VoIP on iPhone

Last week AT&T announced they will be allowing VoIP calls on iPhones. This was a welcome change for the mobile broadband users, giving them opportunity to be in touch with their contacts on networks like Skype etc. This would also open up the chances of using Google Voice on our iPhones someday soon.

Over the weekend, I tried making calls using Skype on my iPhone. I could hardly connect when I was on the AT&T 3G network. When I switched to WiFi at my home, I could place calls but could hardly hear the other person on the line. Looks like the network still needs some QoS tweaking to allow users to make VoIP calls.

The Facebook/Google faceoff

I came across this interesting article by Fred Vogelstein in the Wired magazine. He compares the both the vanguards of internet world and how they are competing to re-define the web-sphere. I agree with most of his observations that Facebook would eventually change the way people search or view content on the internet. Facebook actually earns those brownie points where Google fails in providing personalized content for any information. Facebook has still a long way to go before it aligns itself beside Google in the dash to achieve supremacy on the information/content being searched. The more personal feedback users get for any topic they search on social networks, the more information they would share and Facebook is hoping on reaping benefits from this behavioral pattern. With Bing taking some share of the search pie, Google should be preparing itself to face a stiff challenge in the form of Facebook. The folks at Mountain View have already taken cognizance of this fact and are venturing into several initiatives which add the personalized touch to information seek.

PS: you could find me on Facebook

Bing!

I do not exactly remember what my browser home page used to be before I switched to iGoogle. I am so used to it now, that I could hardly imagine any other gateway to internet, as iGoogle satisfied all my needs. But as they say in economics, your needs are eventually determined by the options you have, iGoogle appeared to be that one-size-fits-all solution for all my home page needs.

This notion changed when I tried out Bing. The huge picture, with some useful information tidbits was a fresh change (being an avid photographer, I naturally love those great shots). Whenever you launch your homepage and have few seconds to spare, Bing provides a good starting point for some quick learning about issues and places.

To continue from where I left in my previous post, the other features I like about Bing are

- a quick summary of the result (however, this is not so cool when the result page is image rich and does not have much text content. Flickr result page gives a blank summary)

- the image search has some interesting options (colors, layout, size etc.) in the left pane. I found the people option (just faces, head & shoulders) to be interesting. It would be great to have a feature of finding similar images (to find out who on the internet is resembles me). But this would mean bringing in state-of-the-art image search tools into a generic search engine. If you ask me, I would vote for it.

Bing is definitely an interesting product, people would be playing a lot with it, before deciding if it meets their needs or not. Or rather should I say, would Bing change the internet search needs of the webkind.

Initial Experiences with Bing

Bing got launched. And the blogosphere is all ga-ga about the incumbent comparisons between Google and Bing. You will find many raving about how the new search interface from big brother Microsoft is, yet you will find many ranting about the quality of search results.

I personally love the freshness Bing brings to the search world and would be trying it for a few days before making up my mind on it. But for an old googler like me, (whose interface to internet is through iGoogle, google search bars, etc), to migrate over to a new search engine is a big leap of faith. Not sure how long I am going to experiment with it.

What I like about Bing?
- the ability to preview your video searches, thats something new!
- the categorization of search results in the left pane, now this brings in the idea of conceptual search into mainstream search results. I personally like it, but not sure how many of the regular web surfers would love this cookie.

Whats in a name? Is Steve Ballmer thinking that people would eventually use the word bing as a synonym for searching on the internet? Well this could be answered in a few weeks on how people embrace it.