Mobile VoIP

So, there’s this great new social networking tool I stumbled upon recently called “Facebook”. If you haven’t already checked it out, you should definitely give it a try – it’s pretty cool. In addition to having your very own profile with all your friends on it like you can on MySpace, they also let you create business pages to promote your products and services, which I took the groundbreaking liberty of doing today.

Ok ok, so EQO’s been a little bit slow with promoting ourselves on Facebook's Glo-So-Net thing (...global social network/ing – I coined it right here and now), but that’s just because we wanted to put together an awesome Fa-Bus-Pa (Facebook Business Page???), filled with all things EQO Mobile VoIP Free Mobile IM & Free Texting Related.

Well actually, what would make it even more awesome (though there’s some debate this may simply not be possible), would be for you to go and visit EQO’s Facebook Page, and not just become a fan (we know you waaaaaaant to), but also become a contributor. We’re always looking for product feedback, new feature ideas / suggestions, or anything else you think anyone would find interesting.

Check it out today! Don’t be one of the last people on Facebook...to join EQO’s Page.

Webster’s dictionary defines innovation as:

in·no·va·tion   ɪn əˈveɪ ʃən/ Pronunciation Key –noun

1. Mobile VoIP, text messaging and FREE IM with EQO.

2. the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

Well #2 is probably the more accurate definition while I await Webster’s response on #1's definition suggestion.

Why is EQO at this year’s Dow Jones Wireless Innovations conference in Redwood City, CA, at the Sofitel, San Francisco Bay, April 22-23, 2008, you ask? Open Opportunity, and Turning Mobility Into Profitably (very clever) – of course!

The website told me that last year brought many changes to the wireless industry that will forever impact how people use their wireless devices. Apple introduced the iPhone; Google announced an open mobile operating system; even carriers and handset makers declared their openness. But how much is hype versus reality? Such changes will ultimately affect not only carriers and device makers but start-ups and investors, opening up increasing possibilities for revenue.

To help both VCs and entrepreneurs get a view of the innovations and opportunities that will emerge in 2008 and beyond, Dow Jones VentureWire is putting together an impressive group of speakers, including individuals from some of the major carriers, CEOs from 70 of the most promising mobile start-ups (most notably our own mobile god, EQO CEO Bill Tam) and, of course, some of the leading investors in the sector (show me the money!).

Come catch Bill Tam April 22, 2008 between 3:05-4:40 PM in Salon 3. That’s right, he only needs just over an hour to tell you about how EQO is one of the fastest growing Mobile VoIP players (and the most AWESOME) in the industry, how we are adding tons of new users everyday, and by this humble blogger’s opinion – how  our monetisation model has the makings of Forbes-type-recognized success.

If you are in town next week soaking up all that Redwood City has to offer (I know, there’s so much to do…) – Wireless Innovations is a must-see!

Since reading and blogging about Getting Real, I've become more interested in what 37Signals has to say. I've started perusing their Signal vs Noise Blog from time to time and have found a couple more gems worth sharing.

The first post that caught my eye was a response to Jason Calacanis' now infamous post on how startups can save money. I had already read what Calacanis has to say and found it to be generally good advice. If you want to get the most out of people, you should indeed set them up for success. But I was irked by the same point that David at 37Signals was, that Calacanis recommended firing non workaholics, and was interested to read the response post Fire the workaholics. Clearly there is a happy medium, but I found that I generally agreed with the 37Signals point of view, that working smarter not longer should be a priority. This is clearly a heated topic near and dear to people's hearts, exemplified by the outrage at the original post. Just read the comment stream to see how sensitive a topic this really is. Clearly there is a need to work hard and put in extra hours from time to time, but some of the studies mentioned in the comments talked of the effect working long hours can have on motivation. It seems that, in the long run, more hours to a point does not equate to increased productivity. It's counter intuitive, but then that's psychology for you.

The second post that I fell in love with was this one about Questioning your work. It lists a series of questions to ask yourself before embarking on a new project or even when starting simpler tasks. If you are really doing the right thing, the answers to these questions will confirm that. But if you are undertaking folly, asking yourself these questions will help you realize it. What are we doing and is it worth it? What else could I do that might be better than this? Is there an easier way to do this? I will surely ask myself these questions and others like them more often in the future.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Two years ago I was kinda sad when I ended up with a Motorola V635 and not a RAZR as my personal phone. RAZR's were so freaking cool back then, but they generally sucked from the nerdy technical point of view. Just try running EQO on a RAZR V3 and you'll see what I mean, slow... I was really happy with my V635 when I got it. It was way better than my circa 2002 Audiovox (colour screen!) and made calls just fine. It wasn't until I got my hands on some other high end phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson that I realized just how greatly Motorola phones paled in comparison. Motorola pulled off a marketing coup with their four letter 'almost a word' naming scheme, featuring RAZR, SLVR, PEBL, KRZR, ROKR, RIZR and so on. It seems that the consumer community has gotten over the then cool RAZR form factors and voted with their dollars because Motorola's phone division isn't doing so well. Who'd a thought better qualities products would sell more?

The news today is that Motorola is actually splitting off it's phone division from the rest of its business, a move many see as protecting the successful business from the phone division's inevitable failure. I'm not really surprised by this and I don't recommend that anyone buy into the pending IPO of Motorola Mobile.

UPDATE:  Wow, didn't know it was this bad!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

We at EQO are in a continual pickle when it comes to Samsung and LG phones. We would love to support them all, but there are just too many for us to get our hands on. To make matters worse, neither have developer programs that are of any use. Thank you Nokia and Sony Ericsson for being so helpful!

We currently only support a small percentage of the estimated 47 billion different Samsung and LG models out there and we need our user's help to support more. If you are interested in helping us support your phone, please send us an email to beta@eqo.com providing your phone model, country, and mobile service provider. If we think there is a chance that EQO Mobile will work we'll help you try EQO, which will hopefully lead to us officially supporting your phone. Helpful beta testers will have the chance to win EQO Prize Packs, in addition to the tremendous honor of being the first to use EQO Mobile on a particular model. We thank our users in advance for their kind efforts and hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers,

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

We have released version 1.2.1 of the EQO Symbian Beta for Nokia Series 60 3rd edition phones. This version alleviates many of the "Memory Full" errors that our testers were getting. This problem may not be solved for people with over a thousand contacts, but the general population should be much less afflicted. Problems with the symbol table for text entry persist on some phones. Affected users will surely realize right away. We have addressed this bug, but the fix didn't make it into this release. Version 1.2.1 also contains many other minor bug fixes that make this release faster and more stable.

When upgrading to the latest version of the Symbian Beta it is a good idea to remove the old client first before upgrading to version 1.2.1. There are some issues with upgrading over the old version, be warned. Get the latest version from our Symbian Beta page or by visiting get.eqo.com/symbian on your mobile browser.

Thanks again to all of our testers and please keep the great feedback coming in our Symbian Beta Forum. After this next Beta period, we'll be announcing the winner of the EQO iPod Shuffle!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Here at EQO we have a giant mobile phone library consisting of just about every type of phone imaginable. Us lucky employees get to try everything and take our pick. My mainstay to date has been the Nokia E61i, a Symbian, wifi enabled, full keyboard super phone that's as functional as it isn't sexy. Lately, I've been carrying the iPhone in my leisure time while still using the E61i at work (EQO doesn't run on the iPhone, yet). I must confess that I now love the iPhone and loathe switching back to the E61i every day. While the iPhone isn't technically more advanced than my E61i, it is supremely better to use. This giant leap in mobile experience got me thinking about the future of mobile in general. Now that calling/texting, mp3 players, cameras, push email and so much more is ubiquitous, what's next?

1. Web on mobile, not mobile web. Thanks to iPhone, I can now use the web, the real web, on my phone. The real web differs from the mobile web (scaled down versions and bad interfaces) in that it doesn't suck. In the future, all phones will be like iPhone in that the web experience will not suck. The proof is in the hits, Google is finding out.

2. GPS will bring us killer location based services. Google Maps Mobile can now tell me roughly where I am and tell me about nearby businesses of the kind I am looking. Soon enough, I'm expecting my phone to tell me stuff without my asking it:
Phone: Hey Chris!
Chris: Yeah, Phone?
Phone: There's a bar 30m ahead then 20m right that your brother-in-law Erik loves. Try the Scottish Ale.
Chris: Thanks phone, I'll check it out.

3. Real Applications. The mobile app market is growing and improving, but is only exploited by the brave few technical souls willing to suffer with installation and connection problems (generally caused by the near sightedness of mobile operators in general). With the advent of open platforms (Android) and the web on mobile (not the mobile web!), developers will be able to easily build and distribute applications to wireless devices. I'm expecting to be able to do all that I do on my PC, much of which is increasingly web based, on my phone, just as easily.

4. Real Usability. The traditional phone interface at its basest level presents a list of contacts with some options. Generally, this is where people spend 90% of their time even though their phones can surf the (mobile) web, play music, take pictures, and then some. The iPhone was a great leap in usability. It's the most discoverable phone I've ever used. Technopeasants can easily figure it out. I believe the iPhone affect on mobile usability perception will enable the majority to take advantage of what phones can technically already do, beyond calling and texting.

5. Media Factories. We are seeing this now. The most potent of phones are media factories, but again only for the technocracy. Currently, it is too challenging and/or costly for most people to shoot video and beam pictures around. This will change. Facebook mobile image uploads are just the beginning. Lifecasting, live reporting, photo diaries, and the like will become easier to produce and distribute.

6. Modu. While I hate pre announcement hype videos that don't tell you what the product is going to be, I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find out about Modu. Modu is essentially a next generation SIM card, a SIM card that makes calls. As a SIM card is to a phone, Modu is to all other electronic devices. I'm eager to see what they have in store for their modular gem.

7. Real VoIP. There are many mobile voip services out there, including a bright shiny orange one from EQO. None are truly the equivalent of Skype on a PC. Services using wifi aren't truly mobile, not until wifi covers the world and handoff is perfected. Services using 3G connections still require a contract with a mobile operator. All other VoIP services provide a cost benefit via other mechanisms. Existing mobile voip services are great, but they are only steps towards pure voip.

iPhone is the best mobile I've used to date that makes powerful mobile services usable. I'm not just saying that as an Apple fanboy, I really believe its the best phone ever. I can't wait to see how the rest of the industry will respond to its brilliance. One thing is for certain, things are looking up for the consumer.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

If you’re like me, you yearn for an awards ceremony that truly means something. After all, exceptional achievement deserves exceptional recognition. This Thursday – tomorrow night – from 5:00-7:00 PM, is one of those opportunities. It is with great honour and pleasure that I announce that EQO has been nominated for a prestigious SPIFFY Award!

The SPIFFY Awards recognize the most outstanding telecommunications start-ups in Silicon Valley, as judged by the members of the Service Providers Forum (SPiF) of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley. The SPIFFY's consist of 8 award categories (nominees are listed on the event website):

The Edison Award for Most Innovative Start-Up
Ground Breaker Award for Engineering Excellence

The San Andreas Award for Most Disruptive Technology – This award is for the most game-changing startup to present at the SPiF meetings. It is offered to the company whose progress is most likely to disrupt markets, and change the way people do things – SOON TO BE EQO’s!!!

The Fred & Ginger Award for Most Supportive Carrier
Graham Bell Award for Best Communication Solution
The Core Award for Best Fixed Telecom Opportunity
Prodigy Award for the Most Successful SPiF Alumni
The Zephyr Award for Best Mobile Opportunity

If you’re in the Bay Area tomorrow night, make sure to get your hands on some last minute tickets as it promises to be an exciting night. Just think – in just over 24 hours you could be watching our resident hero, EQO CEO Bill Tam, gracefully accepting this year’s San Andreas Award! I have exactly the same amount of time to finish getting ready for the exclusive SPIFFY Awards party that I host at my pad every year... Sorry folks, this one’s by invite only.

For more information on this year’s SPIFFY's, visit the Telecom Council's event site.

The eagerly awaited second version of our EQO Symbian beta has arrived.  The first beta yielded much excellent feedback and we thank our kind testers for all their hard work.  We've tried to incorporate as much of what we heard as possible into this next version, although 1.2 is still a beta with issues of its own.  That being said version 1.2 is greatly improved and offers:

• Enhanced stability and performance.
• Predictive text and text input status notification.
• IM stability and bug fixes.
• Contact search filter.
• Other good stuff I can't think of.

When upgrading to the latest version of the Symbian Beta please make sure to remove the old client first before upgrading to version 1.2.  There are some issues with upgrading over the old version, be warned.  Get the latest version from our Symbian Beta page or by visiting get.eqo.com/symbian on your mobile browser.

Also, there is a major bug in version 1.2 that we are aware of and are already fixing for the next release.  On some phones, opening the Symbol table for special character input causes the app to crash.  I imagine you'll find out rather quickly if you are affected or not.

Thanks again to all of our testers and please keep the great feedback coming in our Symbian Beta Forum.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

I am pleased to announce that EQO has recently released its first Facebook application. It probably isn’t what you would expect, but it’s a fun application that will likely appeal to those who like Pokes.

Our app is called Vibrator and it lets you send your friends Vibes. Vibes are like vibrating pokes with fun messages and animations. Vibes can be sent between Facebook users, but EQO users have the option of receiving Vibes on their mobile phone. For example, if I sent you a vibe your phone would vibrate and you would see that “Chris sent you an I told you so Vibe!” We have lots of fun Vibe types, but you need to earn some of them by sending enough Vibes.

Please give it a try and let us know what you think! We are interested in your feedback and would love to know how you think Vibrator could be better and what vibes you might be interested in sending to your friends. And never fear, we have some other Facebook features in mind that are more communicative in nature.  Also, props to Handi Mobility for developing Vibrator with us.  They do great work and I highly recommend them.

Please try Vibrator and, while you are it, you might as well join the EQO Facebook group!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist