Saving the Global Economy

By: Alon Cohen

At the end of 2005, we started a journey with few partners and investors to create a nice web site to help people in the community, which are need of human advice, and financially reward those who are willing to provide the advice.

The concept was simple but challenging in many ways. We set a directory of advisors arranged by ranking. We provided a solution to facilitate payment while evading fraud. We included a mechanism by which the advisor can chat, talk over the phone or do a video session with the client, while we measure the duration of the call and at the end, charge one user, and pay the other.

It was all good until we hit a speed bump. We found that it was hard to explain to the advisors that placing a page on a site is only the start to creating a business. It was hard to explain that an on-line virtual business is not much different from a physical business. I use to tell advisors that if you hang up a shiny plate on your bedroom door stating, “I am a certified consultant”, you will not get much action going. As in any other business, you have to go out and find ways to bring clients. To solve the problem, we gathered some on-line resources and communicated those to the advisors so they can use those tools to bring clients.

Our ranking system was a topic by itself, and the company is still perfecting it. It takes into consideration the positive and negative comments an advisor receives, but also the amount of money that advisor made over time. We took the finical gains of the advisor as an indication that this advisor is providing a service valued by the community.

Moving few years forward and passing thought a rough patch in the global economy, we noticed that the people that kept on moving up the ranks are not the Lawyers, not the Registered Dietitians, not the Travel Advisors, not the Doctors or Computer Support people. What we saw is that the most productive people are those who provide online psychic reading. We also noticed that the bigger spenders are those who are not afraid, and that are most open to learn about the future.

Maybe Wall Street should learn from that, and use some of the advisors on the BitWine site to figure out where the things are going, and use that valuable insight to save the economy.

We did our part already and change the BitWine home page to point to our most productive people the Psychics.

Check this out you may discover something you already know.

Phone.com the Best Home & Office Phone Service I have Ever Used

By: Alon Cohen

If this post smells to you like an ad it probably is. I work for Phone.com and proud about what we offer. But I am also very satisfied with how I use the services every day. People who know me as a technologist know that I do not jump every time a new service comes alive. I do however likely to try new technologies more than the average person, and jump only when I know I get the best bang for the buck, and when I know that I get functionality that help me do more with less in order to feed my basic laziness.

In the past year and half I have been using Phone.com, Vonage, Cablevision triple play, Skype, Jajah, 1Voice, Google Voice and more. I ended up canceling or not using all of them (besides Skype which gives me free Video). At that time frame, I have created a monster phone system for my home based solely on Phone.com Virtual Office. I did not have to install anything just click my way on the Phone.com web.

Why? Well I started small, moved my home phone number and fax numbers, than added menus to make sure my family members get their calls directly to their cell phones, instead of me answering the home phone with calls that are not for me. Then I added support for my wife when she fly overseas so I can save on roaming, then I added a Global Number in Israel so my parents can call me as if the call a local call, then I added a soft phone so my college kid can call anywhere from his dorm using his MAC and save the cell phone plan minutes, then I added IP Phone, so business calls become simpler and so on and on. All the above is done by carving what I needed for my day to day, out of the Phone.com ultra flexible Virtual Office service.

None of the above is doable with a any single service from one company, and Phone.com delivers the goods in a single easy to use service. It is that simple!

Phone.com is in my mind the most flexible, most innovative VoIP service with the best Customer Support - bar none. And if you want to challenge that statement, just call, they are there 24*7, and very responsive.

If I think something is not clear on the Phone.com web feature description, I call the support as any other customer would. I use them to figure out how to best use some of the features we have or give them advice on the same topic. When I learn something new, I make sure it is added to the company’s web site so others can enjoy that knowledge as well.

Since I have joined, the company had created three new services: Home Phone Plus, Virtual Number and Chat Calls, added tons of features as per customer’s requests, improved reliability and much more. At that same timeframe Cablevision for instance (my internet provider) created very nice new commercials, and raised the price twice. I am asking you, does a new commercial help me if I was a customer? No! With Phone.com I know that I keep moving forward and improve my utility and as a result, improve my lifestyle.

From what I am seeing, none of the VoiP / Triple-play companies have the same level of drive to improve and innovate that Phone.com poses.

I am 100% sold. If you want to become a customer just like me, click the banner just above this blog and start your journey to telephony wonderland. Do not even worry about it, the first month is always free.