Taken to its essence, what is the difference between voice mashups and voice applications? I joke to others that I feel like Jane Goodall, and I’ve noticed that some of the apes are using different tools than the others. This set of apes are working on a different set of problems than the others, and their tools are different. I’m sure if they could speak, they’d claim to be solving the same problem, maybe even use the exact same words, but I know that they aren’t. These apes are working on an entirely different problem, so they use new tools and, I’m quite sure, need new tools, as the old tools simply wouldn’t do.

What is the difference between voice mashups and voice applications? From a non-technical perspective, the difference is pretty simple. Voice mashups are applications that happen to use voice. Voice applications are applications that are centered around using voice. Read more

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 11:39 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | 1 Comment

We’ve been working on this one for a while.

Today, I’m pleased to announce that our company, along with our partner Sylantro, is sponsoring a Telephony Mashup Contest as part of the Sylantro Global Summit 2007. This new contest provides a stage for developers to demonstrate their creative skills using emerging telephony technologies such as PBX, IVR, VoIP and Web Service APIs. Sylantro is the worldwide leader in hosted VoIP deployments, with customers including such industry giants as AT&T, Qwest, China Unicom, and Swisscom, and next generation service providers such as Covad, and Lightyear Network Solutions. Sylantro Global Summit 2007 attendees include CTO/CEOs of the world’s top phone companies (ILECs, PTTs, IXCs, CLECs) and other service providers. The finalists will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to an audience of companies with hundreds of millions of customers. The winner will be chosen by a panel of senior executive judges among the contest sponsors.

The first round of the contest is open to all developers. We encourage individuals or teams to identify themselves and register by September 7th so that questions can be answered early in the process and some orientation can be provided on the Sylantro APIs. Mashup submissions must be submitted by September 20th when finalists will be chosen. The contest is timed to conclude on the final day of the Sylantro Global Summit held September 30th through October 2nd where finalists will demonstrate their mashups at the conference.

Finalists will be judged with a 50/50 weight based on presentation of technology and a business use case. Applicants must use the Sylantro API. Use of other suggested API’s including Voxeo, Amazon Web Services, and OutboundMessaging.com are optional. Applicants must make a case that their application makes businesses faster, more efficient, or create happier customers.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 11:23 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | 1 Comment

Anyone surfing around ProgrammableWeb.com or ThomasHowe.com knows that mashup technologies will get integrated into the business process in a huge way before this decade ends.

Why will this happen?

Mashups make businesses faster.

Mashups make businesses more efficient.

Mashups make customers happier.

Now, of course, we feel that our particular slice of the mashup world-Real Time Communications technologies- will help to leverage the broad range of Web 2.0 technologies across multiple APIs.
Simply, this is because all businesses are using telephony now. They are comfortable with it and so “customizing” their communications infrastructure doesn’t stretch the corporate culture in a huge way. In fact, telephones provide the only consistent, reliable user interface within and across Enterprises worldwide. Read more

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 10:51 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

The third component of the Web Integrated Telephony Architecture are Web Services. WITA based applications use Web Services to control real time telecom equipment such as switches, conferencing or messaging equipment. In addition, they also use web service APIs to interface to other critical components that have nothing to do with telephony, and are instead other web services important to customers. The web services would typically be called from a Rails application (although not strictly) to get the work of the application done. Even with closed and secured SOA architectures, WITA based applications prefer using web services to communicate with telecom equipment for scalability, reliability and to ease integration issues.

As an example of an application based on WITA, take a home delivery application that verifies that somebody would be home when the delivery would take place. In this case, the rails application would use web services to create an SMS or voice message to the customer to notify them of the delivery time. A more sophisticated application might correlate the delivery address with the phone number provided by the customer using a data service from StrikeIron, then identify non-matching deliveries for a more high-touch customer experience. This model works especially well when a company requires telephony functionality that is core to the application, but not core to the expertise of the engineering department. The classic example in this situation would be Twitter in the early days (and perhaps today - I’m not privy to the information), where SMS messaging is core to the application, yet the overhead and expense of dedicated SMS gateways and SS7 links does not make business sense. Integrating with an SMS provider using web services greatly reduces the capital requirements for the business but retains nearly all of the required functionality. This particular strategy would work for nearly every enterprise lacking the required staff telecom expertise or the sufficient telecom volume to retain it.

As an interesting benefit of moving telecom functionality into a Web services architecture is the establishment of an interface that is common between telecom and the Web world. Once architects and designers become familiar and comfortable with this model, sending a voice message is as simple as finding what movie is playing at a local theatre, the price of an Amazon product or sales tax in a particular county in Illinois. Applications now blend this functionality together without deep investment or planning, further lowering the bar to interesting applications.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 7:21 pm | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

In the Web Integrated Telephony Architecture, I identified the middle piece as being a Ruby on Rails application. It accepts data from the User Interface (commonly implemented as Voice XML forms), and then drives action through Web Services, and for WITA, telephony web services. As I thought about this component, there are actually a number of technology choices. This could certainly be a Java component, as the functionality would be equivalent. You could argue about speed (as Java does run faster), and you could argue about installed base (Java is much more prevalent in the carrier and enterprise). Each is fair, each has technical advantages over Ruby.

Read more

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 7:25 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

After Hours Doctor’s Office shows potential for savings in healthcare visits

Research Triangle Park, NC – March 6, 2007 – StrikeIron Inc., the leading provider of live data and business functionality over the web and O’Reilly Media, Inc. announced the winner of the first ever Telephony Mashup Contest that took place during the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference (ETel). The winning entry was After Hours Doctor’s Office, a mashup created by Thomas Howe Consulting, transcribes voicemail into text and sends SMS to doctors. RoboCal from Ted Gilchrist of Botcast Network placed second and FishLign from Claire Umeda and Dharmesh Desai of Lignup placed third.The contest provided a stage for developers to demonstrate their creative skills using emerging telephony technologies such as VoiceXML, SIP phones, VoIP, hosted PBX & IVR services, and Web services. StrikeIron, O’Reilly, Tellme Networks, Inc. and Sylantro sponsored the contest, with winners splitting $3,000 in prizes. For a complete list of winners and finalists, visit www.strikeiron.com/developers/contest_finalists.aspx.After Hours Doctor’s Office tries to solve the problem faced by all healthcare providers—that of unnecessary visits to the ER. “Research shows that over 50 percent of the 90 million visits to emergency rooms were unnecessary,” said mashup contest winner Thomas Howe. “In healthcare dollars, that means that 40.5 million people paid up to three times as much for routine care at the ER as they would have paid at a physician’s office. AfterHoursDoctorOffice hopes to eliminate some of these unnecessary trips to the ER by providing a service between doctors and patients for after hours care.”The mashup was built using Tellme‘s VoiceXML platform for the inbound call, the outbound status messages and to record and post the patient voice message; StrikeIron Global SMS for the text messaging between patient, nurse and doctor; and Amazon Web Services to setup the bank of nurses making determinations of urgency, and to transcribe the original voicemail by the patient for the permanent medical record. The entire application was built in just 40 hours. For more on this mashup and to view a demo, visit http://www.thomashowe.com.“Enterprise mashups are coming of age as developers realize the amount of live data that is available over the Web,” said Bob Brauer, president and CEO of StrikeIron. “The mashups presented at ETel are just the beginning of what companies will start to see as developers combine information from Web services, messaging systems, internal business intelligence applications and external data sources to deliver real value. Congratulations to all the mashup developers on their innovative ideas.”

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly conferences bring together forward-thinking business and technology leaders, shaping ideas and influencing industries around the globe. For over 25 years, O’Reilly has facilitated the adoption of new and important technologies by the enterprise, putting emerging technologies on the map. For more information about O’Reilly conferences, visit:http://conferences.oreillynet.com.O’Reilly Media, Inc. spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. For more information about O’Reilly, visit: http://www.oreilly.com

About StrikeIron

StrikeIron is the leader in Data as a Service(DaaS), facilitating the consumption and distribution of live data and business functionality over the Web. The company’s breakthrough Web Services Marketplace provides a technology platform, micro-transaction management and a consistent interface across many XML-based Web services from multiple, diverse sources. This allows end-users and ISVs to customize and integrate external data sources and additional external functionality into enterprise, Web, and composite applications. Currently, StrikeIron provides over 100 live data sources and business functions as well as a set of products and tools to simplify and accelerate the consumption of data such as StrikeIron’s SOA Express, enabling business users to access live data via front office applications. StrikeIron services over 700 customers and partners such as BEA, IBM, Honda Europe, D&B, Time Warner, Siemens, Nike, Kenwood, and Exclusive Resorts. For more information, visit www.strikeiron.com. ###StrikeIron, StrikeIron Web Services Marketplace, StrikeIron Marketplace Powered and Web Services Marketplace are trademarks of StrikeIron, Inc. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders.

About Tellme

Tellme improves how people use their phone to search for everyday answers – from finding a business, getting a sports score or hearing the latest weather update. By bringing voice access to Internet information, Tellme is making it quick and easy to find what you need when you’re on-the-go.Today the company powers hundreds of phone services used by more than 40 million people every month. In addition to providing a consumer mobile search service, Tellme also uses it’s platform to power phone applications such as directory assistance (411) for Cingular and Verizon, customer service for Merrill Lynch, E*TRADE Financial and American Airlines, and e-commerce services for Amazon.com and Fandango. Tellme is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

About Sylantro

Sylantro Systems provides the premier software platform for business, consumer, and mobile hosted VoIP solutions. Sylantro allows network operators to rapidly deliver high value, high margin managed telephony services without the cost and complexity of today’s in house PBX and key systems, giving users new flexibility in their communication services. Sylantro customers include AT&T, Bandwidth.com, China Netcom, China Unicom, Covad, StarHub, SunRocket, and Swisscom. 

Media Contacts:

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 5:05 pm | Filed Under News | 1 Comment

To highlight our Reinventing Voice theme, Sylantro and The Thomas Howe Company are proud to announce a Telephony Mashup Contest as part of the Sylantro Global Summit 2007. This new contest provides a stage for developers to demonstrate their creative skills using emerging telephony technologies such as PBX, IVR, VoIP and Web Service APIs.

Sylantro Global Summit 2007 attendees include CTO/CEOs of the world’s top phone companies (ILECs, PTTs, IXCs, CLECs) and other service providers. The finalists will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to an audience of companies with hundreds of millions of customers. The winner will be chosen by a panel of senior executive judges among the contest sponsors.

A telephony mashup is a voice, Web or mobile application (PBX, IVR, VoIP, SMS, etc.) that combines content from more than one source to create a new user experience. Qualifying entries must demonstrate how an application can use one or more sources of content in an inventive way to benefit users AND support a business model.

Any tool or platform that involves content (see Voxeo, Amazon Web Services or ProgrammableWeb.com) and telephony (ex: VOIP, SMS, Text Messaging, PBX, IVR) can be used to create a mashup. This is new territory, so there is plenty of room to use your imagination!

The first round of the contest is open to all developers. We encourage individuals or teams to identify themselves and register by September 7th so that questions can be answered early in the process and some orientation can be provided on the Sylantro APIs. Mashup submissions must be submitted by September 20th when finalists will be chosen. The contest is timed to conclude on the final day of the Sylantro Global Summit held September 30th through October 2nd where finalists will demonstrate their mashups at the conference.

Finalists will be judged with a 50/50 weight based on presentation of technology and a business use case. Applicants must use the Sylantro API. Use of other suggested API’s including Voxeo, Amazon Web Services, and OutboundMessaging.com are optional. Here are links to more information about the APIs. Applicants must make a case that their application makes businesses faster, more efficient, or create happier customers.

Registering for the contest and submitting your mashup:

1. Register yourself and your team to the contest organizers by emailing contest@sylantro.com by September 7th with the subject “Mashup Contest Registration”. More communication will follow after that.
2. Research the tools, services and APIs below (note: all offer free trials).
3. Come up with an idea and build your telephony mashup.
4. Submit your mashup to contest@sylantro.com by September 20th with the subject “Mashup Contest Entry”.
5. Top 3 Mashups will be presented at the Sylantro Global Summit.

If you would like to find out more, send an email to contest@sylantro.com with the subject “Contest Info”. For more details on the contest rules and how to submit your entries see “Contest Overview” below.

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SPONSORS

Sylantro: Reinventing Voice

The Thomas Howe Company: Empowering business with real time communications solutions.

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ADDITIONAL TOOLS, SERVICES AND APIS

Amazon Web Services – Menu of web services tools

Voxeo – IVR and VOIP software and services

Mashery – API infrastructure source

Programmable Web – Catalog of APIs for mashups

We greatly appreciate the support of these companies and their developer communities. Other APIs may be used.

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CONTEST OVERVIEW

Welcome to the Sylantro Telephony Mashup Contest. This overview sets forth the rules and regulations of the Telephony Mashup Contest (the “Contest”) presented by Sylantro and The Thomas Howe Company, collectively known as the “Sponsors”. Please read these Official Rules carefully before submitting an entry or participating in the Contest. These Official Rules contain important information about eligibility to enter the Contest, the rules of the Contest and other important information. Please note that the rules for playing the game in the Contest are contained in the “Contest Rules” incorporated herein by this reference. By entering the Contest, you accept these Official Rules and agree to be bound by their terms. If you do not agree with these Official Rules, please do not enter the Contest.

1. Eligibility. The Contest is open only to residents of any State of the United States of America (other than Arizona, Vermont, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and North Dakota), the District of Columbia and any Province of Canada (other than Quebec) that are 18 years of age or older as of Sept 20, 2007, and who properly enter the Contest (each a “Developer”). Developers may be required to show proof of age and residence. IF YOU DO NOT SATISFY THESE REQUIREMENTS, YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE TO ENTER AND/OR PARTICIPATE IN THE CONTEST. Participation in the Contest is also subject to compliance with the requirements specified below and in the Contest Rules. Employees of any Sponsors, and their immediate families (parent, child, sibling and spouses of each) are not eligible to enter the Contest. The Contest is void where prohibited by applicable law.
2. Contest Period. The Contest shall commence on August 21, 2007 (“Day 1”), and end on September 20, 2007 (“Day 2”). Day 1 and Day 2 are, collectively, the “Contest Period”
3. How to Register and Submit to the Contest. Primary Developers. The Team Captain (as defined in the Contest Rules) will register by sending an email request to contest@sylantro.com including the members of the developer team. Up to 5 Developers (including the Team Captain) may register for each Team (each a “Primary Developer”) submitting your email with the subject “Mashup Contest Registration”. Teams are encouraged to indentify themselves and register no later than September 7th at 5:00 pm (Pacific). Mashup submissions need to be completed no later than September 20th at 5:00pm. (Pacific), by sending information about the application in an email to contest@sylantro.comwith the subject “Mashup Contest Entry”.
4. Fees & Refunds. There is no fee (the “Fee”) to participate in the Contest. Any costs incurred and associated with travel to the Host Location are the responsibility of the Team/Developers.
5. Contest. The Contest Rules specify the rules of play for the Contest. As specified in the Contest Rules, at the end of the Registration, the Judges will rank the entries and the top three placing Teams will be invited to participate in the Contest Finale demonstrating their application during the Sylantro Global Summit conference. Contest winners will be chosen by the judges of the Sylantro Global Summit after a presentation to the audience during a general session. Individuals or Teams are responsible for any travel or other expenses incurred to participate in the contest.
6. Use of Information. Each Player consents to use of their name, information and image by Sponsors, their agents and assignees and Host Locations for display and publishing in any media, now known or hereafter developed, without compensation, in any and all advertising and promotional materials relating to the Contest, and in conjunction with other promotions that may be offered by Sponsors and Host Locations. The information collected to enter the Contest will be used to contact each Winner. Additionally, each Player agrees that Sponsors and their agents and assignees as well as Host Locations may use this information for marketing purposes and to contact Players regarding offers, promotions and other contests related to products or services distributed by Sponsors.
7. General Release. Sponsors and all participating sponsors will not be responsible for: (a) technical failures of any kind, including, but not limited to telephone, electronic, hardware, software, network, Internet, or any other computer and communications related malfunctions or failures; (b) any Contest disruptions, injuries, losses or damages caused by events beyond the control of Sponsors; (c) any technical or human error such as printing or typographical or administrative errors in any materials associated with the Contest.
8. Other Terms. To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Contest and these Official Rules will be governed, construed and interpreted under the laws of the state of California, USA. These Official Rules are subject to any requirements/limitations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The Contest is subject to applicable Federal, State, Provincial and local laws and regulations. Players agree to be bound by these Official Rules and by the decisions of the Sponsors, which are final and binding in all respects. Sponsors reserve the right to cancel, suspend and/or modify the Contest, or any part of the Contest, if any fraud, technical failures or any other factor beyond Sponsors’ reasonable control affect the administration, security or proper play of the Contest or Sponsors otherwise become (as determined in their sole discretion) incapable of running the Contest as planned. Sponsors reserve the right, in their sole discretion, to disqualify any individual found to be tampering with the registration process or the operation of the Contest or to be acting in violation of these Official Rules or any other promotion, or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner. Sponsors’ failure to enforce any term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision.
9. Sponsors. The Contest is sponsored by Sylantro Systems Corp. and The Thomas Howe Company.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 2:23 pm | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

We are looking forward to show season to talk about VoIP Mashups. Speaking engagements have been confirmed at the following conferences.

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Posted by Thomas Howe @ 2:17 pm | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

We have been doing a lot of work in the health care industry recently. So, we have been thinking about what could be improved in the US health care system.

The statistics attached to the US health care system are extraordinary. We spend 30% more than any other country. Yet. approximately, 25% of the US population has no insurance. Plus, patient outcomes and satisfaction are well below acceptable standards across the industrialized world. A whopping 70% of health care costs stem from preventable chronic diseases. For example, 91% of diabetes cases could be avoided by better eating. Diabetes cost the health care system $92 billion dollars each year. Imagine finding a way to save $80 billion dollars a year.

Obviously, the system has lots of problems. Here is one solution that provides a huge bang for the buck.

I want my family to have our own nurse for 5-10 minutes a day, average 2 days a week, 12 months per year. My estimate is that we will need our nurse’s time for no more than 12-20 hours per year.
Read more

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 11:43 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

Apparently, the one thing you don’t want to be in LA is a male Hispanic on Sunday. Avoid that, if you can. Especially if there’s a gun around.

I love my hometown on Cape Cod, and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) when I see things like this, I wish it could hold more people.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 3:26 pm | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

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