80 Million Users World Wide and Growing
3.5 Billion Voice Chat Minutes Per Month

Archive for February, 2012

“Call Me” Isn’t Quite What it Used To Be

Date posted: February 17, 2012 by Yvonne Gaudette

It wasn’t that long ago that people saved their quarters for more than parking meters. Before the advent of smart phones, many people still carried coins around in anticipation of the need to make a phone call. From a public pay phone! Where they often waited in line to do so! If callers didn’t have the money, they could bill the call to someone else with the help of phone operator. There were even businesses in the last decade built around installing pay phones at opportune locations, and entrepreneurs could buy and own a pay phone and collect the cash that it generated. Wow, we’ve come a long way…

When is the last time you saw a pay phone? When’s the last time you used one? While they haven’t completely disappeared, they have mostly gone the way of novelty home décor or found new life in the occasional airport lounge or maybe even as an Internet kiosk. But using voice to communicate has continued to grow into places we never imagined. No longer are we tethered to specific equipment, time or locations – voice is now available anywhere, anytime and from just about any device. No coins – not even a call plan – are required.

The freedom that today’s technology allows us is unprecedented, and we’re just starting with voice. Calling someone no longer requires a phone number or even a phone. This can be both a good and bad thing – if you’ve ever replaced your smart phone and lost your contacts in the process, you know what I mean. As communities like Facebook and services like Bobsled make single sign-on a widespread phenomenon, you’ll need little more than your contact’s name in order to connect. It’s an exciting prospect that we can stay connected and communicate so easily.

Voice communication has long been the province of phone companies and wireless carriers, but with the availability of VoIP services and a changing consumer mindset, carriers are realizing they can’t maintain the status quo and remain relevant. With the help of VoIP providers, carriers are delivering new technologies designed to make voice communication easy, accessible, and even free. Take Bobsled as an example. The latest version of Bobsled Calling allows users to make international calls for free from any iOS or Android-powered device. And speaking of being untethered, Bobsled users do not have to be T-Mobile customers or use T-Mobile’s phones. Consumers can call their friends and family from practically anywhere, on any device, for free using Bobsled. Now, that’s progress. (Have you tried it yet? What did you think?)

What other old ways of communicating are becoming antiquated? Faxes, emails, postal mail?? What is the number one way that you use your voice to connect in today’s technology-driven world? And what do you do with all those extra coins now, anyway?

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The consumer voice – socially fascinated, yet fragmented

Date posted: February 8, 2012 by Yvonne Gaudette

Consumers today have their “voice” everywhere – with profiles on multiple social networks, lists upon lists of “friends and followers” and an abundance of ways to connect with them. But how do they pick and choose where to spend their time with those connections? Sure, integration of “share” and “like” buttons make it easier to spread content, but what about their overall voice? Where are consumers talking these days? Some folks don’t even use a phone anymore – and although mobile is popular, some cultures shun the sharing of actual phone numbers (considering it too private). So how do consumers today choose where to say what they want to say, who to share it with and how to share it (text, chat, voice, etc.)?

Communication is supposed to be easier today than ever, but the reality is that consumers’ time, attention and voice are often fragmented as they try to keep up with the influx of new technologies and devices. Finding your friends, building your lists and inviting your community at point A to follow you to point B can get frustrating. Consumers are curious, yet short on patience and very impulsive – slowing them down in any way runs the risk of losing them immediately. The solution isn’t to continue to create yet another new platform or social community, but rather to “get back to easy” – make the need for multiple applications, logins, and devices vanish, and thus, lower communication obstacles.

Provide the ability for consumers to actually talk to each other verbally as easily as they can share content with each other on social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The easier it is to communicate, the more valuable communication becomes. And that should include voice communications. Despite the multitude of different devices and choices we have, connecting shouldn’t be difficult. I’m on a PC, you’re on a phone – not only can we share content, but we can just as easily talk verbally. Or, for example, a Bobsled user can call a Facebook friend while playing Combat Arms from within the game – so it’s not just cross-platform, it’s also cross-experience. Consumers shouldn’t be limited to communicating only with those in their social network while they are active in that network, or in that game, or on a specific device.

I’m eager to see how voice – that is, any way and anywhere that someone communicates – evolves in 2012 and helps consumers to get back to easy communication anywhere, anytime. Voice makes social, mobile and community even more exciting and valuable. At Vivox, we’re helping consumers find their voice, and use it again – we take your existing friends and connect you on any platform, any device. What could be easier?

What are your predictions for voice in 2012 and how it will continue to evolve for consumers?

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Mainstream Mobile – a look at mobile’s growth in 2011 and what lies ahead for 2012

Date posted: February 1, 2012 by Yvonne Gaudette

2011 was a banner year for the mobile industry. Many changes took place, the growth was extraordinary and all of these developments were extremely important to the industry’s future. Let’s take a look…

First of all, the growth of smartphone adoption last year was staggering. As reported by ReadWriteWeb, the majority of U.S. adults under the age of 35 now own a smartphone, and mobile Web usage among these consumers has grown 45% since 2010. If you further break this down, Gartner says that 324 million smartphones were sold worldwide through the first three quarters of 2011, and if you estimate another 120 million or so for the fourth quarter, that’s a 63% increase in sales compared to the same period in 2010. Pretty incredible numbers if you ask us.

The increase in smartphone adoption certainly helped stimulate Android’s success. Just three years ago, Android had zero market presence, but has since surpassed every major platform to become the number-one selling smartphone. InformationWeek reported that Google is activating 550,000 new Android devices per day with no signs of slowing down.

Following the popularity of the iPad, we were introduced to the Android tablet and Kindle Fire in 2011, but as we went into the holidays, the iPad2 still dominated the industry. And tech analysts predicted this would stick saying that an estimated 13.6 million iPads would be sold in the fourth-quarter. However, as the holidays have passed and sales are being tallied, Morgan Keegan analyst Travis McCourt thinks that somewhere between 1 million and 2 million iPad sales were lost to the Kindle Fire. We will be curious to see the specifics once released.

With all the success and rise of smartphone and tablet usage last year, carriers were hard at work advancing the networks speed and capabilities to handle the volume of traffic and data usage. We were introduced to 4G, and this was only a taste of what is to come. We expect 2012 will be a race among carriers to see who can develop the strongest foundation and this will play a large role in determining who consumers choose for their providers going forward. On that note, Verizon closed out the year by seeking approval from the U.S. to acquire airwaves from cable companies in order to keep up with the demand for all these high-speed mobile devices.

Mobile devices have really become an extension of our everyday lives and it’s becoming rarer to find individuals without their phone at their side. So what are your predictions for how the mobile industry will change this year? Our CEO, Rob Seaver, believes carriers will experience new growth and revenues by partnering with innovative providers to meet the growing consumer demand for Over the Top services, such as T-Mobile’s Bobsled powered by Vivox.

Will the mobile market continue to grow at record speed? What is the one thing you really want to see happen this year?

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Bobsled by T-Mobile

Vivox has partnered with T-Mobile to power their Bobsled browser and mobile applications. Using Vivox's VoiceEverywhere technology, Bobsled users can communicate with their Facebook friends from an iPhone or Android app and anywhere they are online.

To learn more and chat with your Facebook friends, visit www.bobsled.com.