Voice Mashups: Telephony power without telephony expertise

Voice/Data Mashups Telephony power without telephony expertise Nick Branstator, VoodooVox

What’s a voice mashup?

A mashup takes services or data from two or more sources, typically through APIs, and combines them into a new application

Typically quick and easy to deploy

Doesn’t require you to understand the technology behind the services

A voice mashup simply uses some capability of the voice channel as part of the application

Can also describe an app that uses the voice channel to power a Web, mobile, or desktop app

A sample mashup: “VoxPix”

Typical slideshow app

A sample mashup: “VoxPix”

Typical slideshow app

But adds voice to slides using phone as mic

Key enabling changes

Lowered cost of transport

Subsidization through in-call media

Telephony in the cloud

Familiar software

Minimizing barriers to entry for non-telephony developers

Who is behind the development?

Consumer application entrepreneurs

Brands and interactive ad agencies

Existing applications

Enterprise

Education

Web APIs: Making things easy for the Web developer

Web developers are used to using APIs

RESTful APIs are key

HTTP+XML

Stateless

Client-server relationship

Supplemented by libraries for specific programming languages

Asterisk and VoiceXML are not tools for Web developers!

Sliding scale of area knowledge Big Iron Asterisk/VoiceXML Adhearsion Web developer

Development as glue Data source Telephony service Glue code (Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Actionscript, Javascript…)

Example mashups

Store location (IVR API + data source)

Order status hotline (IVR API + data source)

Phone/Web karaoke (karaoke API + Web UI)

Voice cards (voice recording API + photo source API)

Voice on MySpace and Facebook (voice recording API + OpenSocial or Facebook API)

Facebook-based conference calling (con call API + Facebook API)

Voice broadcast (outbound call API + Web UI)

Automated polling (IVR API + Web app)

Distance language learning (con call API + voice recording API + Web app)

Available services through Web APIs

Call recording

Text-to-speech

Location

Phone number & transport provisioning

Conference call generation

Anonymous call bridging

Karaoke

Outbound call generation

Voicemail

Business models

Per minute

Per call/active channel

Ad support

In-call

Web-based

SMS-based

Offering a developer program

An API is not enough by itself

Docs

Examples

Forums/Wiki

Live support

Getting out there

KISS While the VoiceXML and CCXML standards have driven down the cost of custom IVR, these solutions are still too complex and expensive for many independent developers and small businesses. Many…solutions now available in the marketplace tend to be limited in flexibility. Phone mashups require flexibility. Phone mashup APIs need to be usable by any web developer with basic web form coding skills. - Irv Shapiro, Ifbyphone

Thanks! Nick Branstator [email_address]