January 10th, 2006
Are SIPphone, CounterPath candidates for MySpace softphone?
According to the London-based Financial Times newspaper, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch says that "voice services" will soon be introduced to youth-oriented social networking site MySpace.
Looks like a two-month time frame from now until this feature is enabled.
I have written often about how this 47 million-member, and growing, site is a natural place for some sort of click-to-call capability. I mean look at the home page. There’s a Vonage ad! Shows that some smart folks realize that VoIP and social networking are a natural communications pair-up.
Say you are on MySpace and you see the pix and profile of someone who strikes your fancy. Then if she/he opts to be reachable via voice, you can click an icon or button that would initiate a phone call to them right from your PC.
I am on record as saying that Net2Phone’s UI would be a perfect way to make this work. Not only that, but this is a company Rupert should try to pry loose from their owner, IDT.
But that won’t be easy. Instead, I envision a scenario that might involve an existing softphone company building a customized MySpace click-to-call capability.
Who? Well, maybe SIPPhone (Gizmo Project) or even CounterPath (formerly xten).
I have a strong hunch about this one. Can you say "reference designs?"
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
