The Return of The Shadow Number and TalkPlus’ Idea

Back in the day there was GrandCentral, TalkPlus, PhoneGnome, Iotum and even Jangl. The first four were all clients of Comunicano, with Iotum and GrandCentral still enjoying life under different names and different ownership. The four all had various ideas on calling, totally in line with Jeff Pulver's Purple Minutes idea that IP calling would … Read more

Phone Verification-Not Being Done Right

Over the past few years I've seen corporate America, especially banks and now even Amazon, begin to use SMS as a mode of verification that you are you. Unfortunately, the current approach, using mobile numbers tied to a mobile operator is both antquated and very faulty. For many years VoIP companies have had access to … Read more

Phone Verification-Not Being Done Right

Over the past few years I've seen corporate America, especially banks and now even Amazon, begin to use SMS as a mode of verification that you are you. Unfortunately, the current approach, using mobile numbers tied to a mobile operator is both antquated and very faulty. For many years VoIP companies have had access to … Read more

Amazon Is Trying to Prevent Deja Vu With the Echo

Back in the early days of VoIP, there was a horrific incident involving a death, a baby and Vonage. This led to regulatory oversight of VoIP by the FCC. This was something that then fellow VoIPWatcher, Om Malik, had pretty much predicted while my archives show that there were efforts being taken earlier by Vonage and others. So … Read more

Why Wines Don’t Have to Be Expensive

For many years I've used the rule of 3x to stop buying wines that have just gotten too pricey. A great example these days are Chateauneuf du Papes which are now at that point. Given I was buying them at under $20.00 and now many of those are now over $60.00 I'm back looking for … Read more

James Kendrick Rest in Peace

This is belated news and still sad. I just learned via the Kevin Tofel and Matt Miller's podcast that James Kendrick passed away. I will admit that after James departure from GigaOm that my interaction with James had been reduced. While we periodically exchanged some messages in social media, James and I hadn't really spoken in … Read more

Uber Adds VoIP

In what has been a long time coming, Uber, the world's largest ride sharing service, has added VoIP to their mobile apps reports Engadget and RedmondPie. There's a couple of benefits that come to mind almost immediately. First is the fact that those of us who have multiple phones and phone numbers will be more … Read more

The Address Book On Your Phone Is Broken

Years back I had the ability to memorize just about anyone's phone number. Part of the skill was pure memory tricks. Associating the person to an area code reduced the need to memorize 10 digits. Then there was repetition. The more you called someone, the easier it was to remember their number. Next was we … Read more