Televoce CEO on Social Networking at Bloggers' Breakfast

Today's blog is courtesy of Anne Tredway and Bryan Coburn.

Watch the video at http://www.viddler.com/explore/suzannebowen/videos/21/.

Ed Prentice of TeleVoce was one of the small group attending the DIDX Blogger Breakfast during ISPCON. He's focusing on social networking. He remembers Comdex where the hall was so noisy that you couldn't tell how bad the quality might have been during voip demos. He discusses what Skype has done for consumers and small businesses and the fact many don't admit to that fact.


We go on here to summarize this video. Please click and watch and pass on the great clip! ... The SIP community was thinking that Skype couldn't work because it wasn't SIP. But people don't care what a solution is made of. They care what it will do for them.

Ed states that he is learning much from the Facebook world and thrilled to see that Suzanne Bowen and the gang were hosting a bloggers' breakfast during ISPCON at the Il Fornaio. Ed says, "I'm a secret fan of yours. This is great."

(Aw, you have made Suzanne's day, Ed!)

The group asked Ed, "What had he noticed about social networking that most effectively helps you move your business forward?"

Answer: "This is a revolution... we started contemplating as far as all the communications expertise I have ... quit trying to force something into this world... first application we did on Facebook called Poke the Pope on Facebook. It's a tool to learn the system. What we haven't done yet is to figure out how you should take advantage of social networking? ... One of the things you have to do in the social networking world is how do you keep 'them' motivated? ... I found someone who is good at leveraging social networking."

Ed Prentice continues, "When you talk to people in causes (on Facebook), they don't understand the concept of capitalism. All they have is a tincup and they walk around holding their tincup."

This reminds us of the kids who sit in front of Wal-mart with a tincup stating they need funds to go to camp or be in some t-ball play-offs. Not a very good impression and there are better more effective ways of completing this task.

Bring in corporate sponsors instead of thinking how much money will we have left when we are done donating.

Matthew Hardeman asked if by causes, did Ed Prentice mean philanthropic? He mentions that Ed and other social networking entrepreneurs are giving companies and causes another great venue to publish their work.

Ed thinks that social networking is very game-centric. He remembers his meeting with Facebook developers where this fact hit home. Ed is an engineer product designer and finds games concept on Facebook stimulating. How do you make people want to invite others to play the game? Suzanne Bowen and Jeff Pulver were the two key people on Facebook that he sees using it effectively.

See the video recording Suzanne made of Jeff sharing his social networking vision on Youtube.

Thank you from Super Technologies, Inc. and DIDX to Matthew Hardiman of IPiFony, Ed Prentice of Televoce, and Bryan Coburn (the video recorder of this session) at the Bloggers' Breakfast during ISPCON.