I have to admit upfront that having the best of breed clients all playing in the world of VoIP is probably one of the most exciting parts of my job. Just like the Master of The Mashup Thomas Howe gets to take the best of the best tools and make something new and different happen in the sense of great new Voice 2.0 applications, my team and I get to play mixologists when it comes to how our clients and their technologies, either amongst themselves or with our pals in the media and the blogosphere get to tell their stories. But more importantly, what we're demonstrating is how to use the tools and media opportunities that exist today to flatten and level the 1.0 media world by being agents of change.
Yesterday iotum's Alec Saunders continued to show off the feature rich capabilities of the iotum Free Conference Calling platform that works from within Facebook during his daily Sqawk Box podcast with the usual group of suspects including Voxeo's Dan York and ATS's Adam Somer to name a few. Alec artfully interviewed SightSpeed's VP of Marketing, Eric Quanstrom about SightSpeed Light for MySpace and extracted many of the key points that really paint the picture of where SightSpeed is headed. This wasn't interpretive journalism or opinion based blogging. It was facts and information straight from the so called "horses mouth" as Eric took the group and listeners through the direction SightSpeed is heading with Google and Open Social.
Later that same day, Skype Journal's new master of the microphone, Jim Courtney, proved that at any age, anyone can learn how to use the tools of podcasting after taking the VAPPS High Definition Conferencing service's built-in record the call feature and turned his interview with VAPPS founder Ben Lillenthal into a podcast. During the call Ben signaled the market giving Jim the heads up on the new name change from High Speed to HiDef Conferencing and also revealed how more is coming from VAPPs.
Besides showing off his business acumen, Courtney showed that he did his homework as the line of questioning he took, and just like Saunders did with Quanstrom had a real conversation with VAPPS CEO and wove a story together in real time.
Add to it that he Courtney used the VAPPS new HiDef Conferencing capabilities that works with Skype and we all now are getting to hear just how simply amazing the audio quality is when all parties are using Skype endpoints. I for one have been using the HiDef service for a while, and actually was one of the first trial set of ears that Ben called on even before his company became a client. The difference is immediately noticeable between a regular audio conference and a HiDef Conference in what can best be described as tone and audio richness.
In both cases the information disseminated by the use of the call recording and podcast tools clearly demonstrates how VoIP in the middle makes for new ways to communicate. For broadcasters and podcasters the tools available today far outweigh what was there only a few years ago, and pretty much have to be putting companies who make high priced audio gear for broadcasters on the ropes. None of what was done cost anyone any money to record, encode, produce and publish. That's flattening and leveling in my book.
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