Om Malik › Comments

because Google Voice isn't VoIP? or some other reason? - Chris Heath

it is mostly because it will show the world that AT&T and Apple are willing to listen to the consumers. Google, on the other hand is complaining about Apple blocking their Google Voice app. It would give Ma Bell and Apple a good argument when meeting with FCC over the Google Voice issue. - Om Malik from email

This makes Apple's rejection of the app make much less sense, now why can't you use the google app only a part of which is it's voip capability. I personally want to use my google voice account FULLY with my iPhone and now there's even less reason for Apple/AT&T to block it. - Car Camper

I think the whole issue is around how Google Voice conflicts with core functionality of the iPhone. I wonder if Google will show us how the Google Voice works on iPhone. - Om Malik from email

None of this will matter as google with just make a web app and we will get google voice. And Apple has a long history of being small minded, I don't doubt for a moment that problem here is pure Apple, not AT&T. Possibly pure Steve J. And I am an Apple Fan Boy, but I do see past the rose tinting... - Car Camper

Car, i think that google has already said that they will be/have already/are making a webapp - Chris Heath

Microsoft has had a competitor to Google Apps for a while: http://domains.live.com/ - Otto

Turns out that it was IBM and their new "LotusLive" thing. Which is funny, because Lotus Notes sucks rocks and has for a long time. - Otto

Agreed. I think he is a smart guy who sometimes can't look beyond microsoft. I am still confident about msft coming out ahead as always - Om Malik from email

Om, agree I think MS will always be able to adapt as they have some seriously smart guys there, Ballmer being one of them. Whilst MS might not always be the top choice, they give everything they do a good go and in most cases no when to quit. I am a fanboy of both MS and Google. - Travis Koger

One thing Microsoft has money and that buys you the ability to make a lot of mistakes. - Om Malik from email

also too risky as the technology used in skype still belongs to the founders, there was a serious licensing problem very short time ago http://techiesphere.com/2009... - Mehmet Aydin

I am sure they feel confident about this bet paying off. I guess they did say at the time of launch they were going to break from convention. - Om Malik from email

Andreessen is an inspiration for me, I am curious! He must have a plan. - Khuram Hussain

Block their ip addresses. If they keep up then it's a spam campaign and you can threaten them since you know who they are. Or technically try keyword disallows, human moderated comments, use LinkSleeve or Akismet to check the links. - Todd Hoff

Spill the details. :) - Matt Cutts

Install a blacklisting program that makes robocomments less possible? I use BadBehavior for WP. I can't tell what you use, assuming it's not homegrown. - Daniel J. Pritchett

We are using akisment. this is a way to "get link juice" by using the name of the product instead of commenters name and then their URL in web site address. The comments look legit otherwise. - Om Malik from email

I still think they might be robocommenting - are they blanketing every post you've ever put out or are they coming in real time just to tag your latest stuff? If it's the former, I blame robots. If it's the latter, I blame jerks. Could you just blacklist their favorite keyword for a while? - Daniel J. Pritchett

I realize you know way more about this blogging thing than I do, I just can't help but spin up technical solutions rather than worry about publicly dressing down the offender. - Daniel J. Pritchett

There are vast hoards of people who go around adding comments to sites now. Robots are passe :-) This is why I went to human moderated comments. The commentors are excellent at writing something relevant to the post while injecting their spam chunks. I wrote up my take on it: Scaling Spam Eradication Using Purposeful Games: Die Spammer Die! - http://highscalability.com/scaling... - Todd Hoff

no they are not blanketing every post but a select few ones. like ten a day. very stealthy. :-) - Om Malik from email

And I appreciate it. I want to handle this as carefully as possible. - Om Malik from email

maybe they are just a bunch of folks trying to benefit from your site's popularity, akismet should be able to filter it, even otherwise more than two links per comment end up being spam if you don'tt want to manually delete them, set the options to automatically delete - testbeta

i know that indeed is the problem. - Om Malik from email

om - just delegate :) - Allen Stern

Nope! - Travis Koger

I can't stand tourist either, especially when they believe that I'm an information booth. - Jeunelle Foster

lol. you dont travel a lot Om I guess. :P - Sam Ehsan

Or maybe some tourist just stole his iphone off the dinner table and posted this on his behalf. - Phil Calvin

who stole OM's phone? - Sam Ehsan

let's just say it was a horrible experience that made me lose my cool and made me angry beyond belief. - Om Malik from email

Om don't forget to breathe. Love, Dave-Ji - Dave Winer

i have. thanks for reminding me: an hour of meditation has brought the world back to normal for me. Sorry for being so publicly pissy. - Om Malik from email

Doc Searls is down there as well, I think..... - Roberto Bonini

:( - chaz2b

#BlogPostFriday :) - Susan Beebe from BuddyFeed

Terrific post. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

I am all for #blogpostpriday. great idea. which could be replicated every day :-) - Om Malik from email

glad you enjoyed it. - Om Malik from email

US Telecoms are a $150 Billion industry. Google is about to disrupt that. - Charbax

Perhaps Google is to Skype as search is to content producers? Content producers create value but its Google that sits at the center of the web, clicking mandibles, and collecting rents from whomever steps onto a silken thread. - Todd Hoff

Perhaps Todd, but the thing is that Google Voice for all its niceties is still a curiosity and it will remain so because as a company Google will face the innovator's dilemma of "search" and other business. I don't think they will ever be able to overcome their own fears. - Om Malik from email

Sure.... Also, someone said that google is going to disrupt a $150 billion telecom industry. Well that was disrupted with the IP networks. I think to think Google can do it all is childish. After today they will go on the defense with their search-and-advertising business. I refuse to believe (without proof) that they can do well in a competitive market place. - Om Malik from email

Wait, what fears don't you think Google will ever be able to overcome? - Matt Cutts

Matt... I think we have argued about this before. :-) So at the sake of repeating myself, why should I believe that Google Voice (and Google Wave) going to take over the world. Just because Google says so? The real world success is yet to happen -- first signs of that are yet to happen. And when that happens we can have a nice conversation - over Fraiche with Scoble as referee. - Om Malik

Ah.... I love FF for having a way to expand my last Twitter reply. The ridiculous depends on the temporal view. In the US market -a- CLEC for Google Voice is Level 3. Today. Now, imagine DID deprecation. *BOOM* Yes, that's right. All the weight that ENUM has never had could have with the flip of switch that AOL mouthed for years with limited take. Leverage applied to the millions of accounts as a "by the way" menu item is the kind of latent functionality we may see. The war of endpoints is yet to come. - Jay Cuthrell

1. Google releases Android, the absolute best OS ever 2. Google sets up free wireless broadband using White Spaces (deployed cheaply worldwide using the FON model) 3. Android phones/Tablets and Chrome OS Laptops on White Spaces means the end of Telecoms and ISPs. All this can happen in the matter of a few months. - Charbax

Charbax.... I think you would *like" it to happen :-) but that doesn't mean it would happen. As they say, in a matter of months I could star in a blockbuster movie. Except it isn't happening any time soon. :-D - Om Malik

As for Google Wave, it changes the way we work, communicate, collaborate. Effectively replacing email, blogging, im, word processing, web browsing, feed reading, microblogging, even changes the way we search. Puts twitter and facebook instantly out of business. - Charbax

4. The nice day at the telecom park picnic runs smack into Congressional, FCC, and FTC quagmire that makes up the US market's very own colony of ants. All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later. - Jay Cuthrell

Telecoms are backwards and lack the ability to innovate. They have grown fat, not having to compete. Apple came in and created the App Store, something the walled garden telecoms could have done at any time. I don't have confidence in Google so much as I have no faith in telecom. - Todd Hoff

Okay Om... no hits. http://www.imdb.com/find... What's your stage name? - Jay Cuthrell

When they activate overlay advertising for anyone who wants it on their uploads to Youtube (not just a few beta testers so-called "Partners"), they will be taking over Hollywood and the TV networks as well. The GigaOm show automatically becomes a blockbuster. - Charbax

From your mouth to god's ears' If that happens we all be rolling like rock-stars. - Om Malik from email

Jay I miss the point. Sorry it is indeed late for me :-) - Om Malik from email

Om, I don't recall Google saying that Google Voice would take over the world. Since I've been using Voice, I've found 2-3 killer features for me. The ability to pick a great phone number. The ability to record a call easily (I've already used this a lot) and get an MP3 of the call. And the ability to mark calls as spam--then future calls from that number get an "out-of-service" tone.... more... - Matt Cutts

Om - no worries... late for me as well. I just realized you are using email vs. the FF web interface. My context was the "star in a blockbuster movie" reference. - Jay Cuthrell

haha... well if it happens I am going to send you premiere tickets. :-) good night buddy - Om Malik from email

Matt - Google Voice is collectively raising the bar of expectation for every other enhanced voice service out there. Many Google Voice features are associated with small nimble voice appliance companies as well as hosted IP centrex services. However, most are tied to silos of authentication or realms (enterprise). My view? VoIP is a race to zero commodity. Just as the charge for email market has seen rapid adjustment in value/price in the wake of Gmail, Google Voice will similarly impact voice markets. - Jay Cuthrell

jay just to be clear, the email market was down to zero a long time ago. Google just changed the game from a storage stand point. I think you are right about Google Voice commoditizing voice minutes, but that has already happened. Nothing new there. I just think it is going to be much harder for Google to get traction than most think. - Om Malik from email

Sure -- the email storage play is prominent but... I'm less interested in SIP O/T as much as the feature sets exposed for free by Google Voice. It's that blend of features that have formed something of a last hope for appliance and centrex solution providers as a licensed key or allowance in a bundle. Google Voice sets that feature set on that same approaching zero path. Don't forget that Gmail blended spam and virus filtering, POP/IMAP, and other premium features in a free bundle -- much more impacting. - Jay Cuthrell

As for traction -- total agreement. Highly overt and persistent appearance of Voice buttons on everything that is a web property would be a nice start down the path --- but it's a mobile handset world. - Jay Cuthrell

Maybe it's because eBay somehow managed to not buy all of Skype: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive... - Joel Webber

I'd say it's because GV can also be introduced to customers already using other Google services at minimal advertising cost... "would you like to add a phone number to your Gmail?". GV customers probably won't churn like Skype customers; GV can keep them around w/ other strong services they can't leave like Gmail, Google contacts, sign-on, etc. GV > Skype in those regards. - Wade Dorrell

Saving someone's life: keep. Having an affair: switch. Just late because he's human: depends on mood :-) - Todd Hoff

good call :-) - Om Malik from email

i think it is on their website - cnn.com live button. - Om Malik from email

Thanks! I am there now. - Paul L. McCord Jr.

oh you cam saw that again! as they say, it's on... - Om Malik from email

At least Google can make a good case with the FCC without needing to worry about cross over. I hope he wasn't pushed because of the FCC investigation by Apple. - Travis Koger

Fight!!!!! - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

I think he was totally pushed because of that. - Om Malik from email

Eric Schmidt picked the perfect moment to slam the door on his way out. Google is going to destroy Apple... Microsoft… and Intel. - Charbax

@Charbax, not so sure about that, but I would love to GOOG show Apple some fists. I would really like to see Android phones considered as good if not better than the iPhone... as much as I love my iPhone. - Travis Koger

I have to be honest with --- I wish I had learned this lesson before falling sick almost 2 years ago. I have a much calmer life now. because I managed to get rid of expecttions and this incessent desire to do something... anything. - Om Malik from email

In an environment obsessed with inventions/future we often forget to live in the moment and exercise gratitude. - Matt Weeks

Om: it is a lesson I have to relearn every day. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Copying a sentence for future reference: "Each article — and, in the future, each picture and video — would go out with what The A.P. called a digital “wrapper,” data invisible to the ordinary consumer that is intended, among other things, to maximize its ranking in Internet searches." And I'll just drop the phrase "keyword meta tags" for people who know what those are. There are good reasons why internet search engine prefer not to use "data invisible to the ordinary consumer" in our ranking algorithms. - Matt Cutts

It is indeed very strange that they think that way. AP, old media... they all have still not figured out that they have "business model" problem and need to take "tough" decisions instead of re-inventing the wheel. Oh well! - Om Malik