In case you missed the sneak peek demo of the forthcoming Upswing 360 at the Wainhouse Research CSP Summit on October 27th, check out the preview video. Upswing is a software-as-a-service product that fuses enterprise social networking, a radically efficient CRM, project management and other web services for business teams in the SMB space. Upswing 360 launches in a few weeks, and soon after launch it will have embedded conferencing services that are launched from within the Upswing 360 web-based application. As we've been saying, SaaS apps like Upswing will be the gateway to conferencing services.
"In preparation for landing, please check to make sure your seat belt is securely fastened, and your seat back and tray table are in the full upright and locked position, and shut your pie hole and turn off the videoconferencing system."
Have you ever called someone on your cell phone while you secretly walked up to him or her? Surprise! What a fun trick! Oh the laughs! ...Well, it seems a cloud-computing analyst from Gartner wants to do that with jets. That's right: instead of making a cell phone call and walking up to the called person to surprise, an analyst from Gartner, we'd conject, wants to hop on a jet, have a videoconference meeting with someone, then go surprise them with his face-to-face presence. Oh the fun! The Gartner analyst demanded of John Chambers of Cisco at a recent conference, saying, "I want to be on a plane and have TelePresence in front of me," to which Chambers replied, "Well, the answer is, you are probably going to."
We don't make this stuff up. Here's the title and link, folks: Cisco CEO sees videoconferencing on planes within 18 months Maybe this cloud-computing stuff is getting a little too literal for some. We can see the report for $2995: Cloud-Meetings - An Emerging Market. Or the webinars: Hosting Effective Web Events in the Sky.
Let's see here... Burn more jet fuel and increase carbon emissions? CHECK. Increase ticket prices for expensive TelePresence systems? CHECK. Create annoyance for other passengers? CHECK. Provide awkward self-consciousness and privacy issues for the person videoconferencing from the ground? CHECK. What a great idea!
Maybe our idea we "gifted" to Cisco about Telattepresence isn't so bad after all. The "third place" of Starbucks just might be followed by the "fourth place" of gathering on planes to have videoconferences. To get the ball rolling, we'd suggest putting Telepresence monitors on the back of every seat in this plane.
Can't we just get cell phone and web access first?
We think the forthcoming Upswing 360, an on-demand "social workspace" for dispersed business teams with social networking, "activity awareness," and "collaborative CRM" functionality, is poised for explosive growth in the SMB space in 2009. Launching later this year, Upswing will be eventually integrated with conferencing services.
View the teaser video above for the Upswing 360 presentation to the conferencing industry at the upcoming Wainhouse Research CSP Summit: Revenue in the SMB Cloud: Conferencing on the Upswing of Web 2.0
Register for the Wainhouse Research CSP Summit - 10.27.08
Compunetix is on a roll. They've got a new corporate and brand identity manifested in a nicely designed website that includes a blog that promotes effectively their products and people. Jerry Pompa just got elected to the IMCCA's board of directors. And recently Compunetix acquired the assets of Sonexis, an in-house audio conferencing bridge maker.
What did Telespan's Elliot Gold think of the Compunetix acquisition of Sonexis assets? Was it a good decision? To quote Elliot from his August 20th newsletter,"You bet your bippy it is." ...We're forget what a bippy is, but all of this Compunetix buzz sounds pretty good.
We've always associated the phrase "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" with the fearsshudderspanictrepidationanxiety options of marriage and cohabitation. Yet now the shortened "Why Buy the Cow?" has been working its way around as the title of a book co-authored by WebEx founder Subrah Iyer in the burgeoning software-as-a-service sector. "Free" may be an exaggeration to make a point, but let's face it: You need to get your head in the clouds - as in cloud computing - to understand the new generation of software application companies and how they're changing the worldwide economic landscape. Pioneers like WebEx and Salesforce.com and a new generation of on-demand upstarts like Upswing CRM are transforming the business landscape.
Tune in to "Best Practice Videos," a series on the use of multimedia communications in the business enterprise. Produced by Interactive Media Strategies, these short videos are chock full of useful data nuggets and they showcase the industry's colorful characters. See the latest video featuring Gary Anderson of Netbriefings. Proclaim is Netbriefings latest product and it's tricked out.
We're not sure what's in the water in Portland but we do know that the colorful kids at Corvent are an interesting bunch. In the world of bland corporate marketing with everyone proclaiming they're the "leading solution" blah blah blah, the folks at Corvent are doing the right thing and telling their customers and prospective partners who they are as people. Real people, with solid educational backgrounds, great work experiences, and personal interests that other people can relate to. Corvent is doing this via Conferencing News' Key People Directory and they've been signing up en masse in the last week.
In that it's Friday and we're still a little tipsy from last night, we figure we'd key in on the personal interests of team Corvent. We find an extreme ice cream eater, a spear fisherman, a Johnny Cash fan, a live mannequin specialist, a musician, a cookie monster, and our favorite, a unicyclist. (Note to Jessica B: anytime you want to race down 5th Avenue, bring it on. Oh, and another thing. We dare you to upload to YouTube a video of you riding your unicycle and proclaiming your company's slogan "Corvent has proven methodologies and personalized solutions for utilizing today’s Web conferencing and collaborative technologies.") Now that will get the message out to the thousands of readers of Conferencing News!
Interactive Media Strategies and Aperio Networks (publisher of Conferencing News) have formed a strategic partnership to develop and promote an online video portal that provides executives advice and best practices on how to evaluate and implement advanced Web Communications technologies for business use. The new series - called Best Practice Videos - features video clips of executives discussing lessons learned during the deployment of online video, webcasting and conferencing technologies in their own organization.
As we embark upon stressful travel and uniting with crazy in-laws we wonder about the viability of turkey dinner served through telepresence we're thankful that...
Conferencing News is the go-to daily publication for buyers, sellers, and partners in the conferencing industry.
The Key People Directory gets visibility and biz dev leads for professionals in conferencing.
EventSpan is the largest search database and syndication network for webcasts and webinars.
The Webinar Wire is providing marketers with tips and techniques for web-based events.
Enterprise Video will soon provide a news and views forum for video applications in business.
Meet James Powers. He's the Chairman, President & CEO of publicly-traded iLinc Communications, Inc. Yesterday, James wrote his first blog post on iLinc's new blog on their corporate website. It's great to see a few audio/video/web conferencing vendors blogging about their company/products/markets instead of simply hosting brochure-like websites with stock photo images of business professionals. Blogging can add a level of authenticity to a company, its people, and products.
As anyone who writes a blog, or has thought about starting a blog knows, it's hard to constantly come up with stuff to write about. That's why Aperio Networks developed a new blogging platform to easily launch community/market blogs where anyone can easily submit a single blog post, or submit multiple posts. You can see two of these community blogs at WebinarWire.com and soon, EnterpriseVideo.com.
Everyone has a blog post in them, but few have the time to write posts everyday. We encourage you to submit your blog post that relate to web events (via the WebinarWire.com) or soon, video commmunications (via EnterpriseVideo.com).
And now a note to iLinc: Congratulations on launching your blog! Now we'd like to hear more about EventPlus and your or your customers' thoughts about the web event space by contributing to the industry dialog at the Webinar Wire.
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