ouvid.us - Twilio Experiment

Last Monday I had an idea for an useful web based service that could be built using Twilio. A purely web based call center service, with queue management, alerts, easy to install on a website.
On my spare time at night this week, I manage to build an early version of the product hacking some PHP and jQuery. It turns out to be very productive and straight forward. (I hit some bumps, but Twilio Support and Documentation was very helpful)

ouvid.us is already live and although limited amount of features, it is fully functional!
You can create an account for free, create queues, add other users to attend to your queues, add a Call link to your website/blog etc...

The problem this project solves is: Small and Medium business would have high costs on maintaining a Call Center system. ouvid.us solves the problem, by enabling a pure web based Call Center Service.
Please try it out and let me know what do you think.

Twilio Evaluation:

• Pros:
• I'm a fan of simplicity, and Twilio got it right
• Easy to setup, debug and release
• Great Documentation and Examples
• Good Support
• Cons:
• Lack of support for SIP, XMPP and Jingle
• Sometimes the FlashPlugin Crashes and needs to be killed manually
• No Paypal support

Internet 10 Commandments

The thing is, on Internet...

1. you don't choose your users. The users chooses you.
2. you can't sell fake for long. The Collective intelligence prevents that.
3. the success of the company is proportional to the talent of the people that works on it.
4. your product needs to be good, regardless if it is free. Actually, it needs to be good specially if it is free. As more people will talk about it.
5. what you call user base is nothing but a bucket of thin air. Email address doesn't mean anything. You have active users or you are fading away.
6. companies must know that good ideas and feedbacks can and will came from all levels of the company. You ignore it, you miss the point.
7. user expectation is an everyday task. You miss it, they migrate. Yes, your competitor is only one click away.
8. to succeed you need to know how to "count cards". There is no meaning-less statistics.
9. developers are artists. They need inspiration, motivation and freedom.
10. this post might be totally WRONG! Or not...

Skype Client XMPP Support for Facebook

Skype released a beta version for Windows with support for Facebook Chat. They are doing it through XMPP directly from Skype BETA Client.

Packet Trace with the proof that Skype Client now connects to Facebook using XMPP.

Once again XMPP moves forward in becoming the universal bus for 'realtime' communications.
Companies that are not understanding the importance of being 'realtime' will soon realize that their time is gone.

Hopefully in the future we also have support for other open alternatives for Audio/Video Communications on Skype like Jingle and Jingle Nodes. Like Google did adopting the Standard Jingle.

Standard Jingle on Google

After many year after its creation and early adoption, Google finally announced the switch from their own Jingle variant to the Standard Jingle Version created, approved and maintained by XMPP Foundation.
This comes in the right moment after the previously GIPS Media Company now owned by Google itself, announced the OpenSource WebRTC Project. Which intends to provide multimedia and realtime communication capabilities to Browser like Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc...

Google intend to bring rich communication also to their other browser products like Orkut, iGoogle and even adSense with Ads that could place direct calls to the announcers.

This will enabled direct compatibility to the already know Jingle Clients Jitsi, OneTeam, Pidgin and others. The amplifier of this announcement is that soon we may be seeing native Jingle Support on Android OS, which will make a great and powerful opposition to Skype Mobile Market.

Nimbuzz was the very first Mobile Company to runs their entirely Voice Services over Jingle since 2007. They would have immediate benefit if they were allowing XMPP Federation, which currently is blocked. For now they support GTalk Calls but requires the user to have a Google account registered (which is not a big problem, but not as handy as it could be).

Hopefully Jingle Nodes will also be adopted soon as the default mechanism for Relay Sharing Discovering for Jingle. Stay tuned for more good news. 

XMPP Server SRV Record Tutorial

With the new Openfire Version (3.7.0) released in March. I noticed a change in the S2S (federation) integration and would like to share the tips to help the setup to be done by other XMPP System Admins.

To prevent connection issue among the Servers it is required the registration of the SRV records according to the example:

In the case of the domain minhaempresa.com.br and the jabber domain to be  xmpp.minhaempresa.com.br the following records are required:

• _jabber._tcp.xmpp.minhaempresa.com.br
• _jabber._tcp.minhaempresa.com.br
• _xmpp-server._tcp.xmpp.minhaempresa.com.br
• _xmpp-server._tcp.minhaempresa.com.br

All the registration must point to your jabber domain, as noticed below:

marcelo@hellboy:~$ dig srv _xmpp-server._tcp.minhaempresa.com.br

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3 <<>> srv _xmpp-server._tcp.minhaempresa.com.br
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 11368
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;_xmpp-server._tcp.minhaempresa.com.br. IN SRV

;; ANSWER SECTION:
_xmpp-server._tcp.minhaempresa.com.br. 86297 IN SRV 0 1 5269 xmpp.minhaempresa.com.br.

;; Query time: 16 msec
;; SERVER: 200.175.5.139#53(200.175.5.139)
;; WHEN: Sun May 15 00:24:00 2011
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 89

I've have faced this situation when migrating a customer server that was upgraded a from a previous version of Openfire. If you don't register the domain fixing SRV record, S2S functionallity will not work.

* This is an authorized translation from the Blog Mundo OpenSource written by Marcelo Terres.  Especial thanks for the great and simple guide for setting up DNS SRV records required for an XMPP server.

Open Discussion Day - 19th May

On May 19^th is celebrated Open Discussion Day, a promotion day dedicated for open communication systems and protocols.
Communication is a natural necessity and should be open and available for everyone.
If you care about your own freedom of choice on how you IM and Call your friends, like you currently have with your email, from which you can send and receive emails from every server. Consider using an XMPP solution for such.

XMPP is free to use, and they don't restrict you to one provider or one client or even server.

Related Posts:

• IM Freedom? Not yet... 
• http://opendiscussionday.org/ 

XBox Skype 3D Video Call Support

Right after Skype acquisition by Microsoft, I already have sources talking about Skype native support on XBox 360. That will be great as it is quite handy, well positioned camera in millions of living rooms around the world.
Besides the comfort of having Video Calls sitting in your couch, you also need to expand the possibilities of the experience, as XBox Kinect Camera has much more than just lens. It is equipped with:

• Multi-Array Mic
• Dynamic Motorized Tilt
• 3D Depth Sensors

Put it all together and the result will be an awesome:

Video Call with 3D support

If Microsoft is smart enough to foresee all those possibilities, they have a great and vast ground to explore with Skype.

Skype acquired by Microsoft

Mourning post about Skype future...
Although it have the policy to be closed and stuff. It was nice to have it at least providing the platform choice for their users. I hope that at least in that aspect Microsoft doesn't come to screw up.

In other aspects it may help the World to get rid of MSN Live Network, which has being the biggest technical / protocol failure all time for Instant Messaging and Communications. Including yearly Protocol Hacks and Updates, with fallback servers and periodical outage.
It would be a superb evolution for Microsoft to get rid of the technical garbage pile of MSN Live Network and applications, replacing it by Skype.

Phone Numbers and Telecoms will be affected and we are getting closer and closer to a phone number extinction. This acquisition not only confirms it, but also will speed it up. In that sense it is a positive move.

If you want to see yourself free of those monopoly battles use:

• Jitsi.org - Open Source Fully Featured Jingle and SIP Video Client
• Used in combination with fastvoip.com you get a very cheap (sometimes free) solution for calling international phone numbers
• OneTeam.im - Open Source Jingle Client with Native Jingle Nodes Support

Android Video Call over Jingle

Finally! Google released what they already had. Video Call on Android!
As we know Google Talk already offers Video Calls even on gmail web client, now they extended the support also for Android 2.3.4.
The technology behind it, is the same behind gmail Video Call, XMPP and Jingle.

As GTalk also support XMPP Federation, Jingle is one step ahead towards World domination!

ISP and Operators Take Another Hit on VoIP Blocking

"In view of those characteristics, Advocate General Cruz Villalón considers that the installation of that filtering and blocking system is a restriction on the right to respect for the privacy of communications and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights. By the same token, the deployment of such a system would restrict freedom of information, which is also protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights."

The text above was extracted from the public document: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2011-04/cp110037en.pdf

This also mean that VoIP filtering applied by Vodafone and other operators in Europe, is illegal.

The more stupid Operators blocks VoIP more the market drives to an IM based communication, which they cannot block. They are the responsible for sinking their own business due their greed and incapacity of adapting to a new communication era. Innovate or fade.

Operators that blocks, filter or censor rich communication like VoIP and Streaming, they have a much shorter lifespan than you might think.

Promissing Alternative for XMPP API

Recently I got a comment in the blog about hXMPP which is an alternative for multi-platform code.
I spend some time checking their Jingle Code and also how easy is to use the examples. The result is that the developer should be proud. It is a very nice accomplished work.

Specially in Browsers with WebSocket support, that may be the way to go. For now thay have good BOSH Support.



Check the project and examples at: http://hxmpp.disktree.net/

Give it a try!

2011 OpenSource Stuff

A lot of things going on at the same time, and also a lot of work to be done. So brief post with updates I consider important for OpenSource, XMPP and VoIP.

Some announcements worth mentioning:

• Cisco Launches All-In-One XMPP Solution for Messaging/Presence/Voice
• Openfire 3.7.0 Released - Including Full Support for Jingle Nodes
• Skype Open Codec OPUS started to get robust
• VUC - Interesting Weekly Conference Call with VoIP Gurus
• SIP Communicator Fully Supports Jingle and Jingle Nodes and now it is called "Jitsi"

Jingle Nodes in Campus Party Brazil

Jingle Nodes Project will be presented in Campus Party Brasil in a very special way. Besides the keynote, there will be also 3 Educational workshops where the protocol and current solutions will be discussed in practice:

• Installing an OpenSource IM Server with support for Audio and Video.
• How to customize and adapt a VoIP Client to suit your personal or company needs.
• How to build your own VoIP Client using OpenSource APIs. 

When in Campus Party Brazil make sure you check out the talk about Jingle Nodes and how you can get independence in your daily communication, therefore protected against "digital dictatorship" blocks like the Skype Block in China and Nimbuzz Block in Syria.