The blogosphere has been a buzz since Monday when TalkPlus launched. If you do a fast and easy blogsearch you will see how positive the coverage by many of the VoIP bloggers so I don’t need to go into all the capabilities it has. Yesterday I went out an purchased a Cingular Razr and swapped in the SIM card, downloaded the application and set up my beta account.
In minutes I was making and receiving calls on another number seamlessly. It worked as advertised. I’ll have more on this, including comments on the comments of others who have covered the story.
Skype is adding more blogs. Basically they have to reinvigorate their online retail efforts and think blogging is the answer. It’s not. Skype is becoming more an more like eBay and their stoic media relations approach of “we tell, but don’t answer your questions” is more and more old school each day. Over the past month I’ve had a handful of reporters tell me the same thing over and over again. That being questions posed to Skype don’t get answered.
Maybe it’s their agency, but I doubt it. Donna and her team at Spark didn’t get to be as big as they are simply by being friendly with some hugh VC’s in the Valley. They got to where they are by doing what a PR team needs to do. Instead all on has to do is look at how eBay handles PR and you will see the same approach being taken by Skype.
Yahoo has a new Web phone from Linksys that works with Messenge with Voice. I’m not impressed, as the sound quality is poor and the set up, plus the need for it to be tethered to a Windows PC (no Mac) and since Yahoo Messenger doesn’t support dual login, unless I want a PC to be my main device, I’m really limited. Gizmo Project and Skype support dual login, so does AIM from AOL. Without simultaneous, multi-endpoint log in, this new phone is really a nice looking paperweight.
Stay tuned for more updates and more news…