iotum/mynumo in AOL PhoneLine Deal

First let me be open on this post. I have agency clients that are involved in this program so I just let the official AOL announcement go out first about the AIM PhoneLine program before posting and as is my style when clients are involved, I never lead off.

Ever since the idea of an AIM Phone Line Developer's Program was bounced by me at VON in March, I've been excited at what it can do for companies like iotum, mynumo and others who will likely follow. As a matter of fact I have two or three already in mind!!! What has always been intriguing to me is how the AIM Phone Line
Developer Program has been set up to provide a launch pad for new 2.0
VoIP services and applications to get to market.

Long time readers of this blog will recall my position, that just like Jeff Pulver, who has been pushing Purple Sessions and Minutes, Alec Saunders who has been pushing Voice 2.0,  as has Yahoo's Brad Garlinghouse and Gizmo's Michael Robertson about being in the Cloud, I've been outspoken that the cost of minutes drops to nothing, and the money gets
made in the Applications in the future This new world AOL initiative that my friend, and wine
drinking pal, Ragui Kamel of AOL has launched is aligned directly with that thinking and with today's announcement the future is now here.

Jeff Pulver has a very eloquent post of what this means to the VoIP community that is the VON community in my book and the implications of what has begun. Up in Canada both Mathew Ingram and Mark Evans have really taken the iotum angle and told it very well. James Enck has also shared his throughts on this from London, England, and you'll likely note his play on words like I did. And as I'm writing this, Jim Courtney at Skype Journal has weighed in with a very CEO like detailed analysis of what this means for iotum and VoIP overall. Like Jeff and myself Courtney is seeing the 2.0 viewpoint and if I were AOL I'd feel like the rooster in the hen house being so positively received in the SKYPE Journal.... :-)

I'm hopeful others in the blogosphere will add their views on what this means. With the news coming just in advance of next week's VON, this helps set the stage for what I think will be the most exciting VON ever.