Web 2 Voice » Social Media

Facebook Connect is now live using Disqus

Khyle — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:19:35 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

Through my favorite comment system ever, Disqus, I have enabled Facebook connect. If you have a Disqus profile, you can still use that. But if not, you can comment using your Facebook profile as well.

One of the main reasons I like Disqus is that I’m lazy. I didn’t want to manually add Facebook connect, I wanted someone else to do that for me. Disqus made it as easy as I think it can be. Yeah, I had to create a Facebook application for each blog that I run, and copy and paste keys into my Disqus page. But that’s a Facebook issue, not a Disqus issue.

There seem to be a couple bugs, so let me know if you have any issues. But overall, easy & simple. Well done to the Disqus team.

Screen Pops for inbound calls using IfByPhone and Twitter

Khyle — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:29:59 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

Being in sales, I’m on the phone all the time. I’m calling people, people are calling me. And because I talk to so many people all over the country, I can’t tell from the number who the caller is. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could have something pop up on my screen telling me who is calling?

So I set about writing a little mashup. The number I give out is my IfByPhone number, so it’s easy to mashup with any number of services. As I’ve written about before, I’m a big fan of Twitter, so that’s what I’m choosing for my screen pop. So the technique is sending a direct tweet from an account I set up just for this purpose to my main account: khylek. I like it because I’m usually on Twitter much of the day. When I’m away, I am still going to get an email, since I have my account set up to Email me all direct Tweets. It’s like a nice little call log.From my IfByPhone account, on all inbound calls, I call a little PHP page and pass the caller ID as a parameter. From there I look up the phone number in my contact database, and get the person’s name and company with a simple query. Here is the part of the code for sending the direct tweet.

$ch = curl_init();
$tweet= “You have a call from ” . $contact. ” of ” .$company;
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,”http://twitter.com/direct_messages/new.xml”);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, “username:password”);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $mydata);

curl_exec ($ch);
curl_close ($ch);
Before I finished this little project, I came across Mark Headd’s post on doing the same thing using Google Talk. That’s next up on my docket.

Cross Post: A simple Phone Mashup with IfByPhone and Yelp

Khyle — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:13:30 +0000

Over on the IfByPhone blog, I posted a note on a mashup one of our guys did with Yelp. With about 30 minutes of effort, and 20 lines of code, we opened up the entirety of the Yelp review database to anyone with a phone.

What the mashup does is ask you for the phone number of the business you’re looking for information on, and you get the total number of reviews for that business and the average review. We’re working on phase 2 as we speak.

This is a little mashup that took almost no time, and yet has a good amount of utility (and we have ideas on on more features that will add more value to this service). I published the mashup mainly to prove a point. This simple and inexpensive mashup really provides great value to Yelp. We’re opening up their database so that now it can be used be people with no access to a computer.

The value of a service like Yelp is not so much in the data. It’s in the use of the data. It’s great that they have a huge number of reviews on their site. But it’s not until someone actually sees that data that it becomes useful. By adding voice access to your database\applicaiton\network you can dramatically increase the usage of that data, and by definition the value of the service you are providing.

I encourage you to check out my post on IfByPhone’s blog. But if you want to try out the mashup, just call 866.596.8333 and type in the number of the business you want reviewed (use 312.266.1616 for the place with the best ribs in Chicago).

Web 2.0 Expo: NY 2008

Khyle — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:39:53 +0000

I’m going to be sitting in a booth at Web 2.0 Expo, NY Wednesday and Thursday for IfByPhone. If you are going to be around, stop by. IfByPhone is announcing yet another application to go along with our ever expanding suite, so look for a press release soon.

I probably won’t be attending many of the talks, but the one I am hoping to see is Fred Wilson’s Keynote. Today, Fred announced in his blog that his VC firm has invested in Zemanta. You can check out related links provided by Zemanta below. I think it’s a nice fit with their portfolio, and I like the service they provide. Zemanta scans a post as you type, and suggests related articles and pictures to include in your post. Pretty cool.

A little love for Disqus

Khyle — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:44:43 +0000

There are days when I feel like a Fred Wilson portfolio fan boy. I am seriously high on Twitter (their vision of what’s to come, I think is impressive). But I also love Disqus, the comment system I use on all my blogs.

Both of these technology companies do something that is both an obvious need and difficult to accomplish. Simply put, that’s making the conversation more interesting. One of Fred’s common themes in his blog is that the comments are much more interesting than the actual posts. I don’t know that he gives himself enough credit, but the underlying point is accurate. There is real value in the conversations that are going on on blogs, on tweets, and other places.

I really value technology that brings those conversations to new audiences, and allows for more conversations. Disqus just released a new version (which will be appearing here shortly). Go check out Fred’s post, and the official Diqus post.
You can follow me on Twitter here. My Disqus profile is here.

Startups and popularity

Khyle — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:58:07 +0000

In the last eight years or so, I’ve worked for a few different startups (organically funded, VC backed, Angel backed, etc). I am nothing if not a sucker for information, so I tend to be hyper aware of perceptions of both the company I work for as well as the industry we are in.

One thing that it took me a while to realize is that people likely aren’t going to be a fan of what you’re doing. More to the point, if what you’re doing is really popular, you probably aren’t doing it right. Think about it.

What do all startups have in common? First, the vast majority fail. So if you’re a pundit, you’re going to be right most of the time betting against. Secondly, a startup is about doing things differently than what other companies that are already successful are doing. It’s not hyperbole to say that startups are mini-revolutions.

If it’s not revolutionary, there is probably someone out there who has more money that can do what you’re doing reasonably well. It’s the vision of the founders and leaders of a company that set it apart. It’s having a vision that is unique.

Honestly, it took me awhile to realize this. But now that I had that little epiphany, I think it’s pretty obvious in retrospect. And it makes me worry a lot less about public perception as well.

The Lazy Web makes Twitter more valuable

Khyle — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:18:42 +0000

My favorite VC blogger, Fred Wilson has a post today “The Lazy and Smarter Web.”

He talks about how great social media is because you can ask almost any question, and get great answers. I commented that it’s great for Fred, because he has thousands of followers in his social net. For regular people, not so much. And thanks to Disqus, you can see the back and forth it generated here.

Anyway, his reply is that sooner or later, people will start following places (and presumably things and concepts). So the limitaiton in followers (at least for Twitter) will go away. This particular solution is limited to Twitter (I’d love to see something like dynamic rooms in FriendFeed). But it’s a step in the right direction.

That’s yet another reason why Twitter is a big part of the future. It’s really the best way to track the Internet Zeitgeist. It’s a fast moving, reactionary, real time conversation. We’re not quite there yet, but it’s getting closer.

Another reason Twitter is great is that someone now added voice to it. Go check out Phweet. It’s very cool – developed by Stuart Henshall and David Beckemeyer .

A quick note on Personal Branding

Khyle — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:44:54 +0000

I had a meeting with a smart prospect yesterday. We had a short talk about how our companies might work together, got to know each other, complain about the weather. At the end of the conversation, he said “so, you blog a lot huh. I google everyone I talk to.”

It was the first time anyone had admitted to Googling me before we talked. It was validating in a way. A big reason I blog is to raise not only the profile of my employer, but my own personal profile as well. And when I did an ego search, it was pretty interesting.

I have two main blogs that I write on in a professional sense, this one and IfByPhone’s. When I googled my name, the first two pages were filled with a guest post I did at VoipSupply. That’s great, but it would have been much better if I had been paying attention to what people were going to see when they searched for me. You see, my prospect thought I was a VOIP guy, which I am not. The reason it shows up all over is because I blogged there under my full name, not just my first name.

So a short lesson is that if you’re going to build a personal brand, you might want to make sure to:

Ego search every once in a while
Market your full name

Why Voice 2.0 is tied to Social Media

Khyle — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:13:17 +0000

epiphany (as defined by Dicitonary.com): a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

I was writing this post on IfByPhone’s blog today (JumpForward and IfByPhone in partnership), and immediately after that I found Garrett Smtih’s (Who is Voice 2.0 enabling?) and iLocus (Emerging merging with the ordinary). The three posts all deal with Voice 2.0 and the services that companies are providing.

A sample from Garrett:

“For a few years now, we have all been touting the promise of Voice 2.0, the death of the PSTN and the revolution that is upon us, yet to date, this new wave has not come crashing down on the traditional voice world with the might that one might think. It isn’t for a lack of trying, but mainly from a lack of a focused vision.”

and from iLocus:

“But the value of your network is proportional to the number of people that are inside that network, not outside that network. Look at the most successful IM clients.”

I think it’s a little sad that the Voice 2.0 sector hasn’t had more success in monetizing their services. But Garrett is right. The focus isn’t there. Providing low cost phone calls is the WalMart approach to this problem. We need to add real value – true innovation. Right now, companies are fighting a battle between creating this market and monetizing it. That’s why you see the WalMart approach. Revenue needs to be there.

But what we really need to be focused on is adding voice to the places where it needs to be and really isn’t. Where does voice have an advantage that Email, IM, wall postings don’t? There are some conversations that need to happen by voice. Voice 2.0 companies can bring that to a wide audience.

So the question is: Where is that audience? It’s in social media. The audience is on Facebook, on Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, even Plaxo. Allowing people to have conversations that interest both parties is monetizable. Be it a company wanting to know if you’ll be there to accept a package and using Twitter to ask for a real time response (assuming the fail whale goes away permanently), or be it a college coach wanting to connect to potential recruits that meet specific criteria via JumpForward. Those are conversations that people will pay to have.

The real challenge is in finding people that want to talk to each other, and providing them the ability to do that.

Why Twitter > Plurk

Khyle — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:48:48 +0000

In the last few weeks, I’ve been spending a decent amount of my social networking time over at Plurk (here is my page). My first reaction is that it is much better than Twitter for conversations (with much less down time).

They solved many of the problems that Twitter has – threaded replies being the biggest. You post a plurk and see as direct replies what people have to say. It ‘s a real conversation instead of the hunting and pecking that is involved with Twitter. If you go back to a plurk from yesterday, you see the entrie conversation. With Twitter, you have a serious problem with that.

Then I noticed Karma. The general idea is that the more you contribute to conversations in a positive way, the more karma you get. The more karma you get, the more options (avatar, keywords, emoticons) you have available. And on the face of it, it seems like a good idea. In theory if you spam the community you’d be penalized.

But what it ends up doing is creating conversation for conversation’s sake. If you want karma, you have to plurk all the time. You go to sleep you lose karma. Which irritates people. And really, what is karma but a way just to keep people on the site?

Really what they should be focusing on is the utility. The ability to bring the conversations to other devices, sites, applications, etc.

Twitter has that. In a post on TechCruch today, Arrington notes that Twitter is branding itself as a communicaiton utility. The real power of Twitter is that you can use it for so many different purposes and from so many different devices. The threading will work eventually. They’ll figure it out.

And soon enough, you’ll see Twitter being used as an integration platform by players trying to tie together different forms of communication. Meanwhile, Plurk will be a glorified chat room.