My good friend Dameon wrote a post on GigaOm yesterday that's generated a lot of buzz and comment. First I want to send congrats to Dameon, who's been one of my closest friends in the blogosphere for quite some time now. It's nice to see his insight and writing ability recognize by another friend, Om Malik.

Is There Money in Voice APIs?
I've been covering the VoIP space since 2004, and lately it seems like every other press release sent my way is from a company announcing the addition of an application programming interface (API) to its telephony platform. The promise of APIs is that they make it easy to integrate different services -- even those provided by different vendors -- into a single application. The press release from one carrier even went so far as to claim that its API would "boost innovation and development of new apps exponentially."

But is simply providing an API to your telephony infrastructure enough to prompt the world to beat a path to your door? Don't count on it.
[Read Dameon's full post]

It's a great piece and really points out some of the issues in the industry that have been on my mind a lot lately. I always fear the trap of what bloggers call the echo chamber. That's the danger that we all find ourselves saying the same thing about the same topics. I often fear the trap of easily repeating the sales rhetoric of "look how cool our stuff is" without truly doing my homework and asking the questions that get to the meat of things.

What's the meat of things? I touched on in a day or two ago in a couple of different places. But here's a key question I have to start asking more - Are you building a sustainable business model, for partnering and long term service, or are you building a widget to sell in hit and run fashion. There are far too many companies out there that either don't see, or don't admit, that they're simply hit and run opportunist with no vision, no sustainable business model, and no real story of substance to tell.

In some cases, they just don't tell the story in a way that catches my attention. I noted Don Thorson from Ribbit commented on Dameon's post. Don's a friend, but I confess that I've never quite gotten Ribbit. Sure I've see all the ballyhoo that BT was buying them, but it just made me ask why. I've heard bits and pieces about Ribbit, but I confess I've not written about them at all. Because I've never heard a solid value proposition that made me sit up and take notice of what they're doing. It might be spectacular, but I confess I don't see it.

Let me clarify a bit and extend an invitation. I know Ribbit has an API, but to quote my friend Dameon again, an API isn't a business model. I work with developers who write APIs every day of the week. An API is nothing but a connector. The depth and breadth of an API, and what it can do is where the value lies.

Ribbit also has a network of developers. Again, sorry, but that's not a business model. What are they developing? How are they making money? (I know, bad question, but we're in business to make money.) How are they growing, succeeding and leveraging the framework for sustainable business?

And while we're asking questions, how much traffic is going through the Ribbit swtich framework? Telecommunications is based on traffic - minutes of use - telephone calls. I haven't seen any numbers, but assume for BT to spend a lot of money ($55M, I heard) the numbers are huge. Can they be shared? Or is it some secret tied to a quiet period during an acquistion.

I'd like to write about the value of Ribbit, but I don't have enough information to know what it is? Don, can you or someone at Ribbit enlighten me? Anyone there care to do a podcast interview and expose the meat of things? It's an open invitation.

But I think in the interest of stepping outside the echo chamber, I have to do a bit more too. So let me give an example of why I think the echo chamber effect is so bad.

There's another company where I have friends and have done some work with. I've written about Jaduka here more than once. Their PR genius is a personal friend, and he and I have had some conversations asking ourselves why the industry at large and the blogosphere in general don't seem to understand real value. So let me give a couple of examples of real value.

First, you have to understand that NetworkIP is the parent company behind Jaduka. NetworkIP and Jaduka represent some of the brightest minds in the industry. I met them in person a couple of years ago and we spent about two hours together wrapped in a technical conversation that left me feeling I'd spent time with some of the smartest people I've ever encountered in thirty years of voice and data networking. NetworkIP is a globally respected carrier, peering partner, and solution provider.

With the Jaduka API, they process millions of transactions monthly, for hundreds of thousands of end users. Take a quick look at a couple of their press releases.

NetworkIP Partners with Dialogic to Expand Platform, Drive Innovation
NetworkIP® has partnered with Dialogic® to expand its carrier-grade telephony platform. NetworkIP helps companies bring to market low-cost, next-generation telephony and Internet stored value products. Through its Jaduka subsidiary, companies and web developers can harness communications and technologies to enhance user experience and improve business processes, resulting in greater customer satisfaction and employee productivity.

Longview, TX (PRWEB) July 14, 2008 -- NetworkIP®, a leading provider of innovative telephony and stored value services, has partnered with Dialogic® to expand its carrier-grade telephony platform in ways that meet a growing demand for its voice, data and IP services.
[Read the full release]

And this one tied straight to the Jaduka API.

Jaduka Has People Talking: Voice Services Hit 4 Million Minutes Per Month
Jaduka®, a leading provider of Web-integrated communication and transaction tools, is reporting over 4 million minutes per month in customer voice traffic through its Web Services APIs, including: voice conferencing; web-initiated and privacy-protected phone calling; automated voice alerts and notifications; broadcast messaging; and VoIP-based PC-to-phone services. "We've seen continual growth in our customers' voice traffic indicating strong adoption of our portfolio of voice services and programming tools," said Jaduka President Jack Rynes.

Dallas, Texas (PRWEB) June 23, 2008 -- Jaduka® (www.Jaduka.com), a leading provider of Web-integrated communication and transaction tools, is reporting over 4 million minutes per month in customer voice traffic.
[Read the full release]

Jaduka has an API and it's being leveraged for millions of calling minutes a month. Jaduka has a developer program, and their developers are winning business and making money. They're building sustanaible business with major enterprises around the world. They're processing the transactions that fuel the global economy.

Here's one more interesting piece by Rich Karpinski in TelephonyOnline -

Jaduka blazes telecom API trail
Service providers are starting to experiment with business models in which application programming interfaces are as important as services. But what would such a business look like?
Consider Jaduka. The company has built a suite of APIs that provide developers with access to and the ability to "mash up" public network capabilities and services, such as trigger telephone calls, manage voicemail or integrate call history details into apps. The APIs run on top of a switching and billing infrastructure run by parent company, NetworkIP.

Last week, Jaduka reported network usage metrics that, according to company president Jack Rynes, show how an API-driven telecom business can -- and should -- grow.

Driven by APIs and a focus on serving the transaction-heavy retail industry, Jaduka reported its network has passed 4 million minutes per month in core voice traffic. Beyond that, Jaduka and NetworkIP have built their network to support transaction-oriented traffic. The platform currently processes 700,000 API transactions and 1.5 million database queries per day, but it can support transactions at a rate of 28 million user accounts and 300 million queries each day -- up to 1285 account transactions per second, the company said.

It's about value. It's not about a sexy mashup that sounds cool, works great and drives no traffic. It's about sustainable business. I've been in this industry a long time, and the last paragaph above gives substance to sustanability.

• 4 million minutes a month in core traffic
• 700,000 API transactions a day
• 1.5 million database queries a day
• 28 million user accounds and 300 million queries a day
• A transaction rate of 1285 per second
  

Value. Sustanability. Scalabilty. Rock solid business value.

So if Ribbits worth $55M, how much is Jaduka worth? In my view, based on what I know, tenfold. But I don't know everything. Just what I can see and read.

What I see and read is too much repetition of nice words about nice ideas, and not enough substance in our writing, mine included, to ask what we're thinking when we talk about solutions.

Unified Communications as an industry segment, for all our nice words, is in disarray and overcome with apathetic lethargy. Real enthusiasm for real solutions is a rare thing because we're overlooking the basics -

• Value
• Sustainability
• Scalability
• Proven success

As for me, I know I'm going to be a bit more focused on those as part of the bottom line. It's time for all of us who write or blog about the unifed communications sector to pull our collective head out of the sand and say show me.

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