Title: Introduction To Mobile Compliance – Are Your Mobile Phones Compliant?
Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM US EDT

Reserve your webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/176856091

More details are here:
Are Your Mobile Phones Compliant? – Mobile Compliance Webinar By TextGuard

Google Voice is an interesting service, very much in the territory of Telecom domain, so we will have to see how it impacts/ complements/ competes with the Telecoms of today.

Just FYI, Telecoms like AT&T, Verizon, Orange, etc are among the largest online advertisers, because they have a lot of money at stake in the face of VOIP, etc, and they are taking anything lightly today, though in the long-run, solutions with better economics will prevail, like we have seen with other technologies in the previous decades.

How does Google Voice work? You get a new Google assigned phone number. Then, you route all of your other phone numbers through that number. So, your office phone, your work phone, your home phone – whatever. Google voice will allow your calls to selectively ring to any of the destination phones you choose. It is a practical and useful concept, which is will be liked by many.

In addition, Google Voice offers bonus features like:
- You can selectively ring calls to multiple destinations.
- You can selectively block and screen calls
- You can send, receive forward and store SMS text messages
- Check your voicemail online, read it via email or text (you can even forward it)
- You can create personalized voicemail messages per contact
- You can group your contacts and manage their preferences on a group level
- Conference calling, call recording, call switching, 411 info

Many of us have already been using Gmail’s voicemail feature to send them to email ids (very useful), and this voice and video chat will make it even better.

Checkout these Google blog posts for more details:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/say-hello-to-gmail-voice-and-video-chat.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/talk-face-to-face-right-from-within.html

Agent Peterson of the Geek Squad at Zdnet explains how to choose the right equipment and set up a wireless network at home.

• The main thing is to know which devices you have at home, which can help you choose theright technology.
• Cordless and Microphones create network interference.
• Bathroom and Kitchen create locational interference because of the large amount of metal used.
• Wireless range expander is a very handy solution.

Tags: Wireless Home Network, Network, Home Network, Integration, Wi-Fi, Wireless

Google has announced the details of its mobile OS strategy. It’s called Android and its the brainchild of the so-called “Open Handset Alliance.” The Daily Tech Rag reports on the latest and very interesting development in the Mobile application space.

Google has teamed up with 34 different partners in the technology space (including NVIDIA, Intel, Texas Instruments, Synaptics, Marvell, Qualcomm, Motorola, Samsung, T-Mobile, Sprint, Skype, LG, HTC, KDDI, DoCoMo and China Mobile) to create the Open Handset Alliance (OHA)–a group focused on building an open, fully customizable alternative to closed operating systems like Windows Mobile 6, Symbian S60 and the iPhone OS.

The OHA’s first product will be Android, an open-source mobile OS and associated application suite that’s built on the Linux operating system (and will be open-sourced via the Apache v2 License). The Android SDK will be made available to developers on November 12th and Android-sporting handsets will flood the market next year, from device manufacturers like HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung.

These handsets will be available during the second half of 2008 in the U.S. (from T-Mobile and Sprint) China, Japan, Germany, Italy and Spain. As has been reported earlier, the Android OS will be targeted toward consumers and will be available to OEMs free of charge (the OS will be ad-supported, like all of Google’s other apps).

“A few observations:

• It’s interesting that Google isn’t putting their own name on this but rather, taking a step back and pushing the OHA brand. While this certainly seems like a collaborative effort to a degree, it’s clear that Google is the driving force here–they’ve had the OS in development for three years now.
• Will this force other carriers/device manufacturers (most notably AT&T, Verizon, Nokia, RIM and Apple) to open up their handset platforms?
• Does this mean that just about every desktop developer who has thus far been shuttered out of the wireless industry will make a mad dash for that SDK in order to have an Android app out by next year? You had better believe it.

From the looks of it, Google and the OHA are sitting on what could be a real game-changer here, in terms of openness, user-customization and mobile functionality. Android is expected to usher in an age where mobile devices operate more like PCs, with users downloading, installing and customizing to their heart’s content. ”

Endadget has compiled some useful background information – if you want more details.

Read – Google press release
Read – Android mobile OS overview
Read – Google blog: “Where’s my Gphone?

All this activity has resulted in multiple phishing attacks on Skype in the recent weeks. That sets the set for a new Skype malware/trojan that calls itself Skype Defender, which sounds like a security plug-in. On Oct 16, Skype has given a warning on its own blog about the Skype Defender Trojan Alert

Here’s another report with images from F-Secure.com

The trojan steals your Skype login and password and passes it somewhere else.  And it also steals any passwords saved using Internet Explorer (IE). Why is IE constantly behind Firefox in security despite having more resources? You can’t change the world, but you can change your browser. Consider using Forefox – its a safer option.

The idea is interesting and we will wait and see how consumers react to voice ads, while they are waiting on hold to speak with their bank or pay the utility bills. Meanwhile, Voodoovox has closed $8.1M Financing Round led By Softbank Capital.

Steve Murray, partner, Softbank Capital feels: “The potential for ad-supported telephony extends far beyond directory assistance applications….Over time, we expect VoodooVox to help drive new applications, improve customer experiences, and decrease pricing for consumer telephony services of all kinds while raising profitability for the call publishers that provide these services.” The full news release is on their website.

So what’s the takeaway for you? There are more and more options of advertising, and reach audience at the most suitable time and space. Following the Internet, the telephone services got online, and in a few years, we can have “personalized” digital TV channels (more about that sometime later). So for any product or service that you want to market, consider all possible alternatives – they are increasing all the time.

n the next few days, your search ads will be eligible to run on Google Mobile Search pages (like they currently do on Google.com). We are offering this feature – and any resulting clicks – for free through November 18, so you can experiment with the rapidly growing mobile platform while still reaching qualified customers.” For more info on this, read this Search Engine Land article.

Now, Mobile advertising has been predicted to be a big market, and while some businesses have taken their positions, others are still discussing over their white boards, and still others are making power point presentations that may not turn into action for another year.

One thing is for sure: mobile advertising is going to benefit from all the wide screen devices that we have been getting, including this Treo (one of our favourites!) You can receive text and images, like menu cards, driving directions, hotel room pricing lists, and more.

So how can you benefit as a business?

As you can expect, there will be a high demand for services while a person is on the move — related to transport, food, medicines, hotels, finance, etc. If you can deliver a reliable service, then there is an opportunity to advertise on the mobile platform, and sell at a better profit margin because the consumer is usually looking for immediate response, delivery, or action. For these services, he or she most probably won’t sit down to prepare a detailed comparison table, and you can get the order if you can deliver in the short time-frames.

But if you can’t you will have more than your share of irate customers!