Voice and Convenient Services
I was at BarCamp in Dublin and I enjoyed Sean O'Sullivan's "look at the Voice 2.0 landscape" (talk slides here). It was a pitch for their MySay service and a very good pitch as I just wouldn't get it without Sean's overview. Sean said that the guys he works with in Rococo Software used to laugh at each new Voice 2.0 service mentioned in the talk until the ridiculous services started to get thousands of users. Then they were sorry they hadn't done it as most of the (worldwide) services have a low cost of entry.
Basically it's about convenience. It doesn't matter if it's possible to do something - if it takes any effort at all it will slow market adoption.- Plugging a headset into the back of a PC is what holds back Skype and other PC2PC telephony. This is a really big deal apparently and is why web-activated telephony systems that use normal phones like Jajah have higher margins. In my case I really only use Skype for instant messaging - so he has a point.
- txting is fine but it's easier to just say it to a voicemail-like system and let the voicemail-like system take care of delivering the message - especially if it's practically the same price as a txting anyway.
Getting an API to make phones ring is also a pretty big deal according to Sean. He said they use the Dublin-based Glantel to achieve this. Looking at the Glantel website you wouldn't think they provided this service but maybe it's because they know the Rococo guys that they can do it for them.
It's pretty cool stuff even if nobody providing this type of service has a clear idea of when they will break even.