IT & Internet Marketing Consultant

What happened to VoIP?

Oct 2009 19

When I first got introduced to Voice over IP it arrived in the form of an Asterisk PBX system back in the summer of 2005. Ploughing through the config files and trying to get my first BRI ISDN card to work was the difficult part but once you’re done with that the “real” fun could start. As I was getting in to it more and more really seeing a future in to the system made me invest in myself by getting the Digium Certificed Asterisk Certificated (DCAP) which I received in the beginning of 2008. So almost 2 years later where is Asterisk and its VoIP system now?

My company’s mailbox received sporadic mails in asking me for support on their Asterisk build or Trixbox system but the “boom” on VoIP has still not arrived to my disappointment. Would it be that this great technology could not cope with the pressure of mobile network companies and negative advertising from leading PBX brand systems like Alcatel and Cisco?

The best way to answer questions like this is by finding out how popular it was during the years. I am using Google Insights Search to find out this information and this is what happened.

Ah this explains already a bit more what happend to me. Since I learned about Asterisk in 2005 it was when VoIP was HOT. The tipping point was building up and keywords like: VoIP and Future where widely coined. Sadly enough this hype was kind short lived since in January 2006 the search for VoIP declined rapidly. So does this mean VoIP does not have a future anymore.

Lets try to figure this out as well by find out relations of VoIP by using Google Sets and Insight search.

http://labs.google.com/sets?hl=en&q1=VoIP&q2=Asterisk&q3=&q4=&q5=&btn=Small+Set+%2815+items+or+fewer%29

Google sets provided me with the following keywords: voip,asterisk,linux,pbx,sip,software,telephony,ser,opensource,ip,skype,phone,voice

So lets do some insight search with a couple of these

By compairing the various Opensource PBX systems and also the widely used VoIP Application called Skype we notice that although the Trixbox,FreePBX,Asterisk systems are not really widely used the SER system is.

So a conflict , on the one side we see a rapid decline in VoIP and Asterisk and on the other side we see a big rise in SER and Skype. So what are we doing wrong ?

Go out on grafton street and asking anyone about Asterisk or VoIP…The chance that they know what you are talking about is very slim ! So that is the problem with our graphs and results. We need to related the information to not what it really is but to what it really means. So lets do this “check” again but now with understandable terms.

So it looks like internet calling is really on its way out… But not completely because how many people have a land line these days ? Often the younger generation will just have there mobile and no landline phone at all. So

Well a little light at the end of the VoIP tunnel since we have a rising volume of Internet mobile calling and VoIP Mobile and GSM searches… And Skype ofcourse with its steady stream, but to be honest I would put my eggs in the basket that will offer free phone calls which will be most likely a google system that offers free mobile wifi on its android system and it will make its money by advertising on the mobiles once in a while and finding out the so called hotspots in mobile phone numbers. By the way the “hotspots in mobile phone numbers” is another artical all together !

Fun, SEO, Technical 2 Comments »

SEO 2010 Strategy: Become an online oracle

Oct 2009 12

One of the most sought after wisdoms in the current web market is the “how-to” on getting your newly formed website / company / band / club / religion etc found on the vast internet. If you look for “SEO” “SEO Google” “SEO Wordpress” “SEO Marketing” and “SEO Tools” etc in any search engine chances are big that the first 100 hits are outdated or spam styled articles and website that most likely will not contribute to your goal in getting yourself found on the web at all. A few years back I did a study and managed to predict trends like “Facebook” “Twitter” “Twitter Blog” but also the impact of celebrity comments , tweets and there regional impact on the search ranking of websites. If you happen to have a blog talking about “Katie Price”, “Stephen Fry”, “Stephen Gately”, “Boy Zone” then the odds are high that you will hit a increase of visitors to your website for a certain period in 2009.

Imagine if you could use this information about what is going to be discussed on the web in the next week, next month or even next year in a business context. For example the last twelve months was full of “business”, “PayPal”, “companies house”, “Marketing” and “Manager” as business keywords but what if you know that next year around this time the keywords would be : “scrappage scheme” , “paypal login” , “2010 calendar” , “free tv project” and “staples uk”. If you have this knowledge about what would happen in the future then this would give you the edge on which you can base your up and coming marketing campaigns and strategies on.

What if I would tell you this is very well possible, and that most of these tools to predict up and coming trends are widely available. Not only are they available they are often for free as well. The only investment that I could recommend is getting an expert involved which can provide training on how to use the wide array of tools to your benefit and how to incorporate them fully to benefit your business. Experts like me.

Lastly I want to say, you might be critical about this concept but just think about what brought you to my blog in the first place….

SEO, Technical No Comments »

A very good way to get rid of spyware & adware Video tutorial

Oct 2009 07

I added this video to show you how its done !

(original blog text)

Hearing more and more complaints about how spyware is ruining pc’s and how the only solution is formatting your drives I decided to write down a simple 5 step config for getting rid of most of them (With these steps I got rid of the Brittiania Search / Feed Yard Virus for example)

So first up download the following 2 programs

1. GMER (http://www.gmer.net/#files)
2. MalwareBytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam-download.php)
3. Install GMER and start scanning , after the scan remove all items that are marked RED (see this vid for an example )
4. Install Malwarebytes and do a Quick Scan
5. After the quick scan is finished delete the selected “problems” and reboot your pc.

You should now be adware free !

Fun, Technical No Comments »

Let's Go Lite! Facebook Lite to be precise

Oct 2009 06

When the first social networking websites came out they were heavy loaded, full of images, colors and cool widgets. Remember those days that you would open a MySpace page and the annoying glitters, flashy imagines and the Britney spears mp3’s would start kicking off. The internet and pc’s were quick enough for most of the western world and your pc would only crash after maybe 4 or 5 pages open. Now some things we have changed, technology is getting faster however it also is smaller and with the introduction of the IPod touch, the Iphone and now another tsunami comes in at form of Google Wave the internet had to make a Lite Change !.

A Lite Facebook is the same as your Face Book but then smaller, quicker and less flashy. This type of “lite” site is perfect for your IPhone, notebook or a cloud computing system. So you can expect in 2010 not just facebook lite (which is here http://lite.facebook.com/ )

But also gmail-lite , myspace-lite , twitter-lite and ofcourse YouTube lite !

Fun, SEO, Social Media, Technical No Comments »

Anticipation studies and trending to predict the web future.

Oct 2009 05

As part of my social media and networking investigations I have come up with some very useful materials that will definitely have a great impact on the web in the future.
Currently I am focusing on trends which have been appearing on the web since the beginning of the internet.

Imagine if you could see the impact Google, YouTube, Face Book, Twitter had before they were famous. That insight information is extremely valuable. Now with my anticipation studies and trends analyses I have two predictions that could most definitely happen.

1. To twitter or to Google twitter?

Google is very good in “anticipating” what is going on and what is going to happen. They focus on search engine results is not the only big business they got in to. Getting number one in the ranking is not just a website issue but blogs , social networking sites, twitters , you tubes and many more aspects are now part of what is hot and what is not !
One of the new projects Google is working on is called Google Friend-Connect.
This system allows users to “follow” blogs and websites the same way you can currently follow tweets of fellow twitters. The greater the following, the more followers you get the better your exposure.

My prediction is: Google will purchase twitter at some point in the future and blend it with there friend-connect software.

2. Don’t ask your friends, ask an aardvark!

Knowledge has always been a hot topic on the web, was it not for Google or for Wikipedia to provide us answers then we would still be depended on digging in to the encyclopedia or asking some one else. The on problem with Google searches and Wikipedia is that the results can get tainted by fanatics, spammers, or angry bloggers.

So Yahoo came up with their answer sites, you might already seen 1 or 2 of them and often they provide some sort of clue to an answer or at least a link where you might find your answer. New on this knowledge market is the trending named “Aardvark”, this service will provide you answers on demand by linking multiple users together and having them communicate through various media like twitter , email, mobile and messenger.

My prediction is: Aardvark will be on of the fastest growing knowledge tools in the next 3 years.

Let’s talk in a couple of years and see how much of my insight was correct or not and if you agree with me I would recommend you to get into the game and anticipate how these changes can have a positive effect on your blog, website, and company.

SEO, Social Media 1 Comment »

How did you learn that stuff you do !

Oct 2009 04

Recently i got asked the question, how did you get where you are at now? To be honest , it didn’t take me long to think about the answer. You might find the answer in the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell but I will give you the summery and a little bit more.

It started when I was 9 years old, as a smaller then average boy living in a small village called Rilland in the province of Zeeland in The Netherlands I spend my days doing mostly geeky stuff. From taking bugs home instead of playing football or playing with my microscope, if you can imagine a 9 year old geek then most likely you will find something very similar to how i looked at that age.

Now a new addition came to the house in the form of a MSX Computer. It was the year 1992 and the MSX was already 10 years old which resulted in a few problems… one of them was that the games were not made anymore ! My solution was that of roaming around the monthly flee markets in “De Zeeland hallen” in a town called Goes.

There I bought the old games and MSX magazines which were my first real study books that i found interesting. My games were made of the examples I found in the MSX magazines which often consisted of 10 or more pages of BASIC code.

Now the lethal combination of geekness , a old MSX with no games and no money to buy any newer computer and 15 years and voila you have the making of an IT Consultant.

Hence if I can give anyone an advice on how to get up and running in an IT Business, IT Services or Anything in live it is to just do it. You want to learn Linux, go ahead download debian , ubuntu ,centos and install it.. You want to do penetration testing install OpenVas and start following the security and hacker scenes . You want to learn how to build a pbx system go download asterisk and get your self a softphone installed… Everything you want to learn is available for you, just be aware that you might need to spend 15 years on it in order to fully understand it for about 1 min.. And then the information is old and you will have to study some more again.

Fun 2 Comments »