Stardust Global Ventures

This morning I saw something fly by on Twitter that really struck a chord, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what flew threw my brain. It was a quote from Edward DeBono who coined the term lateral thinking.

There’s a mouthful. A brainful. That’s far more than just a morsel, but more like a mouthful of something rich and heavy that takes a while to chew. AIt points out again that distruption of an industry can never come from a manager, only a leader. But leaders follow visionaries. Visionaries see new paradigms.

The Cluetrain Manifesto has been hailed as a seminal work since before it was actually published. The work by Searles, Weinberger and Locke truly redefined how we think about the integration of technology into our lives. Cluetrain was published in January of 2000, just over 9 years ago.

Back in October of 2005, my good friend Alec Saunders penned what we’ve come to call the Voice 2.0 Manifesto. That was nearly three-and-a-half years ago.

Not long ago, I stirred a bit of a hornet’s next when I spoke out about The Flawed Delusion of Telco 2.0, a problem I still believe in passionately. The telco paradigm is old and stale, Extending the paradigm with a 2.0 appendage doesn’t revolutionize.

If we accept the quote from DeBono, a great deal of our effort today is spent in evolutionizing the industry through the paradigms of the past. We too easily manage within the paradigms. In doing so, we stay between the lines rather than slip through them. That’s one piece of the puzzle, but it’s only a piece.

There are companies out there today doing innovative things. But I see them as innovative in an evolutionary way, not revolutionary. I’m struck by a company I know well, but have written little about being guided to new heights by Shai Berger, CEO at Fonolo. Here’s Fonolo’s driving message:

Fonolo does some deep diving into phone tree and IVR systems to enable us to get to the destination we really want to reach and evade the morass of navigation through menus and questions that we all hate. It’s a good and noble cause. It’s an innovative approach. I applaud Shai’s work, but at the same time, it lends weight to the issue I’m struggling with.

Please don’t take any of what follows as criticism of Fonolo. Rather take what comes as questioning criticism of our industry, and how a company we see as a leader might be disrupted. We see Fonolo as a leader (in DeBono’s sense) for slipping between the lines and doing something new. I agree, and kudos for that.

In the communications industry, and I’m talking in very broad terms of Internet communications – data, voice and video – there are thousands of managers following the established paradigms. Cluetrain is an established paradigm. Voice 2.0 is an established paradigm.

In this same industry, there are hundreds of leaders, slipping between the framework of Cluetrain and Voice 2.0 paradigms. But there’s a problem, even with the leaders. If a leader is one who leads between the paradigms, I’ll posit that the leader is still tightly constrained by the pathways within and between the paradigms. Leaders don’t necessarily stay between the lines, but they draw new lines connecting the dots within paradigms differently.

This might be likened to the human brain and neural pathways. Managers follow existing and comfortable pathways. Leaders exercise rarely used pathways.

Visionaries create new neural pathways.
Visionaries create new paradigms for the future.
Old paradigms are irrelevant to the visionary.

I’m honored to know people who a real leaders, with visionary moments. I can think of several I know personally. I even experience a visionary moment myself every now and again. I mostly think we all have visionary moments that complete sidestep the paradigms of the past and glimpse new things in our minds eye.

The real visionaries live in that space. And they don’t think in paradigms, old or new, because isn’t the construct of those old paradigms just too limiting in the first place?

Technorati Tags: Cluetrain, Voice 2.0, Doc Searles, Daivd Weinberger, Chris Locke, oaradigms

I just came across a really great post on longtime TV/Radio broadcaster, Leo Laporte entitled, “Building an Empire.” I was really excited about it because I spent some time with Leo a few years back and it sort of set things in motion for my life today.

Leo and the Dip

In early 2007 I started using twitter. While there I came across Leo Laporte. I had no idea if he was really Leo or just some pr person but I followed along anyway because I wanted to know what was going on with a person I had been a fan of on TV.

During that time, Leo started using another microblog because of concern over his possible perceived promotion of twitter. Leo had recently started an online network called This Week in Tech, aka TWiT. Many of us followed Leo to jaiku. That’s where things got fun.

Once on jaiku, Leo actually seemed engaged. I was following along as part of the crowd and saw him comment to many people there. On occasion I made comments to him and he would respond. I still wasn’t sure if he was real or not, but it was certainly entertaining and we all had such a great time!

Jaiku was similar to twitter with some unique differences. One of those differences was the ability to see a whole conversation in it’s entirety, or threaded conversation. That was a great feature and one I miss since leaving jaiku last year. I’ll talk about that later.

During my early time on jaiku I met many other people also fans of Leo Laporte. We sort of banded together and became great pals. Leo continued to engage, going so far as to offer help, send invites, in general be a regular participant in our lives, and we, to some extent, in his.

As all our friendships blossomed I decided I wanted to take media to a new level in my life. I was at that point in time heavily into fitness and decided to do a fitness podcast for the geek sitting at a computer all day long.  At the same time, Leo had a tv show, filmed at that time in Vancouver BC Canada, called “The Lab with Leo”. It was a lot of fun. Leo got a brainstorm and decided to use live streaming video of the taping of his shows which meant many of us signed up to be his ‘friend’ on Stickam so we could watch. I was one of the first friends he had on there.

A screen capture from Leo on Stickam when we were allowed to participate via video. I am the inset picture in the right hand corner.

Many things all took place in the next few months. One of my Stickam friends called in to Net@Night, another of Leo’s shows. He gave the URI to my blog and had Amber MacArthur and Leo look at my podcast and website. Leo talked about it and that made it into a theme song for my podcast written by another jaiku pal, Dan Lynch. Dan is a VERY talented musician and composer.

My Gabby Geek  theme song:   

Download Now

As our communication progressed one of the really neat things that happened was Leo invited me to come to his show. I said yes.

While at the Lab with Leo in Vancouver, I was shown around the set, got an opportunity to talk with all the crew, get some pictures and of course spend time with Leo. I remember standing on the set, and Leo was giving me a bad time about my shoe fetish, yes I do have one and we were just laughing and having a good time. He was really silly and at one point somehow he got me in his arms and out of the blue Leo dipped me! I was stunned really!

Here is a picture taken immediately after the dip.

I have a lot of great memories of my time with Leo. My time on his Stickam taping in those early days was a really great experience. I enjoyed it so much. Not just the interaction with Leo, but also the crew. Those memories are why, when I saw the article on him today I was so pleased for him. I know it’s long been a goal of his to find a way to live well with the changing rules of media. Leo was on several different television shows and when the network got bought out he was out of a job. Finding a way to leverage his celebrity and make a living is a really great thing for him, as well as for those of us who wish we could do it as well.

Kudos to Leo. I wish him well.

Technorati Tags: Leo Laporte, The Lab with Leo Laporte, stickam, TWiT, jaiku, twitter, Sheryl Breuker

Who’s Afraid of Ghosts?

This morning while wishing happy birthday to several people on facebook, I came across an article and wound up clicking through to The New York Times. Just the other day they had the rather controversial post, When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking, by Noam Cohen. That particular post precipitated a great deal of conversation on twitter all surrounding the value of ghost writing and who is hiring ghost writers instead of twittering for themselves.

This mornings NY Times article entitled, The Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem, written by John Metcalfe, again shines a light on the value, or lack of value, of so called celebrity twitter accounts.

I say lack of value because all of this ghost writing/celebrity twitter controversy has me questioning some things. In truth, I should give credit to Guy Kawasaki, because if not for his admission of 2 ghost writers providing links to all things alltop, I may not have paid any attention at all. Well, maybe I would.

Guy Kawasaki is someone that mostly I think is an interesting person. I neither love all things Guy or pay attention to all things Guy. He has been interesting enough for me to ‘follow’ him on twitter and to take it a step further, work with him on getting a proper category together on alltop for Unified Communications. But enough about that. What’s at the heart of this?

In the beginning…

Let’s go back to the beginning. Why do we follow celebrities? I think there are a lot of reasons people follow high profile people, or pay attention to what is going on for them. I can’t speak to that from their perspective, I can only speak to it from my own. For a lot of us there is intrigue about the private lives of celebrities. We think maybe they lead different lives, have more interesting lives than our own simple existence allows us. For others it seems to be a hope that it will somehow rub off and we will gain some measure of status.

Status is an interesting idea. We place value on each other, many times based on the status we perceive each person to have. At least today we do. We can’t read anything anymore without seeing something about status and brand.

In my mind both web status and brand have a great deal to do with trying to assert ourselves into a new world without the past stigma we all felt we carried. We’re trying to redefine who we are, and create a new presense in a world that is still unfolding, still not sure where it’s going to wind up. Whatever the case, we want a piece of it and we want our piece to be important.

So, if we follow a person on twitter because we find them interesting, not hoping even to be followed back, but merely to glean some information about their ‘fascinating’ lives, or hoping maybe to learn something new, how foolish will we feel if we find they are not really there? That these people we follow are just, as the first article states, ghosts? The question then must be asked, is it the person we thought we were following who is interesting or is it the person doing the writing?

Obviously it’s a case by case situation. I recognize that some of the celebs are truly twittering because they like it and are no different than most who use twitter, simply looking for a place of acceptance of who they are and their thoughts on a variety of topics. In other words, they want their voices heard just like I do.

Having established there is some valid twittering happening, as the two articles at the NY Times suggest, what is the value of someone creating an account and then having someone else write it for them? If you ask Guy Kawasaki and I did, his response was, “My ghostwitters only do outgoing, undirected, interesting links.”

While I do not wish to argue the value in having someone else twitter for you, what I do argue is how those following may feel to find out they are not following who they think they are. In other words, if you follow 50 cent you’re getting someone else, and if you follow Guy Kawasaki 2 out of 3 times it’s his ghost. In my opinion let the buyer beware is valid, but there has been no disclaimer. Isn’t there some obligation on the part of the account holder to let us in on whether or not they are actually doing the talking? According to Guy, he has, “never hidden the fact” and points to an article where he admits to having others do his writing. I wonder if that’s enough?

What to do?

I don’t really like the idea that I may follow people who are not who they say they are. In most cases, those of us who have used the internet for a decade or better are fully aware of the potential for deception. We’ve heard stories from the beginning about how easy it is to deceive or be deceived. We’ve probably all been in a position where someone was not as ‘real’ as we thought they were. As appalling as this may be, on some level we all accept it because what are our alternatives?

Ah…alternatives. Life is about choices. We all get to make them. My choices may not be yours, and vice versa. Many people when betrayed will stop following the person who betrayed them, cutting them out of their lives quite effectively. The only impact on the person being followed is if there were a mass exodus of sorts. At that point, it would be quite clear their behavior was probably not acceptable and they could also make a choice to change it or not. Having said that, I am not anticipating such a thing or advocating it. It’s up to you how you handle it.

In the meantime I’m going to keep writing. All twitters supposedly by me, are by me. if my name precedes it, I wrote it. (unless someone hacks my account) @SherylBreuker.

Technorati Tags: Noam Cohen, John Metcalfe, Guy Kawasaki, twitter, facebook, the new york times, unified communications, 50cent

We meet some of the most fascinating people in the technology world. Social networking tools have evolved and now let us stay in regular contact in ways that continue to reshape social aspects of our lives. This post is a result of some Friday evening fun that we enjoy with a friend.

Quite some time ago Sheryl met Randal Schwartz (aka Merlyn). They were Jaiku friends and met when Sheryl visit the set of The Lab with Leo. Randal was a regular with Leo.

If you don’t know who Randal is, think of PERL.

• Randal Schwartz’s Perls of Wisdom
• Learning Perl, 5th Edition
• Programming Perl Learning Perl
• Learning Perl (A Nutshell handbook)
• Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules

Today we stay in touch a number of different ways, but mainly on Twitter. Social interaction is really the driver behind this post. We love interacting with people we know in the tech sector in a variety of different ways. Social media tools empower social life with family, friends and colleagues.

Those of us who are involved in the tech sector use tools like Twitter to share what we’re doing. We use sites like Flickr to share pictures. We use tools from QIK and ustream.tv to share video.

Sharing the lifestream of our activites is more social today than it has ever been Now we can share events as they unfold in realtime.

A few weeks ago Randal was on QIK video from his regular karaoke hangout in Portland. He loves to sing. We love to share good company. But hopping in the car in Spokane to get to a karaoke bar in Portland just doesn’t work. We watched the video and had lots of laughs.

Last night was different. Randal was live on ustream.tv from his iPhone and laptop. He was streaming singers, showing us the bar, interacting with voice, video and chat. And it wasn’t just Sheryl and I. There were people from around the country sharing in an evening of fun at a small bar in Portland. It was great fun and we made new friends.

Here’s Randal performing. He’s a friend, and he won’t be getting a Grammy this year. But, what matters is the spirit of fun and camaraderie shared. The social life we share with social tools.

Video clips at Ustream
I talk often about unified communications. I’ve come out strong in the opinion that social media is simply another channel of communications. It’s how people connect and share with people. We share ideas, we share questions. We share the events of our life.

This is the real power of Internet technologies, communications tools and social media. The power is not in the technology. It’s all about people.

Technorati Tags: Randal Schwartz, Merlyn, social media, video, ustream.tv, QIK, iPhone

Anyone in our industry who’s had even peripheral involvement with Jeff Pulver and the VON conferences of the past knows that Mustang Sally is something of a theme party song for Jeff. Jeff’s love of music is widely known. And those of us who are friends, love sharing it with him.

Tired Jeff at dinner in Minneapolis

Late last year we had the opportunity to share dinner with Jeff in Minneapolis. Beyond dinner, we took him to that corner downtown where the Mary Tyler Moore “hat toss” clip was filmed. We got video of Jeff with the statue, and both Jeff and Sheryl repeated that famous hat toss. We also recorded our version of the MTM theme and sang it for Jeff. We made sure to incorporate Jeff’s love of all things breakfast since he actually in Minneapolis for Breakfast with Jeff the following morning. Here are our lyrics. You can sing along at home.

Who can turn the world on with a cloud?
Who can take a trip a day, and suddenly make ihop seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you Jeff, and you should know it
With each tweet and every status update you show it

Breakfast’s all around, no need to waste it
You can have hafooch, why don’t you make it
SocComm will make it after all
SocComm will make it after all

Breakfast’s all around, no need to waste it
You can have hafooch, why don’t you make it
SocComm will make it after all
SocComm will make it after all

Friends also know Jeff is always at Kinnernet. Being the good sport and fun guy that he is, Jeff’s friends around the world love to tease and laugh with him. And here’s the latest video, Mustard Sally, with Jeff joining in the fun.

Technorati Tags: Jeff Pulver, Mustard Sally, Kinnernet 2009

Calliflower is a great conferencing solution that some friends of ours have been working on for quite some time. We’ve used it extensively throughout its evolution, and we’ve always been pleased with the ease of use and the constant attention to users comments and incorporation of new features.

One of the features we like most about a Calliflower conference call is the ability to easily and quickly share documents. Whether it’s a presentation, animation, or spreadsheet, Calliflower allows the easiest sharing of any collaboration tool we’ve used.

For those wishing to present an online webinar, for example, Calliflower is faster, cheaper, and easier than the more established “brands” you’ve seen.

Are you concerned about cost of communications and meetings today? We are. The past few months have led us to focus on creative ways to avoid unnecessary travel expenses. Perhaps you’re cutting back on travel because of the economy too. Maybe you’re just looking for more efficient ways to meet with customers. Perhaps you’ve even considered online meetings.

Online meetings and conference calls are often touted as a replacement for getting together face to face. We’ve all heard that promise, but many of the past solutions just didn’t deliver a high quality user experience. Let’s be honest – the average online meeting isn’t a great experience. In fact, it’s often downright awful! Who hasn’t experienced:

• Wondering who is on the call with you. Most calls start with a role call – “Is John here? Susan?” — but even so, you might not know if that person is still there, or has even arrived. And think of how much productive time is lost to calling the role.
• Interruptions from every corner. Peoples phones ring. Alarms on computers go off. Someone with music on hold goes offline disabling conversation. There’s background conversation from participants. And a barking dog or children playing a common as so many people work from home at times.
• Then there’s the delay when someone one person downloads the document sharing application. Have you ever suffered the embarassment of being the one who didn’t install the browser plugin and test before that critical call. Talk about lost time!  Rude? Yes. Costly? You bet!

The solution to these, and many more problems associated with online meetings is Calliflower by iotum. Calliflower is a web based solution for hassle free online meetings and free conference calls.

Time is money and for all of us, freeing as much time as possible lets us focus on our business, not on the technology that supports what we do. Learn how you can have better, cheaper and more effective online meetings by visiting today.

We really like Calliflower, and we like options. Here are some things you can do to check out Calliflower for yourself. You can email us. If you’d like to try a test call with us to see how it works, you can click the widget below and we’ll work out a time for a test.

You can also try Calliflower Premium today for a 14-day Free Trial.

Technorati Tags: Calliflower, iotum

While wandering around the blogosphere this morning, Ken and I happened across a couple of interesting stories. The UK is about to take social networking to a new level. They are to include in their curriculum courses on twitter as well as blogging, podcasting and lessons on how to use wikipedia. WOW, and how cool is that?

I realize many people will be unnerved at the idea, but like it or not, social networking is here and our kids need to know how to maneuver through all the new technologies. We are on the cusp of a changing world and the sooner we accept the need to engage and stay tuned in, the better off we’ll be.

I hope the US will soon follow suit, but I’d guess it will take a lot longer simply due to the red tape that will have to be cut through just to get it considered.

Here are the 2 links we found. One on techcrunch, the other on thenextweb. Kudos to the UK for being able to look to the future of their students.

Technorati Tags: techcrunch, the next web

Our friend, driven entrepreneur Anton tipped us off a few days ago to a project he’s been working on, that we think is really something worthwhile.

MillionTweets gives us all a chance to put our money where our mouth is, and engage the vibrant Twitter community in the process.

Kudos to Anton and Andrew Clarke for jumping in with the resources of Udoogoo and creating a tool for social good at a time when the world needs more good.

Technorati Tags: MillioTweets, Twitter, Anton Mannering, social good, social media for social good

I read a lot. I have for several years. RSS readers are many, and I tried several. I settled on Bloglines a very long time ago, and it really suits my work style. Today, our friend Lewis posed a question on Twitter – “Can anyone tell me how to use Bloglines in simple terms? I’m signed up but it’s a mystery to me still…” and Sheryl’s response was that I should write a post. She still finds the way I use Bloglines a mystery, yet I prefer it above Google Reader for a number of reasons – to the point I long ago abandoned Google Reader completely.

I’ll step you through how I generally use Bloglines daily. if something’s not clear, or you want more ideas, leave a comment. I promise we’ll read them and respond. I’ll caveat this post with the note that I use Firefox exclusively. I have used other browsers in the past. For my work style, as you’ll see at the end of this post, Firefox suits my needs best. Your mileage may vary slightly with another browser.

The most used pane in the Bloglines browser window is the list of subscribed RSS feeds. Here’s a snapshot of mine today.

I’ve filed RSS feeds into category folders that make sense to me.  In the screen capture I’ve expanded one, my Tech – General folder. Remember I made these folders simply while using the reader. You can name yours however suits your personal work style.

Within the Tech – General category you see 5 blogs listed. None have new/unread postings. I show this expanded view because it’s easy to see that I can read new post from either a single RSS feed, or an entire category. Personally, I tend to read a category at a time.

In practice, I pick a category and scan the entries, using the “Save as New” checkbox for those I want to write about later, forward to someone, or take some action with. In short, I treat this pane not unlike my inbox. Quickly read what’s important, flagging what needs action, and purging the rest.

So how do you add new feeds to Bloglines? For me it’s very easy. Here’s my browser toolbar at the top. Notice the Sub with Bloglines button? If I hit any web page from anywhere, clicking this button does a scan of the page I’m on for RSS feeds and allows me to subscribe and either create a new scategor folder or assing it to one of my existing ones.

Blogs don’t have to be in folders. If you look at the first visual, you can see that TechCrunch is not categorized. It’s how I organize for my personal work style. My use has evolved over years to suit me, but organizing your feeds is easy even if you already have many listed.

So how do you get that Sub with Bloglines button? Easy. On the main Bloglines page, look under Subscribe to it. You’ll find Subscribe with one click from your browser toolbar. Click the link and you have options. We like options. Choice is good.

I’ve only clipped IE and FF, but there are other options too. Follow the simple drag and drop instructions and get your own toolbar button.

So far so good. From here, you should be able to set your personal feeds up in a way that’s easy to manage and read.

Now as to why I use Bloglines and with Firefox, I’ll share just a bit more. Anyone who pays attention to Sheryl and I knows we are very mobile. I’ve been dependent on mobile access for several years. For me, Bloglines has the best mobile support of any web-based reader I’ve used. I insist on a web-based RSS reader, and I want access from my laptop, Blackberry, iPod Touch, Nokia N800, or whatever. I don’t want to re-read posts, so a web-based reader makes sense. Yes, I’ve been moving my work to the cloud for over five years wherever possibly. I want my most critical information in the cloud, my mobile, or both.

Here’s Bloglines on my Blackberry Curve, with the Blackberry’s notably dismal browser.

I’m a huge fan of simplicity, and Bloglines mobile interface is so simple it works on every mobile browser I’ve ever used. That’s important to me. Mobility matters.

Now on to Firefox and Bloglines. I’ve been blogging for quite a number of years. Linking and sharing other incorporation of content from the web can be easy or difficult. I’ve used a number of blogging tools, but for a long time now I’ve been settled in with Firefox and ScribeFire. ScribeFire is an adequate blogging tool that meets all my needs. It supports multiple blogs. And it’s easy to write a post, do all the html formatting I want. Then save it out as a note to email for use somewhere I can’t post directly to with Scribefire.

I used a number of separate tools, but being tied to web-based feed reading, something integrated into my browser works perfectly. Here’s a picture to show what I mean. It’s a full screenshot, and reduced in size here, but if you click on it, you can go see the full size on Flickr.

What I like is being able to spot a blog post on any device I choose and tag it to save for later, when I have time to blog about it. Then on my laptop, find that post in my reader, and drag and drop it into Scribefire like I have with the TechCrunch example in the screenshot.

It makes it easy to share posts from friends and colleagues, with simple links back to their work. In the conversational web, it’s important that we all give credit where due and recognize the work of others. ScribeFire lets me do that easily, while Bloglines lets me control what I read and how I read it, in a way that works for me.

Technorati Tags: Bloglines, RSS. RSS reader, news reader, feed reader, web-based reader, Firefox, Scribefire, tools, blogging tools

One year ago on March 18th I proposed to Sheryl on stage and the VON.x Conference in San Jose, CA. Sharing in the day were Sheryl’s son David (who took pictures), many of our friends, and the Internet thanks to multiple live QIK video streams.

To say it was a special day would trivialize just how magnificent a moment in my life it was. It was truly incredible. For any friends who haven’t seen it, here’s one of the videos that was taken.

Our love and our life is very open. We don’t hide from public view. For me, being open to the world about my love for Sheryl is an important part of being true to me. I’m proud that I love her, and proud to have her at my side through life.

Today’s our anniversary. We’ve been engaged for one year today. We set our wedding plans for June 27, 2009 a long time ago in order to give our friends around the country, and other parts of the world, plenty of time to plan travel. There’s one special friend in particular whose participation is very important to us both. He’s our best friend.

With the events of the last couple of months, losing my job, our actual wedding plans are sort of on hold. We may be moving for a new job, but we don’t know when and where yet. It seems awkward to plan a wedding here in Washington when we may well live somewhere else.

That doesn’t change our love, or our relationship. I wrote a post on my Vox blog a while back entitled Marriage Today and In the Past. In that post, I said This beautiful lady is my wife.

We may not be married yet in the eyes of the law. That’s ok. We’re grown adults who have both been married before. Our sacred vows between us were made long ago and we will spend eternity as husband and wife. I am Sheryl’s forever and she is mine. We will forever live our lives that way…together.

And yes, we will be getting married. But waking up together, spending our days together, living and loving together are the magical spectacular life we share. Today, tomorrow, forever.

I am a grown man, aging, but youthful and boyish in many ways. I overflow with joy and happiness because my lovely Sheryl, partner in love and life, nourishes and sustains my soul in a way I longed for my entire life. Sheryl puts the song in my heart and the light in my eyes. She is my everything.

When you read this, my babydoll, know how very much you mean to me.

I love you always.
I love you all ways.
I love you all the way.
Come what may.
Until the end of time.

Apparently today is a day to be hyper-critical. This morning we had an unpleasant encounter with a developer who shall remain nameless on Twitter. I openly chastised Yahoo for what I fear is an error in judgement maintaining their current corporate culture. Sheryl and I have both been outspoken about Google’s awful fumble and mediocre deployment in the quickly fizzling rollout of GrandCentral as the new Google Voice. And this afternoon, the trend continues.

I posted the news release about Ifbyphone’s new Blackberry client, and decided it was time to finally dig in and see what Ifbyphone’s all about. I’m going to share my experience, but hang on tight, because it’s a work in progress and not going smoothly.

First, the link on the Ifbyphone web site provides a lovely 404 error, resulting in inability to install over the air from their site. Undaunted, I continue to Handango where the app is also available. Interesting that it downloads only a ZIP file, so off the Blackberry to the PC, where I grab and extract a ZIP. Naturally, only installable via sync cable. Ugh.

Like most Blackberry users, I like OTA (over the air) install and hate the cable. It took a while because I do it rarely and couldn’t remember how right away, but I managed it.

During the process, I looked around the Ifbyphone web site to learn how to proceed. I’m one of those who never reads documentation, but they have tutorials. Actually there are 25 tutorials. Yes, twenty-five. I could decide which to view and abandoned them entirely. Any product that requires that many tutorials pushes me away. I can only imagine how a novice user would react.

I decided I’d either figure it out easily on the Blackberry or abandon it. And then things started getting ugly.

FAIL – Strike one. Here’s a screenshot of my Blackberry startup screen immediately after install. That topmost icon Ifbyphone put there without asking to muck up my BB desktop, is their program. Note to developers, mucking with my icon settings is a guaranteed FAIL that ensures your app is dead to me. With that one move, Ifbyphone is doomed to the bit bucket, but since it’s installed, I decided to keep exploring before I delete it.

The next screen interacts in an odd way I’ve never seen any BB app work, but doesn’t allow screen capture. Its behavior is so odd there is no way to get SnapScreen to grab it (FAIL – Strike 2). So I’ll describe it. There are four fields to complete and a Save button.

• Account Phone Number seems obvious to me since I used my mobile to sign up.
• Password is actually distressing. When I signed up a half-hour ago, Ifbyphone had me create four digit PIN. Then when I logged on said PINS were no longer used and to create a password, That was fine, but this Password field only accepts a four-digit PIN. Feels like FAIL – Strike 3.
• Recording Phone – Since I don’t know what the heck this is and couldn’t bear 25 tutorials, I’ll guess and put my own number in. FAIL – Strike 4.
• My Phone seems obvious. You made me put it in twice so far. Don’t you know it yet? I want to say FAIL again, but I’ll be kind and put my number in a third time.

Hey, I got a new screen. Here it is.

I can do some things so I’m going to go for a New Conference right off the bat. Tried and it said retrieveing my groups. Interesting because I don’t have any and don’t have a clue how to create them. It took me to a screen to schedule a call but not create a group, but again, the behavior is such that the screen can’t be captured and shared.

I can’t seem to actually do anything until I go study tutorials. Strike 5 – FAIL. At this point, I linked the two screens I was able to capture over to PC. They’re the ones you see here. I’d show more, but the app is too unfriendly to allow it.

I decided to exit the app. It closed gracefully on the sixth try.

Fork in the road. To the left I can go look at 25 tutorials to figure out how to use the app for conferencing on my Blackberry. To the right I can uninstall the app and forget it.

By the time you see this, my Blackberry has been restored to normal. So long Ifbyphone, I hardly knew ye.

I did have one awesome experience with something a friend is working on that we’ll help share in the next day or two. It wasn’t a bad day, but I’m glad Idol is on tonight. This has been a harsh day for most of what I’ve looked at and I feel like I’m picking on everyone but Sheryl. Either that or I’m excelling at anti-social networking. Regardless, I’m taking over pastaghetti preparation and moving on to other things for the evening.

Technorati Tags: Ifbyphone, fail, unruly applications, Blackberry

While neither of us has ever used or needed Ifbyphone’s services, we follow their advances closely. Since we’re rabid Blackberry users and fans, now we’re going to go check it out more closely. We got word this morning that BlackBerry users can now initiate an impromptu conference call or schedule a future call, all with one click, using Ifbyphone’s new BlackBerry application. This free app provides conference calling and voice-broadcast messaging combined in an easy-to-use download – enhancing the functionality of the popular communications devices from Research In Motion (RIM).

IFBYPHONE LAUNCHES FIRST BLACKBERRY APPLICATION
Conference Calling and Voice Broadcast Functions Coupled in a Free Download

CHICAGO–Mar. 18, 2009—Ifbyphone today announced its first BlackBerry® application—conference calling and voice-broadcast messaging combined in a free download—enhancing the functionality of the popular communications devices from Research In Motion (RIM).

“We are thrilled to deliver Ifbyphone for the BlackBerry, giving millions of BlackBerry users a simple and free conference and broadcasting tool,” said Irv Shapiro, CEO of Ifbyphone. “This is the first application of its kind and another example of Ifbyphone’s continued innovation in the wireless space.”

The Ifbyphone application utilizes BlackBerry users’ existing contacts lists, allowing users to create groups of contacts for conference calls or voice-broadcast messages. Ifbyphone will provide the first 100 minutes of use per month free to users of the application, which is available now at http://www.ifbyphone.com/blackberry and via Handango at http://www.handango.com.

Ifbyphone intends to make its BlackBerry application available at RIM’s BlackBerry Application Storefront when it opens this spring.

To use the new application’s conference-calling function, a BlackBerry user creates a list of participants from among his or her stored contacts and can then initiate an impromptu conference call immediately or schedule a future call, all with one click.

Similarly, to use the voice-broadcasting function, the user creates a list of recipients and records a voice message for immediate or future delivery. The voice-broadcasting function would be ideal for a busy sales manager traveling to a client meeting who wants to give instructions to all members of a team of sales reps.

The BlackBerry application is another example of the flexibility of Ifbyphone’s powerful application programming interface (API), which enables developers to create highly innovative applications and integrate telephony into business processes.

To learn more about Ifbyphone’s affordable suite of online telephony applications, such as Voice Broadcasting, Conference Calling, Call Tracking and Hosted IVR, visit http://www.ifbyphone.com.

# # #

About Ifbyphone
Ifbyphone is a telephone-automation-application company that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with tools to enhance customer conversations, drive sales and lower costs. Leveraging Ifbyphone’s extreme usability, developers and marketers can quickly create solutions ranging from simple click-to-call links to sophisticated call routing and interactive-marketing systems. Ifbyphone’s solutions are available directly to SMBs and through a network of resellers. For more information, visit www.ifbyphone.com.

Technorati Tags: Ifbyphone, Blackberry, conference calls

Yesterday we had a lovely conversation with our friends Olga and Lewis.

Here’s the podcast version for those who weren’t able to join us live.

Technorati Tags: Olga Sheean, Lewis Evans, Sheryl Breuker, Ken Camp, podcast, YOUMEUS

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I recall a long time ago expressing concern for Yahoo when Jerry Yang signaled his intention to flounder and do nothing by taking 100 days of silent meditation to think about things. In Internet time, that was like ringing a gong, although only a few of us seemed really outspoken in our view that Yang was making a bad move.

I’ve got some internal signals ringing in my head now because of some email messages I’ve seen that send a similar message. Yahoo has a new leader who’s outspoken about change and turning things around. I’m putting my money on that not happening. On the inside, Yahoo is circling the wagons, protecting the old blood, and hunkering down to do more of the same. And more of the same is a downward slide.

I’m not optimistic about Yahoo pulling out just yet. Like an alcoholic unable to turn around before hitting rock bottom, Yahoo is still in denial inside and not ready to turn the corner.

The question is will Carol Bartz really turn Yahoo around, or is her role simply to finish out the perilous ride to the rocky bottom that Yang began?

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Jerry Yang, Carol Bartz, decline, struggling