Squawk Box Discusses eComm 2008
Over the past few weeks I have been calling into Alec Saunders' daily SquawkBox where he uses iotum's Free Conference Call on Facebook to discuss (and record) the issues of the day, usually with five to ten participants. In what was the best attended (17 participants) and most lively session yet, Dan York hosted (while Alec flew home from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain) a very engaging interview with Lee Dryburgh, founder of the Emerging Communications Conference (eComm 2008). Later Dan interviewed Thomas Howe, one of the eComm speakers and threw the session open for questions and commentary.
When Alec arrived home this afternoon, he put up a post on today's SquawkBox where you can also click to hear the entire animated discussion.
At one point I had to challenge the contention that Skype usage is falling off. During the past week, concurrent online users has approached (but not crossed) 12 million around noon hour EST (GMT-5) - a long way from the sub-10 million numbers prior to Christmas. (And Borderless Communicator Hudson Barton figures there had to be 1.68 million new Skype users in the past month - I captured today's snapshot since his charts are updated very frequently.) Also, while not widely publicized, Skype accounts from North America almost doubled in 2007 using eBay's reported U.S. percentages as a proxy where US revenue increased 85%. Now if eBay would just release the same customer numbers as released by other US telcos instead of the SEC required bare minimum...
Lee and I briefly chatted about the complex issue of data portability and how it plays in this revolution on the call, but this is a huge problem that we're really only beginning to understand. The telecom industry doesn't understand it all, but the innovators are really beginning to grasp it's full import. Data, our personal data, is a resource. In the world of social media, it may be our most important personal resource. As we learn how to share it effectively with our devices, and with our family, friends and colleagues, the ability to store all this information under our own control somewhere in the "cloud" so it can be accessed any time, anywhere from any device.
Tags: eComm 2008, SquawkBox, Dan York, Lee Dryburgh, Thomas Howe, Skype, Hudson Barton, Alec Saunders, Free Conference Call on Facebook, eBay, Ken Camp, Sheryl Breuker
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Comments
I appreciate the link to my post on this. I think many good points were made. I believe eComm will be an exciting place to be this year.
I'm sad we can't attend but know we have many friends who will help change the future of the web.
Thanks again, Jim.
Posted by: Sheryl Breuker | February 18, 2008 08:24 AM
I appreciate the link to my post on this. I think many good points were made. I believe eComm will be an exciting place to be this year.
I'm sad we can't attend but know we have many friends who will help change the future of the web.
Thanks again, Jim.
Posted by: Sheryl Breuker | February 18, 2008 08:26 AM
Thanks for the kind words Jim. In truth, Sheryl and I have spent quite a bit of time pondering our questions and thoughts about how her view and mine echo similar ideas about the future. We're working on the first episode of our upcoming GeekSpeakTV. I think our first episode my well be spent talking about that subject.
Wish we could make it to eComm. We were both really planning on it. Unfortunately, we just have too much on our plate and we were forced to make the hard choice to miss it. I think our questions aren't central to the them of the conference, but are important ones that aren't being thought about by all the people who should really be considering them too.
Hope you had a great weekend!
Posted by: Ken Camp | February 18, 2008 08:26 AM