Andy Abramson

Yahoo is upgrading Yahoo Messenger,

by

Yahoo is upgrading Yahoo Messenger, by making a move into VoIP and expanding their feature set, making for a more robust and more simplified offering for people who do a lot of things with one another online.

Sort of.

Rather than go out and offer full telephone like capabilities and thus encroach into the territory of their two important partners in the DSL biz here in the USA (SBC and Verizon) Yahoo is taking an approach of let’s be the most feature rich online Voice Messenger tool that conforms with accepted standards that can more easily integrate with other already existing service providers by using SIP at the core of the application, without going the way of Skype Out or Skype In.

Basically Yahoo wants to deliver the most robust online only messenger product and hopes to leapfrog AOL’s AIM and MSN’s Messenger offerings. They plan on doing that by integrating a really neat photo sharing component, adding voice mail and blogging tools as well as simplifying some things in an almost Disney or Apple like way.

Read more

Microsoft Partners With Sprint

by

Years ago Microsoft and Qualcomm created a venture called Wireless Knowledge, sometime within the first year the venture sort of went sideways and the two slowly separated a lot quieter than they announced the marriage.

Now I see some of what the claims from back then of what the venture was to do making the light of day, only this time Microsoft is at it with a Qualcomm partner in Sprint, but without the kings of CDMA.

Read more

Wireless Broadband From the Sky

by

Tom Keating, back from his Disney adventures has a post about an interesting Satellite delivered broadband service. If it works, I wonder what the cost will be. Like Tom, I’d enjoy trying it out. Looking over the provider’s web site, it seems their technology is battle tested. I just wonder how much R&D went into … Read more

Congrats To FastMobile

by

Over a year or more I started telling readers here about FastMobile. Well it seems they have raised 12 million in VC funding. My question is if they can battle with Sonim and also Microsoft which is about to embed a person to person voice chat feature into Windows mobile 2005.

Out of The Blog and Into The Pod

by

It’s hard to believe that 31 years ago, yes back in 1974, I did my very first radio news accounts for WFIL, WIBG and WIP radio, providing sports reports about the Philadelphia Wings when I was only 14. Back then those recordings were called beepers because the “beep” had to be played when you were being recorded by law, all due to wiretap regulations. Little did I know that it would take 31 years for my return to real “AM” radio. Well technology has changed, but in many ways, the song remains the same. I still do reports remotely, now using Skype, or VoIP phones, fed into the mixing boards, but the business of broadcasting has clearly changed.

Read more

Big Euro VON Next Week

by

I chatted by phone yesterday with Jeff Pulver and was elated for him after hearing just how global his VON Conference has become. While the FCC here in the USA fiddles around, the rest of the world is waking up to VoIP. When you think that many of the countries are going from almost no … Read more

Earthlink MVNO To Include WiFi

by

Earthlink is moving into the phone business in a big way, but with a ubiquitous stratey behind it. Between their VoIP business that already have with Vonage and future expansion that is already being planned with SK-Earthlink to create the next generation of wireless carrier. I did a briefing last week and walked away impressed. … Read more

I Want Legal P2P TV

by

The idea of TV in the home is dead, and just like downloadable music, I guess it’s going to take Steve Jobs, not Bill Gates-despite all that Microsoft is trying to do, to make the studios understand that, unlike money after death, TV programming will be something you can take with you. It’s time the … Read more