Tuesday, April 29, 2008

QualityStocks.net: Global Roaming, Inc. a Mover-Shaker

"QualityStocks.net would like to highlight Global Roaming, Inc. (GRDB) as "One to Watch" closing today at $3.95. Global Roaming, Inc., announced that they have agreed with QualityStocks to be featured in The Small Cap QualityStocks Daily Newsletter, Daily Internet broadcast with Cathy Rankin, Vanessa Ramirez and Jenn Hoffman and QualityStocks Daily Blogs and Message Boards. Global Roaming, Inc., through its a subsidiary CelTrek which was specifically founded to provide new solutions for consumers who have experienced the high costs associated with international roaming charges. CelTrek brings over 60 years of combined experience in the cellular world, which it leverages through a number of key strategic alliances with the leaders in cellular industry, to offer their clients the ability to circumvent expensive roaming charges, through the utilization of CelTrek's Smart SIM card."

I've met many on the team of Celtrek and Global Roaming, Inc. And believe me, they are all about the customer, the consumer. If they had been at our booth at CTIA Wireless in April 2008, I could have directly pointed 100s of interested consumers to them. Spread the news. Their service rocks.

1 Smart SIM for 165 countries + 1 Smart Local Number = 1 Smart Global Roamer!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Let's Discuss The People's Vote! Webby Awards - Deadline May 1

"The 12th Annual Webby Awards Nominees and Honorees are posted! Help deliver a Webby award to your favorite nominees by voting at pv.webbyawards.com Voting closes May 1st so vote now!"

See who won last year at http://www.webbyawards.com/. The leading International award honoring excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet... it's like the Grammys of the net!

Just register to vote which gives you the chance to win a Nokia N95. (Ask my colleague Steve Cayona how cool his is.) Check out the telecommunications sub category under Services: Boost Mobile Rock, Nokia Jealous Computers, Sidekick Wiki, Nokia Picture Poetry, and Sony Bravia. In the Mobile section, Mobile Marketplace and Services subcategory is Podlinez, I like because it makes every mobile phone a podcast player!

Facebook, Ning, Bebo, ChangeEverything.ca, and Flock, the Social... are sparring in the Connection - Social Networking category.

May 1st is the last day you can vote. Vote for one category, a few, or all. Help those whose services you admire. I'm looking for discussion on those who are nominated for the 100s of categories. What is your experience with any of the services nominated in the Webby Awards for 2008?

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Trying out Flock's Blog Editor

Always pushing me to try this and that on the net, Rehan, my business partner, has got me hooked on another cool item, Flock's Blog Editor. I can't wait to show Michael this, my husband, a human performance technologist, who is an avid blogger about coaching athletes.

Buy a Phone Number, Help the World

Buy a Phone Number, Help the World ... this is going to be fun! And you can get involved. Just buy phone numbers on April 25, 2008 Friday from http://www.didx.net/ or http://www.virtualphoneline.com/ and know the profits will go to fund developing areas of the world with technology that will help improve infrastructure and help achieve sustainability. When that happens, global entrepreneurs in developing areas can get their great business ideas off the ground, take care of their families, and well... I could go on and on.

This is exciting. We will also be updating via blog and elsewhere how much we collect and where and how the funds are spent.

Awesome!

Users Can Review Groovytel.com on Google Enterprise Solution Gallery


Groovytel.com gives a free Toledo, Ohio, USA phone number to every Groovytel.com member (member sounds better than user). Each member controls the settings of whether to make their phone number ring to MSN instant messenger, Gizmo Project, Yahoo Instant Messenger, GoogleTalk, FreeWorldDialup, and other instant messengers and sip addresses free.

The member is sitting on the monorail with his laptop online, at the office, at home, at the airport... anywhere in the world. The people who are important to him who he has given his USA phone number to can call it from a cell phone or landline phone or IP phone, and when they do... it rings on his instant messenger or SIP address of choice. How groovy is that?

Many of the Groovytel.com members use GoogleTalk. In fact, my Dad is trying it out, and he's 70 years old, totally loving it. You can review your experience with Groovytel.com by clicking the Google Enterprise Soluton Gallery button at the bottom of the Groovytel.com webpage now.

I'd love to know your experience and to know about your getting calls from those who are important to you, no matter where you are in the world on your instant messenger or SIP agent on your laptop or cell phone.

(Groovytel also won a position on the VONMAG Innovator Award shortlist for 2008. See pages 40-41.)

Thanks to Chuck Winkler at Inc.com 5000

I'm just not that into things like marketing workshops because I've always thought marketing is a natural occurrence. The millions of books, seminars, blogs, and businesses built around helping you get what you want are usually amazingly dull. (I apologize deeply to my friends who make their living helping other people learn how to get what they want.) So, what does this have to do with Chuck Winkler?

This morning I was rechecking my old voicemails on my Nokia e61i that my business partner Rehan insisted I get and also my trusty Blackberry. One message is Chuck Winkler thanking me for our company sharing the opportunities of applying for a position on the Inc.com 5000 list. He mentioned his admiration for the unique and numerous ways we get the word out to the 9000+ service providers using www.didx.net global direct inward dialing phone number marketplace (DIDXchange), the IP communications and telephony industry in general, and the world who cares to check it out for that matter. That we're natural "marketers." I like Chuck. He can't imagine how good he made me feel with that simple, "Thank you."

I like the idea of the Inc.com 5000 list. 500 is just not enough. 500 sounds like a secret club. So, now, I'm browsing the www.inc.com site and see some very interesting articles and blogs like: Tom Szaky's The Eco-Capitalist, "Will Your Customers Pay to Go Green?" ... "Take a simple paradigm: plastic bottles. The cheapest way to make a plastic bottle is to use 100 percent virgin plastic (the worst thing for the environment)." I'll come back and read more often.

Most of you who are reading this post, have worked hard to build a dynamite career and to help build one or more successful companies... Now, it's time to tell the world, and the Inc.com 5000 list is one of the best, most natural ways to do it. Last year, a couple of telecommunications companies I know... won: Smartphone Experts from Inverness, FL. and Broadsoft. I want you to win this time, so here's what you do.

Don't wait because the deadline to apply is April 30, 2008. Click this link. Then click the RED BUTTON that says "CLICK HERE TO APPLY NOW." and check the box indicating your interest in applying for the Inc. 5,000. Provide them with your revenue figures for 2004 and 2007. Once you have completed the IncBizNet registration and provided those figures, you have applied for the Inc. 5,000. Soon after, IncBizNet will send you instructions on how to provide backup for your revenue figures, and will also post those instructions prominently on IncBizNet.

And guess what? Over 80% of last year's winners were self-financed and over 50% started their business with a partner. Very interesting... (pronounce the "i" in "interesting" like an "e" as in the Spanish language.)

Thank you, Chuck Winkler and Inc.com for giving our readers the opportunity to show the world how awesome they all really are by applying for the Inc.com 5000 list. May, you, the reader, win!

Friday, April 18, 2008

voIP Client for Blackberry? Linkedin.com Q

voIP Client for Blackberry? Linkedin.com question posted by Mustafa Rana. Why not get involved and share what you know?

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Nellymoser's Susanne Bowen is not me, but check them out

My friend Micha discovered another lady with a similar name in my industry, Susanne Bowen, mistakenly thinking it was me who is a board member of the company. Was checking out their site as a result.

Straight from the Nellymoser website...

"Engage your consumers anytime, anywhere.
Nellymoser enables media companies and network operators to establish and grow their mobile businesses.

The company's award-winning mobile services platform, combined with world-class mobile strategy and design, gives customers everything they need to deliver extensible, Mobile 2.0 services that engage broad audiences with rich, interactive experiences.

By managing service delivery for its customers, Nellymoser handles all the mobile channel complexities, from integration with existing infrastructures to compatibility with the rapidly growing number of handsets."

With services for Video On-Demand, Music Companion, and Infotainment On-Demand...

Monday, April 14, 2008

Critical Mass and Humor in Delivering IP Communications



Warren Lee discussed critical mass and other pertinent terms to providing telephony services economics and accounting. The audience at IP Possibilities 2008 in Chicago enjoyed Warren Lee's presentation because of his tastefully placed bits of humor. He clued us in on an acronym he invented: MURSADES. Just ask any IP Possibilities 2008 participant what that means. Okay, so it means "Man, you are screwed, and you don't even know it." He's an engineer who serves in a key position of COO with NeoNova.

Straight from the NeoNova site about Mr. Lee: "Mr. Lee is the President and COO of one of the premier suppliers of high quality, ultra-reliable ISP back office services to the telco industry. Prior to taking control of NeoNova Mr. Lee was the founder and COO of NKO Inc., which built and operated a Voice over IP and Fax Over IP network spanning 25 domestic and 15 international cities. NKO exclusively served foreign domestic and international IXC telephone companies. NKO was acquired by ECI telecom in 1998. Prior to NKO Mr. Lee was involved in several successful start-up ventures in the computer electronics and software development fields. Mr. Lee has chaired several industry committees on video, computer communications, and electronic security. He holds 8 patents in the area of Voice and Fax over IP and one patent in electronic signatures and non-repudiation of documents in financial transactions."

I have other videos of this speaker I'll try to upload soon.

Never Too Young or Old to be a VoIP User



Check out Max Arnold's blog at http://maxarnold.blogspot.com/.

Monday, April 07, 2008

IP Possibilities Preliminary Telecom Acronym Contest



At IP Possibilities Conference sponsored by OPASTCO and NTCA in Chicago, Illinois, we held our preliminary Telecom Acronym Competition at the First Night Reception. Many of us met for the first time on Facebook.com.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Rural Local Exchange Carriers and NTCA, What's Up?

You and I are in the Atlanta, GA airport section C 16 waiting for a flight to Chicago. A guy next to us is reading The Crimean War, stops to daydream periodically. A young girl wears a neon green headset and listens to/watches her Ipod. Several 40 something year old men's eyes are glued to CNN Headline news. A stewardess is studying her Slide.

You and I are laughing at the days when DIDX was the most made fun of service in the telecommunications industry... around 2005, and I am reading articles related to Rural Local Exchange Carriers, preparing for a meeting-packed week at NTCA's IP Possibilities where I know I am going to learn more than I have in a long time at conferences because of its emphasis on an acronym I know little about, the RLEC. It's time for me and my company to pay attention because compose a large majority of new DIDX.net members.

In the "D&E Communications Reports Fourth Quarter and Year End 2007 Results" article on March 11, 2008, James W. Morozzi states, "We continue to see the competitive pressures in our RLEC markets, demonstrated by the 4.0% reduction in traditional access lines in those areas. However, we continue to find ways to control costs in the business, evidenced in 2007 by our ability to maintain benefit costs without sacrificing our ability to attract and retain employees. These reductions in cost enable us to recognize increases in our operating income and cash flows, helping us to continue to pay down our long-term debt, which we were able to reduce by slightly more than $13 million in 2007."

True, one way to get ahead is to control costs, but even better is to develop new markets and services for new revenues. First, IPTV is a real alternative for cable and satellite in rural areas. Second, sales of access lines, at list direct inward dialing phone numbers will increase phenomenally with RLEC membership in the DIDXchange. Why? It's an instant market of global wholesale direct inward dialing exchange of 9000+ telephony companies from every part of the globe. Super Technologies, Inc. recently announced this tool for CLECs in this press release, "International and Domestic DID Number Sales for RLECs and Wireless Operators."

I'll close this post and return to to a book I'm reading, recommended in the most recent issue of Inc., named The Game-Changer. So far, I get the picture... a great new innovation, invention, or strategy is inspiring, but it's only the seed of growth. I like the idea of keeping a chart of one's most compelling flops as food for humorous anecdotes during presentations.

NTCA's IP Possibilities, BTW, was first introduced to me on Facebook.com.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Paypal Does Not Have a Monopoly, Check Moneybookers

I'm finishing up my week in Las Vegas for CTIA Wireless today April 5, 2008 Saturday. My last meeting was today at lunch with 3 paging operators and some of their resellers. Life has been tough for them in the past few years while telecommunications has turned inside out at unbelievable speed.

Eventually the topic changed from how to use http://www.didx.net/ to buy/sell phone numbers wholesale... to ways to conduct monetary transactions online. Several expressed unhappiness with Paypal for reasons such as customer fraud, so many chargebacks, and Paypal so easily saying, "Let's part ways because you are voIP" when their new partner is Skype, one of the biggest voIP companies around.

Now, I like Paypal and Skype for my own personal and business reasons. On the other hand, I admit that I and several of the 9000+ http://www.didx.net/ wholesale telephony companies are experimenting with Moneybookers, and so far... we like it!

With Moneybookers, there are ZERO chargebacks. I am laughing through eternity with happiness. "All Moneybooker payments are irreversible"... the Moneybooker website states.