The VoIPNews Challenge
Source: saunderslog.com
AIM Phoneline provides free incoming service. SkypeOut provides free outgoing (in North America). Owen Linderholm and VoIPNews have issued a challenge: mash SkypeOut and AIM Phoneline together to create a totally free North American phone system.
Mash AIM Phoneline and SkypeOut together to build APSO – the totally free mashed-up VoIP service? This isn’t totally easy – you’ll need a robust contact database to match AIM, Skype and regular phone numbers in and out of accounts. You’ll need some form of protocol conversion since they both use proprietary VoIP standards. Maybe via some into PSTN-out of PSTN method since both can talk to the PSTN?
But there it is the VoIP News Mashup Challenge – how soon can we expect to see a web service that handles the signup with AIM and Skype, sets up the accounts – gives you a single sign-on via a web site and then lets you gab away in both directions for free? This is probably going to be immediately explicitly forbidden by both services if it isn’t in fact, impossible, but who knows? We certainly wouldn’t bet against it…
