Blogging continues to be a process of linking. I found John Perry Barlow through David Isenberg. And of course, I was introduced to Isenberg by Pete Kruckenberg. Pete is the person most responsible for getting me started as a blogger.

I was reading from The Progress & Freedom Foundation web site and noticed the link to Isenberg's blog. Starting from there I found the Barlow blog and his thoughts on this intimate planet.

Barlow had an amaing experience with Skype. Something about his story got to me and I wanted to pass it along............
3:26:27 PM    comment []

I've been looking for the real downside of Voice over IP and this just may be it. Getting around regulation always appeals to some of us. Some aspects appeal to all of us. But there is almost certainly a dark side to every good thing.

Lack of regulation avoids taxes and helps cut costs in other tangible forms. The 3 cent/minute long distance rate has taken most of the steam out of VoIP as a toll bypass mechanism. Thinking about unregulated call centers operating on foreign (at least if you are in the US) shores causes me to have a bit of a guilty pang. Yes, I like the idea of unregulated VoIP. Last Saturday I found it necessary to participate in a conference call to troubleshoot some network problems. The call was made via Skype. At first I didn't have a Skype account or the Skype client. It took me about 5 minutes to download the client, set up a user account and join the conference. For a techno-geek it tickled the deep recesses of my black heart. Yeah, I liked it.

Will I start getting telemarketers on my Skype account? Maybe. Who knows where this will lead? Not me. I'm just an observer of this technology strand. It should be fun and may turn out to be really annoying...........
2:43:35 PM    comment []