Digium launches the “Digium Asterisk Marketplace” to promote members of the Asterisk ecosystem

digium-the-asterisk-company.gifDigium recently announced that they have launched the “Digium Asterisk Marketplace” as a way to help connect users of Asterisk to partners in the “Asterisk ecosystem” who make products that work with Asterisk. Many of the folks listed there have been parters with Digium for some time and are often in Digium booths at various trade conferences but there were a few names new to me. At the time I am writing this, there are 30 members listed in the Marketplace but with the application form readily available, we’ll see how much this grows. The Asterisk blog entry lays out the terms:

The price is right – a listing starts at $395 per quarter. In return, your company gets exposure to the thousands of unique visitors that cross the Digium site daily. Or you can get a more prominent “premium” listing for a few extra bucks. For a limited time, you can get a listing for a full year starting at $795 – about half the regular rate.

Later, we plan to add more cool features, such as the ability for users to provide feedback, more categories for listings, and the ability to buy selected partner products directly from the Marketplace site.

The question will really be how many Asterisk partners view this as a value and jump in.

In any event, I think it’s great to see this type of listing coming out for Asterisk and I’ll look forward to seeing how it grows over time.

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My thoughts are certainly with Om Malik as he recovers from a heart attack!

gigaom.jpgI was rather shocked today to learn that Om Malik is recovering from a heart attack! The good news, based on his post, is that he is recovering!

My thoughts are certainly with Om. Ever since I started paying attention to the VoIP blogosphere a good number of years ago, Om was one of the folks to whom I always paid attention. I wish him well and hope for his speedy recovery!

And yes, as he notes, it’s a good reminder that we all need to watch our health. (Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.)

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A SIP phone for the iPod Touch! (Just add microphone…

Fascinating development on the Apple frontier… in late December some developers posted information about a SIP phone for the iPod Touch! They included this helpful demonstration video:

The team has obviously received a lot of questions and has therefore released a lengthy FAQ list. If you have an iPod Touch, you can download the software. Of course, you really need a microphone to use it… which the Touchmods folks are building.

All in all an interesting development. I look forward to seeing how it moves along!

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Another print pub bites the dust… say goodbye to “Business Communications Review” / BCR

200801021114In learning about the new “NoJitter.com” blog recently, I also learned from Eric Krapf that Business Communications Review, commonly known simply as “BCR”, was joining the ongoing exodus from the print publication business. Effective January 1, it will no longer be published in print form and, in fact, the name will retired for publishing purposes. They will continue to use the name for their training business, which is apparently going very well. The publishing focus for the BCR team will apparently be this new NoJitter blog, which I mentioned in my last post.

Personally, I’m sorry to see them go. I definitely do understand that the economics of print publishing today are quite difficult, but I did value the work that BCR did, particularly in their comparisons of products and services. It will be interesting to see, too, how well their current readership makes the switch with them. I know personally that once InfoWorld folded its print edition, I know longer paid as much attention to their writing as I once did… except when it randomly came up in searches. I’m not currently a BCR subscriber, so if anything this move may mean that I see more of their writing.

In any event, I wish them all the best with moving to the online world with NoJitter.com and look forward to seeing how that site evolves.

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Welcome to “NoJitter.com”, a new VoIP blog by the editors of Business Communications Review…

Back in mid December when I received the latest copy of the “VoiceCon ENews” email newsletter, I noticed that Eric Krapf had a new signature to his post:

Eric H. Krapf

Editor & Lead Blogger, NoJitter.com

VoiceCon Program Chair

Naturally, I had to see what NoJitter.com was about…

200801021103It turns out that NoJitter.com is a new site launched by CMP to provide a focus on IP Communications/IP Telephony/Unified Communications/VoIP/whatever-we-are-calling-this-space-today. Eric, will, in fact, be the “lead blogger”. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Eric in a few small ways (such as a VoIP security panel at Interop/VoiceCon New York in October) and look forward to seeing what he and the others there will be doing with this new site. (Hey, he already gets a “+1” from me for having “VoIP Security” as one of the navigation categories in his navbar!)

Welcome, Eric and the NoJitter team, to the VoIP part of the blogosphere!

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Do 40% of men really make phone calls while naked? (Skype blogs are exploring the “Twelve Days of Skype Christmas”

2C4E1F1A-AA0A-413F-A3D8-41EFDE4233DF.jpgOver on the Skype blogs, Skype blogger Peter Parkes is having a bit of fun with a series of articles under the banner of the “Twelve Days of Skype Christmas“. They are a bit amusing… although I’m not really sure I wanted to know that 40% make phone calls while naked according to one survey!

Anyway, kudos to Peter for putting together a series of posts for the season.

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Asterisk crosses 1 million downloads in 2007

digium-the-asterisk-company.gifNews out of Digium yesterday morning that there have now been over one million downloads of Asterisk in 2007:

Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, today announced the one millionth download of Asterisk in 2007, capping off a record year for the leading open source telephony company. Digium, which will complete its 24th consecutive quarter of growth and profitability this year, created headlines with new executive appointments, industry awards, strategic partnerships and acquisitions aimed at further advancing the company’s presence in the small-to-medium-sized (SMB) VoIP market.

Now, granted, we have to remember that this is one million downloads and has no real indication of: a) how many of those downloads were actually installed; b) how many of those installations were simply tests and are not in actual production use; c) how many of those downloads were duplicate downloads by the same user; and d) how many of those downloads were updates as people installed new versions.

All that aside, it is a significant milestone for any project. Congrats to the Digium team!

P.S. I’m still waiting for an answer from Digium PR about how many downloads there are total for Asterisk. This is one million in 2007, but how does that compare to the overall total?

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New Firefox VoIP extension that works with any SIP VoIP service and also Asterisk

200712170708Last Thursday, Luca Filigheddu posted the announcement that his company’s Firefox VoIP extension now works with any SIP-based VoIP service. From his announcement:

A new version of the VoIP Extension is now available for download and it’s not limited to the Abbeyphone VoIP service only. You can insert your favorite VoIP service or even your company’s Asterisk PBX. The following VoIP providers are already included: Free World Dialup, Gizmo Project, VoIPStunt, VoIPCheap and Abbeyphone of course. More to come very soon.

I’ve not yet tried this out myself, but since it does work on the Mac as well as Windows and Linux I’m going to have to do so soon.

Cool to see… and if you want to try it out yourself, go to http://www.mozillavoip.com/

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