunking and the current implementation of SIPconnect 1.0.

The blogosphere was certainly dealt a blow this past March with the death of prolific writer and blogger Russell Shaw. I didn't know Russell personally, but felt that I knew him through his writings, as did many of his readers. It is indeed a rare talent to be able to reach out and touch another person through the written word.

Recently, I caught up with the emails in my inbox and other required reading (I've been a traveling dervish for the past several weeks and likewise apologize for my dearth of blog postings in the interim), and a recent New York Times article by Matt Richtel caught my eye. In his article, "In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop," he relates the damage caused by the relentless urge by bloggers to "scoop" and be the first to cross the digital finish line.

This article got me thinking that it's not too farfetched that health insurance companies might just start lumping blogging with other high-risk occupations, such as timber loggers, ice truck drivers, and bomb squads -- and raise premiums accordingly.

I've run the full article below for your perusal -- it's definitely worth reading...

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO - ­ They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece ­ not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves ­ and are being well-compensated for it.

"I haven't died yet," said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. "At some point, I'll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen."

"This is not sustainable," he said.

It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands.

The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.

Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.

Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work.

There are growing legions of online chroniclers, reporting on and reflecting about sports, politics, business, celebrities and every other conceivable niche. Some write for fun, but thousands write for Web publishers ­ as employees or as contractors ­ or have started their own online media outlets with profit in mind.

One of the most competitive categories is blogs about technology developments and news. They are in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products and expose corporate gaffes.

To the victor go the ego points, and, potentially, the advertising. Bloggers for such sites are often paid for each post, though some are paid based on how many people read their material. They build that audience through scoops or volume or both.

Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.

Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month.

Speed can be of the essence. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else?s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

"There's no time ever ­ including when you?re sleeping ­ when you're not worried about missing a story," Mr. Arrington said.

"Wouldn't it be great if we said no blogger or journalist could write a story between 8 p.m. Pacific time and dawn? Then we could all take a break," he added. "But that's never going to happen."

All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for clicks for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets. Mr. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.

He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled ­ by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.

But make no mistake: Mr. Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.

"The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write ­ that's kind of cool," he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, "I just want to lie down."

Sometimes he does rest, inadvertently, falling asleep at the computer.

"If I don't hear from him, I'll think: Matt's passed out again," said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo. "It's happened four or five times."

Mr. Lam, who as a manager has a substantially larger income, works even harder. He is known to pull all-nighters at his own home office in San Francisco ­ hours spent trying to keep his site organized and competitive. He said he was well equipped for the torture; he used to be a Thai-style boxer.

"I've got a background getting punched in the face," he said. "That's why I'm good at this job."

Mr. Lam said he has worried his blogging staff might be burning out, and he urges them to take breaks, even vacations. But he said they face tremendous pressure ­ external, internal and financial. He said the evolution of the ?pay-per-click? economy has put the emphasis on reader traffic and financial return, not journalism.

In the case of Mr. Shaw, it is not clear what role stress played in his death. Ellen Green, who had been dating him for 13 months, said the pressure, though self-imposed, was severe. She said she and Mr. Shaw had been talking a lot about how he could create a healthier lifestyle, particularly after the death of his friend, Mr. Orchant.

"The blogger community is looking at this and saying: 'Oh no, it happened so fast to two really vital people in the field,' " she said. They are wondering, "What does that have to do with me?"

For his part, Mr. Shaw did not die at his desk. He died in a hotel in San Jose, Calif., where he had flown to cover a technology conference. He had written a last e-mail dispatch to his editor at ZDNet: "Have come down with something. Resting now posts to resume later today or tomorrow."

Well, I'm not the first to go "live" with news about PulverMedia this time, and frankly I'm perfectly aok with that :)

The other day, I saw a blog post with the title:

"Jeff Pulver Resigns from PulverMedia Board of Directors"

Today, I saw the following notice appear when surfing over to the VON website:

If this is indeed a sign of the demise of the organization, let's hope the many talented people that were responsible for the past success of the whole VON enterprise quickly land on their feet.

I think it's now almost a foregone conclusion that the cable MSOs have the telco's beat -- for the time being at least -- in the residential voice marketplace for most of urban America.

I recently switched over a second voice line at home to my Optimum Voice account -- Cablevision's brand of cable telephony service -- because to be brutally honest, the local telco, Verizon, just doesn't come close to providing the same deal.

From a smooth and incredibly fast turn-on, to an all-you can eat domestic calling plan with every enhanced service you could want for $24.95/mo for the first line, $14.95/mo for the second- including visual incoming caller ID on your television set no less -- it's probably -- in combination with Skype or similar web-based service -- one of the smartest choices in residential telephony.

The Wild Card: Verizon's new fiber-optic FIOS service isn't yet available in our area, or many others yet -- but it could represent a real threat to the cable-co triple-play "monopoly" with it's mix of IPTV, phone/video services and superfast Internet access -- which would ultimately be good for everyone since it will heat up the competitive juices and produce real benefits for the consumer.

Time will tell if the cable operators can maintain their lead.