Asterisk on Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 virtual computing environment allows you to launch instances with viariety of operating systems, manage network permisions, etc through web services API. Voxilla made a two part article about how to set up Asterisk on Amazon's computing environment.

http://voxilla.com/2009/02/12/amazon-ec2-voip-1096

The first part of the article is an introduction to EC2.

http://voxilla.com/2009/02/13/asterisk-amazon-ec2-1178

The second part is a step by step tutorial that describes how to sign up, configuring and starting the EC2 instance, configuring network settings and installing Asterisk.

the mobile user experience

some links worth noting ..on user experience from the mobile phone

http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/03/29/follow-the-mobile-user/

http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/11/daddy-wheres-your-phone.html

mashup contest

Circus Mashimus - a mashup contest, quite interresting

http://www.circusmashimus.com/

"The Contest

Developers may submit applications for either of the two categories:

Best Overall Mashup: Must contain two or more of the participating API Lounge APIs

Best in Show: Application using at least one sponsor API

* Best Buy Remix
* Billboard
* New York Times
* Ribbit

* We encourage you to use other APIs along with the contest APis to create something cool"

virtual currencies

Facebook is looking at adding virtual currency to its social networking service..

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/03/facebook-gdc-vi.html

http://mashable.com/2009/03/28/facebook-virtual-currency/

I have been interrested in virtual goods and services for quite some time now. Some really interresting links with regards to social networking and mobile services.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/20/virtual-goods-the-next-big-business-model/

http://blog.zong.com/2008/10/25/virtual-goods-currency-and-mobile-payments-the-business-model-for-social-apps/

http://vgsummit2008.com/video/

http://www.vgsummit.com/

Virtual goods provide an alternative to advertising revenue stream. Most social networking services introduce some sorts of virtual goods - these usually go by micropayments via premium sms through the mobile. Now.. the good thing about virtual currency is that it brings element of fun into the game, the user does not think twice about paying as he would with real money :)

So we have, social networking services and virtual goods, mobile servies, services with virtual currencies - what be interresting to see a single services blending all these together!

telephony in the cloud

One of the first services to offer hosted telecommunication services by exposing an API for developers to create telephony services was Ribbit - developer.ribbit.com. Ribbit offers a Flex SDK to develop telephony services.

It is interresting to see a lot of startups recently offering cloud based approach to telephony services with even simpler API's that give even the most telco-unexperienced developers the tools to create cool telephony services.

Examples of telco in the cloud services:

ringful.com
www.twilio.com
www.tropo.com
tringme.com

Create ivr servies in minutes without even any hardware.