Making a mash out of things

As someone who has been in the thick of the enhanced voice world for well over a decade, it's funny that as much as things change, things really stay the same. Sure, we've made major shifts in infrastructure by beginning the migration from TDM (Time-Division Multiplexing, better known as the common phone network) to VoIP, but these infrastructure changes haven't really shown a significant benefit to business end users aside from cost reduction.

Not that cost reduction is a bad thing, but as Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." If I can build a corollary to this, it would be "Build a cheaper mousetrap and the world will eventually shift over to you - but it won't create any sense of loyalty and someone will build an even cheaper mousetrap and you'll eventually go out of business since you're just slashing your margins."

In the web world, Internet 2.0 was really pushed forward because of two technology concepts: REST and AJAX. Without getting into the guts of what these are and how they work, REST is a simple interface that can be placed on a system that makes it easy for pretty much any system - from an old legacy mainframe to a new web application to simply exchange data. Want to add a mapping function to a website? Find the REST interface to Google Maps, sign up for an account and you're essentially done. AJAX describes the ability to present data (such as from a REST interface) when it happens instead of making you click the refresh button on your browser to see if you have new mail.

This new economy of REST and AJAX has spurred the creation of the mashup. Mashups are a new style of website, taking services from multiple providers, putting them together under a single new "skin" and using it to create innovative services but with a significantly reduced cost. It's a better and cheaper mousetrap.

The voice world still hasn't come to grips with the concept of the mashup. Yes, there are innovative developers such as Thomas Howe, but the fundamental technology platforms just aren't there to support mashups in the same manner.

One of the things that we did at Junction Networks from pretty much the beginning was to separate platform and presentation. To this point, we created a voice application services platform, a RESTful API which can be used to control 100% of the platform, and then a website which used the API to create and manage the services for users. It wasn't an attempt to do something differently, in fast it was one of those things that just happens when a bunch of web developers decide to build a voice communications platform. Because we built the platform, then exposed it through the API, then built the web interface - there's no case (aside from some limited credit card processes) where another developer can't build a better mousetrap based on our interface.

Because of this, we're starting to see voice mashups happen - people building websites (handling school closures, playing video games by phone, etc.) that solve business problems and use our network as part of the solution.

We're not shocked that this is happening. However, I am disheartened that we're pretty much the only voice services platform that supports this level of open transparency.

If no man is an island, then no system is a silo.