Registering a domain name for evolving communications industry
In my interactions with telecom companies – both vendors and service providers – I have used terms like Voice 2.0, Mashups, Voice-Web mashups, Telco 2.0, VoIP-Web mashups etc etc. I can tell you that none of these fancy terms have cemented themselves yet. I end up having to explain what I mean. There is no single industry term that encapsulates the evolving communications.
If you use the word Mashups, it can mean anything that is mashable with web. There are thousands of mashups that have nothing to do with communications. If you use Voice 2.0, that implies greater user control and feature generation. If seen in that context you are borrowing a term from Web 2.0 that does not quite apply in the communications world. If you use Voice 2.0 term to represent the next version of voice communications (which can mean any new advances), that does not (1) reflect the web as the dominant underlying platform and (2) does not include non-voice communications applications. So the use of Voice 2.0 has its issues.
The new evolving communications is being driven by two separate camps. One is the traditional service providers that are extending the interfaces to their legacy IN systems on to the web. Through web services interfaces they bring in various relevant web mashups. The other camp completely ignores the old network and either leverages the existing developer program of companies such as Skype, or bypasses all using open source platforms plus its own app; going direct to the consumer. The term that will evolve here should represent both camps I think. Communications 2.0 would have been nice, but I think the PR community has already ‘registered that domain’. So that one is taken.
Telco 2.0 sounds very burreaucratic and ignores the non-telco developer community that is making things happen.
Lastly, communications aware mashups would have been a nice term. However the word ‘mashup’ spoils it because applications that have client interfaces and do not require web browser (such as Skype) would be kind of eliminated – unless you call it communications aware internet mashup. Then again, once all communications is IP, the word mashup will carry no meaning!
One more thought: if I download music off my cell phone, it is not a mashup app. If however it is streamed onto my desk phone, it is a mashup!!!! Here is an app that has nothing to do with communications. Yet the telcos, rejecting non-communications-aware mashup, count this as a mashup.
