The Jeff Pulver Blog: Mike Hudack: It’s the rock star, not the vinyl

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October 02, 2006

Mike Hudack: It’s the rock star, not the vinyl

"I’ve been participating in a private e-mail thread with several pioneering video people and technologists about what to call these serialized video shows we’ve been creating, watching and enabling on the Internet. Some are arguing for the term “video podcast,” others for something like “Internet-only TV show,” and there are those (of course) who talk about “videoblogs”. Here’s my argument, written on my flight from Long Beach to New York last night:

I use Vonage for both my home and office phone service. I use it just like I would use a traditional phone line. I make outgoing voice calls with it and I receive incoming voice calls. I use it for faxes. All of the phone calls I make and receive at home and at the office go over the Internet. Even so, I don’t refer to my phone or my phone service as “Internet Telephony” or my “Internet phone” or even as my “VOIP service.” It’s simply my phone.

That’s because of a fundamental fact that Jeff Pulver (the co-founder of Vonage) recognized probably earlier than anyone else: voice is an application. It doesn’t matter what network it travels over. It’s voice.

In a broad sense, video and audio are also applications. When I listen to XM or Sirius radio I don’t say “I’m listening to satellite radio.” I say simply that I’m listening to the radio. When I order “The Wire” from HBO On Demand on my Time Warner Cable set-top box I don’t say “I’m watching VOD” or “I’m watching cable” — I say I’m watching TV."

Another person who understand that on the broadband Internet, "TV is just another Application."

Tags: Network 2.0, Video on the Net, disruptive broadcasting, blip.tv, Mike Hudack, Jeff Pulver