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Congrats to the Wire Team for TNW Apps of The Year Selection
Continue Reading: Congrats to the Wire Team for TNW Apps of The Year SelectionCongratulations to the Wire.com team for having Wire be selected as one of The Next Web’s “Apps of the Year”!TNW’s Napier Lopez talks about how beautiful Wire is and how much it is a platform that he wants to use… and suddenly he is the one asking people to join him.
Many of comments mirror my own opinion of how much I enjoy using the app. It’s just a pleasure to use for communication.
Napier Lopez does, though, hit Wire’s real challenge:
Still, I mentioned earlier that I started using other messaging platforms because my friends made me, and therein lies the crux with Wire, or any new messaging platofrm, really: you need to get users on the platform.
This is indeed the “user directory problem” that I wrote about at great length. And I, too, hope that the Wire team – and we all as Wire users – can find ways to help bring people to the platform.
Meanwhile, congrats to the Wire team for this recognition – and I look forward to seeing what may be coming up next in the app!
P.S. I notice a version 1.2 for iOS just appeared in the AppStore and it…
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Skype Translator Looks Intriguing
Continue Reading: Skype Translator Looks IntriguingWhile it is only a “preview” release and is only available to people using Skype on Windows 8.1, Microsoft’s new Skype Translator announced on Monday looks very cool! As they state:The preview program will kick-off with two spoken languages, Spanish and English, and 40+ instant messaging languages will be available to Skype customers who have signed-up via the Skype Translator sign-up page and are using Windows 8.1 on the desktop or device.
The very well-done video shows the real potential, though:
I think many of us have always wanted the Star Trek Universal Translator and while this “preview” from Microsoft is not yet near that sci-fi ideal, it’s definitely a very intriguing step along that direction. I like the idea that it can do both speech and text translation. Given my travel to different parts of the world, the idea of being able to whip out my smartphone and be able to translate to and from another language is definitely welcome.
I’m told the Windows 8.1 restriction is because it is based on Microsoft’s Cortana ‘personal assistant’ technology. Given that I have no Windows 8.1 devices nor expect to anytime soon, I won’t personally get a chance to check…
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The Directory Problem – The Challenge For Wire, Talko And Every Other “Skype-Killer” OTT App
Continue Reading: The Directory Problem – The Challenge For Wire, Talko And Every Other “Skype-Killer” OTT AppAs much as I am enjoying the new Wire app, there is a fundamental problem that Wire faces… as well as Talko, Firefox Hello and every other Over-The-Top (OTT) or WebRTC application that is seeking to become THE way that we communicate via voice, chat and/or video from our mobile phones and desktops. That is:How do they gather the “directory” of people that others want to talk to?
The fundamental challenge all of these applications face is this:
People will only USE a communication application if the people they want to talk to are using the application.
And where I say “talk” it could also be “chat” or “message” or… pick your communication verb.
It’s all about the “directory” of users.
There’s a war out there right now… and it’s a war for the future of our communications between each other. It’s a war for messaging… and it’s also a war for voice and video.
And it all comes back to… which communications application or service can provide the most comprehensive directory of users?
Which communications tool will be the one that people use the most? Will any of them replace the default communications of the mobile phone? NOTE:…
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Catching Up With Mitel …
Continue Reading: Catching Up With Mitel …By way of a tweet I stumbled upon analyst Blair Pleasant’s UC Strategies post, “Change – The Only Thing That’s Constant“, that showed me that while I’ve been off in the worlds of IPv6 and DNSSEC there has been a great amount of activity happening in the world of my former employer Mitel.Heck, I didn’t even realize they had a new logo! 🙂
But indeed they do (apparently back in 2013 in October 2014 (see comments))… and Blair’s great look at the world of Unified Communications mentions that and a good bit more. I was aware of the acquisition of Aastra, but did not realize that PrairieFyre had finally been folded into Mitel (it had always seemed to be a likely acquisition candidate as its products worked primarily with Mitel’s systems).
With my focus changing a bit, and most of my interest here on Disruptive Telephony focused around WebRTC and some of the newer disruptions to Internet communications, the last time I really mentioned Mitel was back in April with the passing of Simon Gwatkin. My posts about Mitel prior to that go back to 2011 and before.
In looking at Mitel’s web site, their rebranding is clear…
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How To Add An Emoji Character To Your Name In The Wire App
Continue Reading: How To Add An Emoji Character To Your Name In The Wire AppBecause I keep getting asked…. here is how you can add an emoji / emoticon to your name inside the new Wire app on Mac OS X / iOS / Android. (The Wire app that I wrote about yesterday and the day before.)
Many people have been asking why some names have a symbol after them inside of Wire, such as Olle’s:
Or these:
The answer about how to do this is simple…
YOU JUST ADD AN EMOJI CHARACTER TO YOUR NAME!
Yep… that’s it!
Adding an Emoji On Mac OS X
In the Mac OS X client, you click on your name, and then the pencil next to your name:
When you are then in the edit box, you can type the magic Mac OS X keystroke to bring up the emoji panel:
Control + Command + Space
Ta da! All the emoji you could ever want…
Adding an Emoji on iOS
Similarly, you just go into the Wire app on iOS and click on your name at the top of your list of contacts. You should now be in edit mode:
Then you just add an emoji. Now, there may be easier ways to do this, but I…
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More Observations About The “Wire” App
Continue Reading: More Observations About The “Wire” AppAfter yesterday’s launch of Wire, I continued to use it a bit today and am writing these notes, mostly for my own memory.Group Chats ARE Persistent
In my post yesterday I said that it seemed like Wire group chats were “persistent” (something I’d previously written about with regard to Skype). Today I can confirm that they ARE persistent. When I fired up the Wire app this morning I received all the messages that had been posted into the group chat overnight while I’d been offline.
Further, when I went to add someone to the group chat, I received this message:
The Wire team also deserves credit for how smoothly they make the scrolling back through the chat history. Works very well!
No IPv6… yet
Friends tested Wire in an IPv6-only network and confirmed that it unfortunately does not yet work. In reaching out to someone at Wire the word was that they are definitely investigating this to see what can be done. The issue is that the Wire app connects to Amazon EC2 servers – so it’s really an issue of Amazon’s capabilities.
I will say again that Wire at the very least deserves credit for coming out with…
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Initial Thoughts On “Wire”, The New Communication App From Ex-Skypers
Continue Reading: Initial Thoughts On “Wire”, The New Communication App From Ex-SkypersAnother remarkable day in Internet communications! Today brought the launch of “Wire“, a “modern communications network” that runs on iOS, Android, Mac OS X and soon in WebRTC-equipped web browsers.My first thought was naturally – do we really need YET-another-OTT-communication app?
After all, my iPhone is littered with the dead carcasses of so many other apps that have launched trying to be THE communication platform we all want to use. (And indeed I’ve written about many of them here on this site.)
But what makes Wire different for me from so many other similar apps that have launched (and faded) is really the PEOPLE involved. The news announcement mentions, of course, Skype co-founder Janus Friis as one of the big names behind Wire. Jonathan Christensen is also the co-founder and CEO of Wire. The news post says this:
The company’s team comprises former product and technology leaders from Apple, Skype, Nokia, and Microsoft. Christensen held leadership roles at Microsoft and Skype, and was co-founder and CEO at Camino Networks. Along with Christensen, founders include Alan Duric, Wire’s CTO, a co-founder of Telio (Oslo exchange TELIO) and co-founder of Camino (acquired by eBay/Skype); and Priidu Zilmer, Wire’s head…
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How To Test Firefox Hello, Mozilla’s New WebRTC Video Call Service
Continue Reading: How To Test Firefox Hello, Mozilla’s New WebRTC Video Call ServiceWow! Mozilla’s new Firefox 34 includes a great new WebRTC-based feature called “Firefox Hello” that lets you call people without requiring them to have an account with Firefox. You simply send them a URL via email, chat or some other method – and they can start calling you from within Firefox.Here’s all you need to do to try it yourself. First, you need Firefox 34, of course. Once you have upgraded or installed the software, you should see a “Hello” button over on the far right side of the browser’s top bar:
If you don’t see this button, as I didn’t, you may have to perform the following steps, as documented in a Firefox help page:
1. Open the “Customize” section of the browser to add the “Hello” button to your menu bar:
2. Drag the “Hello” button to the browser bar or to the drop-down menu.
Now, in my case, that still didn’t work and I had to use the additional trick mentioned in the help article of going to http://about:config and changing “loop.throttled” to “false” (simply by clicking on that setting). After restarting Firefox I was then able to go into the Customize window and add…
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Today At Noon EST: Matrix.Org Distributed Communications On The VUC Call
Continue Reading: Today At Noon EST: Matrix.Org Distributed Communications On The VUC CallWhat is the Matrix.org distributed communication system all about? What is an “open source federated signaling standard”? In about 30 minutes you’ll be able to find out LIVE on today’s VoIP Users Conference (VUC) where the guest will be Matthew Hodgson, one of the co-founders of Matrix.org. As the site says:
Matrix is a new open standard for interoperable Instant Messaging and VoIP, providing pragmatic HTTP APIs and open source reference implementations for creating and running your own real-time communication infrastructure.
Our hope is to make VoIP/IM as universal and interoperable as email.
You can watch it live on YouTube at:
Or join in on the Google+ event page. As noted in the #VUC show notes, the team is going to try a number of different ways to get people connected today.
It’s probably best to also join the IRC backchannel where links are shared, questions are answered and other comments occur. You also can visit the Google+ event page for the VUC #517 session today where there may be additional links and info.
If you won’t be at your computer, you can also call in via:
- sip:200901@login.zipdx.com
- +1 (646) 475-2098
- Skype:vuc.me
The session will of course be recorded so you can…
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Disruptive Telephony… … disrupted?
Continue Reading: Disruptive Telephony… … disrupted?It’s been a while since I’ve written here on Disruptive Telephony… too long. 🙁It’s not for a lack of topics … my queue of things I would like to write about continues to grow and grow!
It’s easy to say that my day job has consumed much of my writing time… and there’s definitely a great bit of truth to that.
There’s also the fact that I have two young children and a wife whom I adore and want to spend time with… as well as other priorities in life that have taken me away from writing as much as I used to.
I do, though, want to get back to writing here, and indeed across all my sites, a bit more.
Stay tuned…
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
Disruptive Telephony
Dan York on how Voice over IP is rewriting (almost) everything you thought you understood about telephony…