Ribbit: voice 2.0? (and holiday wallpaper)

It's IT Blogwatch: in which telephony upstart Ribbit hops into view. Not to mention holiday wallpaper...

Nancy Gohring reports:

A Mountain View, Calif., company is launching a platform designed to let developers create telephony applications they can embed in Web pages and existing Web-based services. Ribbit Corp.'s back-end technology includes a software switch that connects Internet-based voice communication services with mobile phones, land line phones and text messages ... [and an API], which lets developers build applications that unify the wide variety of communication methods. [more]

Mark Hall adds:

CEO ... Ted Griggs ... calls his ... start-up "Silicon Valley's first phone company ... We ripped open the walled garden a carrier would put before the switch." That is, the Ribbit Smart Switch has open APIs that software developers can work with to add features the switch lacks, something telcos are loathe to do. For example, developers can ... integrate a phone dialer into a CRM package, combining call records with other customer data automatically. [more]

Erick Schonfeld:

In case it isn’t abundantly clear by now, voice is just another application ... Ribbit handles the calls and other voice-related services (call logs, voice messages, speech-to-text transcription, contact imports, directories, provisioning, billing, security, authentication) and provides the APIs to developers, who build their apps with Adobe’s Flex development tools. [more]

David Chartier likes it:

Ribbit offers a new platform that can combine virtually every mode of communication—VoIP, mobile phones, IM, e-mail, and more. With a plausible business model and a simple platform for developers to build applications on, Ribbit just might have a shot at getting everyone talking ... the SmartSwitch [is] a multiprotocol, carrier-grade, Lucent certified, CLASS 5 soft switch. [more]

But Om Malik's not so sure:

Adobe will be making a big splash with its VoIP plans sometime next spring, and is working furiously to put finishing touches on its offerings. This would make Adobe Ribbit’s biggest competitor. And there are others, like Lypp, who are following a similar strategy. Meanwhile Google, which owns GrandCentral, could easily roll out its own version of a voice-web platform. [more]

Ted Patrick has more:

[Adobe's] Pacifica adds a full SIP stack into Flash Player and the scope is far wider than voice alone. SIP is optimal for data exchange, real-time messaging, peer. The inital release covers voice and data and later releases support peer, video/audio/binary AMF. Actually Pacifica solves a key scalability issue with Ribbit in allowing SIP integration with a higher quality voice standard and better compression than the Nellymoser codec used in RTMP. [more]

Stefan Constantinescu calls it, "proof that the Valley is on crack":

Give me a break, voice usage is shrinking and in todays highly asynchronous world a phone call is about the most distracting thing that can happen to you ... Voice usage [is] only 12% of what people were doing [with smartphones] ... the growth in the mobile telecommunications industry is being fueled by messaging and data. “Voice 2.0?” More like waste of money. [more]

So John Murrell thinks ahead:

ibbit has a reported $13 million in venture funding and a team with a lot of telecom equipment experience, so it’s at least got a fighting chance. Should things go badly, however, I’ve already stashed “Ribbit Croaks” in my Headlines I Hope I Don’t Have To Write file. [more]

And finally...

• Holiday wallpaper
  

Buffer overflow:

• Rough Type: Like, hello?
• Tim O'Reilly: Google Admits "Data is the Intel Inside"
• Carl Howe: More information doesn't drive better decisions
• Symantec Security Response Weblog: Web Protection 2.0
• Paul McNamara: Senate debate begins; Dodd set to filibuster telecom immunity
• Mike Masnick: Your Encryption Key Is Protected By The Constitution?
• Jacqui Cheng: Blogging celebrates its tenth birthday
• Tom Olzak: Blackberry text message content monitoring
• Project Management from the Cutting’s Edge: Use Case Diagrams: A PMs View

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Preston Gralla: Vonage whacked with another suit - isn't this company dead yet?
• Shark Tank: Where's the fire?
• Seth Weintraub: Canalys figures in, iPhone clear winner in North America
• Douglas Schweitzer: Make space for these voters
• Shark Bait: Instant IT response

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Amazon cloud rains forest of data (and best quotes)
• Opera vs. Microsoft: more EU antitrust antagonism (and USBwine)
• Windows 7 gets touchy-feely (and blogsplanation)