This week we’ve seen both the release of a new version of Skype—Skype 4.0 Beta 1 for Windows initial release – Skype Garage—and a preview version of Twhirl that includes Seesmic playback—Seesmic Blog: Play Seesmic videos in Twhirl client—while they haven’t been connected previously, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Looking at the new Skype, it draws and centralizes your attention to the task at hand, communication with others.  Twhirl is doing the same for microblogging.  We’ve seen this before and when it’s happened great things have always followed.
When?
First the web browser.  Remember gopher and newsreaders and the other required …read more

Take one telco platform, and in a Contact Manager-CRM system, add a couple APIs, mix and you get…  That’s up to you, actually.  Late Feb the folks at Lypp announced a contest to take the Highrise and Lypp APIs and make something cool.  The original opening date was April 1, but because of changes to the APIs the start of the contest has been pushed to April 15:
Due to these and other updates we are pushing back the entry date for the 37 Signals Highrise and Gaboogie Lypp Mashup to April 15th. We will be posting another announcement here on …read more

Canadian start up iotum, who got some serious funding in late November, has a nifty app for Facebook that lets you make free conference calls.  Of course what’s a sweet conference call without being able to record it?  Okay a meeting, but if you can record a call, then it can become a podcast or interview.  As Alec Saunders writes, this is exactly what they have in mind:
We hope that it will become the foundation of a new kind of podcasting more like talk radio than today’s podcasts.  Last night a few friends and I recorded an inaugural call to …read more

Nothing like disruptive technology to disrupt yet another high-profit marketplace. Today’s victim is the wireless long-distance market where carriers are charging subscribers exorbitant prices that tower over LD rates on landline phones. Coming to the rescue of consumers everywhere is Vancouver-based EQC Communications, which just unveiled EQO Mobile, a service that “lets users make international long distance calls and exchange IM and text messages on their mobile phones at local calling and messaging rates”. EQO claims you can save as much as 95% on all international calls.
Well, it seems too good to be true. But EQO said it doesn’t stop …read more

Even though VoIP has been all the rage over the past two or three years, several Canadian carriers (SaskTel, Telus, Manitoba Tel) have stayed out of the market due to concerns about the regulatory environment that favoured cable rivals and independents such as Vonage. With the federal government recently giving carriers the freedom to price VoIP service as they wish, SaskTel has finally come out of the gate with a VoIP service called WebCall Basic within its home territory, Saskatchewan. For $15.95 a month, consumers get an Internet-based service with quality of service guarantees. It can only be a …read more

Ottawa-based FirstHand Technologies, which makes technology to enhance the capabilities of smartphones and PDAs, has been named to FierceVoiP’s First 15 list. “FierceVoIP congratulates FirstHand Technologies on being named as one of the Fierce15,” said Dan Rosenbaum, editor of FierceVoIP. “By bringing mobile phones into the enterprise, FirstHand helps realize the promise of fixed-mobile convergence.” FirstHand, formerly known as SIPquest, raised $7-million in venture capital earlier this year in a deal led involving BDC Venture Capital, Covington Capital and Skypoint Capital. Update: Ottawa-based Iotum also made the First 15 list (my apologies to Howard Thaw and Alec Saunders!). For more, …read more

Hullo made a splash earlier this week with the launch of a new VOIP service with all kinds of bells and whistles such as the ability to conference call and do find-me services. For everthing you’d want to know about Hullo, check out Alec Saunders’ blog post. Hullo has been in beta for some time and held its launch party in Ottawa. While it got some TechCrunch Love (TL) and a fair bit of blogosphere coverage, the company could have got even more PR juice by being more pro-active with bloggers (Rob Hyndman, Jon Arnold, Mathew Ingram, etc.) in its own …read more