VoIP Phone Service: Easy Telephony at Lower Rates
In this contemporary world, communication plays a vital role in bringing the world closer. This has been made possible by a new and innovative means of using the internet over the normal phones. The internet telephony services are facilitating the transfer of voice, video and images along with web browsing and access to e-mails.
The advanced VoIP phone service with all its essential features have brought in a revolution of all sorts in the communication industry. This convergence technology has given users a newer way to communicate with others at significantly lower costs. In the internet telephony services, users are making the most of broadband connections for making cheaper telephone calls across the world. Moreover, users are finding themselves in an advantageous position, wherein they can make longer distance as well as international calls without spending a lot of money from their pockets. The users can save a lot, as the services utilize a single network for carrying the voice, data and images. There is also a concomitant increase in productivity. This is because in VoIP Internet phone service, the calls are routed using packet switching technique through IP based networks having “broad” bandwidths.
For availing IP services, users require internet connections with higher bandwidth, ATA or Analog Telephone Adapter for data conversion as well as a phone. These are considered as standard equipment and are usually supplied by the providers when the users signs in for the VoIP services. The companies that offer such services are well known as VoIP phone service providers, wholesalers and resellers. The VoIP providers lead the other two groups by offering some portion of their services. As a matter of fact, wholesalers and resellers help in building important links with the real-users to sell Voice over IP services. Today, such services are ruling over the years old PSTN services, as they are backed with various features and benefits that allure the users. Some of these benefits are mentioned below:
With the VoIP internet phone service, users can low down their monthly telephone bills by up to more than half the cost of PSTN service. As a matter of fact, this IP telephony services allow users to experience the unlimited long distance as well as internal calls with minimum cost.
While using the VoIP Internet phone service, users can carry their IP phones anywhere across the globe, as it is location independent. As a matter of fact, only internet connection is needed and users can get connected from any remote location.
Unlike PSTN services, VoIP phone services are backed with value-added services. It allows users to enjoy 3-way calling, caller ID, call forwarding, audio as well as video conferencing, call waiting and many more.
Lastly, it can be said that, VoIP internet phone service is proving to be intangible asset for business houses that have their offices in different parts of the world. Apart from that global trotting professionals are enjoying calling with the absence of roaming charges. Moreover, VoIP services ensure that business houses enjoy faster network and seamless connectivity.
Switching To VoIP?
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is one of the newest available technologies in the field of communication. What is VoIP, you may ask? It is directing of audio exchange done online or other IP-based network. Simply put, analog signals in a normal telephone line are transformed into digital data and transmitted through the internet. Switching to VoIP is a very wise and economical move.
Quite a number of individuals and organizations are switching to VoIP. The main factor that influences this shift is the cost. The technology of VoIP is less expensive compared to that of the PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network) which is used in analog phones. Apart from that, VoIP service providers offer extra features such as call display and call forwarding at no extra cost, compared to regular analog phone services that charge fees for functionalities outside of the regular telephone connection.
If you, like the many people who have switched to VoIP, are looking forward into making the leap to the other side, there are certain factors that you have to consider to be able to make a successful switch.
When switching to VoIP, you must keep in mind that you may or may not be able to keep your phone number. If your VoIP provider has the capability to grant local numbers, you may be able to continue using your old number. There is no guarantee, however, so you really have to check with your prospect service provider if they do have this functionality or not.
Emergency hotline numbers are very important. If you are an individual or an organization who wants the ease of contacting an emergency hotline such as 911, you must first think hard about switching to VoIP. This is a minor glitch in the technology. Your VoIP provider may be able to register your address and number to 911 and other emergency numbers. However, this feature can be limited. If, for example, you dial 911, but are unable to speak, the operator will not be able to locate you and therefore help will not be dispatched easily. Of course, since technology is evolving so fast nowadays, a solution for this slight hiccup may well be on its way. Until such time, it is best to also keep your analog phone line, if emergency numbers are very important to you.
Power outages cannot be ignored. Even if blackouts do not occur very often, it is best to be prepared at all times. Sure, UPS (uninterrupted power supply) and battery backups may sustain you, but only for a while. It is strongly advised that you keep a backup in the form of a mobile phone.
A lot of people are now switching to VoIP. And if its features intrigue you and you would like to make the switch, it is highly recommended that you scout for a VoIP provider that can give you the best service and most reasonable price. Some extra features in a VoIP service may include call forwarding, call display and call waiting. Features like long-distance or overseas calls may have some extra charge. But try to look around. Some VoIP providers have promos on these elements that will help you save some cash.
Once you have found the best VoIP provider suited for your needs, you will be supplied with a gadget called Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) which will enable you to use your old analog phone with VoIP. If you are gadget savvy, you may want to ask your service provider for certain packages that will get you equipped with a router and an IP phone.
You will need some gadgets in order for you to access VoIP. These are broadband modem (can either be DSL or cable), a router and an IP phone. A computer is not a requirement. However, having one will definitely help you access your VoIP account easily.
Switching to VoIP is quite an easy task when you have found the perfect VoIP provider to cater to your needs. Setting it up is even easier. All you need to do is plug the router into the modem and then connect the IP phone to the router. Simple, isn’t it?
Skype’s plummet – customer service freefall
With the recent takeover of Skype by Ebay, Danny Wirken asks if Skype has forgotten to pack it’s parachute.
With the internet booming in sales of products such as the Skype phone or free Skype download, the company is enjoying more publicity than ever before. Since inception in 2003, Skype now claims well over 55 million registered customers thanks to the way it allows users to call other users for free. It has also done a lot to advertise its low cost ‘real’ telephone calls service.
I’ve enjoyed using the Skype phone service myself – calling other friends who share the software has previously been useful. However I’ve noticed one thing as a result of the Ebay takeover of Skype. The customer service has plummeted. Some ask if it was ever there at all – and they are right to question this. With so many users enjoying the service there is now a real problem with bugs, glitches and general technical problems. What’s worse is that these bugs seem to be centred around the new billing system Skype uses.
There have been wide reports of these skype billing glitches. Large sites such as CNET have reported that there is a growing dissatisfaction with the way the company is choosing to take itself. By entering into the paid market fully, Skype might risk neglecting its grassroots customers who brought it such success in the first place.
The common complaints sound dangerously fatal – accounts taking days to go active, or to be credited from purchases even on credit cards. One user said he would simply chargeback the purchase if he didn’t get the credit by the next day. Given that Skype marketed itself on instant-download software and fast access, this flaw seems crucial.
“It just makes it useless†commented one anonymous poster on SLASHDOT. “I send an email and get no response – yet they are happy to take the money from my card!â€
Spokespeople from Skype have recently gone public by saying that there are some ‘teething problems’ with the service. The bigger clue, so they claim, is to look at the ever increasing customer numbers. Critics would point out that it is retaining these customers that should concern Skype.
But why is it such a problem? The issue is that Skype customer service uses an ad-hoc arrangement only suited to smaller internet outfits. They have not grown their customer service with the other areas of their company. The company relies heavily on proactive clients to let them know when a problem arises. Relying on reports in this way is suitable only for the most amateurish start-up firms or non profit organisations where the user base has additional motivation for being a client.
One Skype employee recently admitted to searching online internet forums to look for potential issues to fix or repair. With the ranting of an irate user base growing ever louder, Skype is now looking to do their best to instigate solutions for their customer service. With comments now getting heated – “I’ve been stolen from. I’m absolutely furious. The advertising was misleading and I’ve had no help!†– and many competitors now on the scene, it may be prudent to ask if it is already too late for Skype.
The benefits of VoIP
Predictive Dialers: A Grid based Approach
Predictive Dialers have long been the object of heated debates between telemarketers and call centers on one side who love the technology for its productivity gains and consumers on the other who detest it for the dead air and silent calls it brings on with it. It is interesting to note that both the FCC and the FTC have enacted tough regulation to protect users by requiring strict monitoring and reporting of call abandonment in telemarketing campaigns and call center organizations.
Every year the call center industry spends thousands of dollars buying expensive equipment or online packages with predictive dialing capabilities. The called party experience generated by such dialers is poor and has pretty much restricted the technology for use in B2C calling; preferably cold calling. In addition, the rate of innovation and technology improvements has been relatively slow in this specific space and call center industry in general.
While call center telephony may have failed to evolve at a rapid pace, other forms of telephony which may not seem related to it have continued to morph at a fast pace. For example PC based telephony software has improved leaps and bounds over the last few years. Softphone technology has leveraged generic PC hardware to boost call quality to new levels. Sophisticated applications like voice analysis and conferencing are supported in virtually all softphone applications. Voice over IP technology has also become fairly ubiquitous and standardized with a large number of service providers and vendors getting involved. It is now possible to combine these two technologies with some popular PC technologies like Grids and Peer-to-Peer computing to create “Telephony Grids”. A Telephony Grid is a distributed PC based phone network which can perform coordinated dialing, IVR, voice analysis or store voicemail without requiring centralized servers. While this may only seem to be a technology shift there are some other benefits as well. Before diving into those, let’s first try to explore the state of predictive dialers at this point of time.
How does predictive dialing work?
A predictive dialer essentially attempts to dial calls ahead of agents becoming free. By dialing ahead, it tries to save on the dialing time and detect errors or answering machines. One may be led to think that the dialer can literally scan a whole list even before the first call is handed off to an agent. However, the
Putting productivity and economy to work with intelligent Business Phone Systems
Is your business communication equipment really working for you? Is it helping you maximize productivity? Are you getting optimum returns on invested capital? Is your business phone system scalable and extensible enough to help you remain in sync with leading-edge convergence technologies?
In highly competitive markets across the globe, answers to these questions often draw the line between the winners and the also rans. And, this is where the role of specialized service-oriented resellers come into play. For the solution here lies in sourcing your business communication equipment from quality suppliers such as the UK based Actimax, Plc., which have created a niche for themselves by adopting a solution – oriented approach. Over the past decade, companies like these have helped a growing number of enterprises to thrive by harnessing the power of leading edge technologies.
Solution oriented approach
Every organization operates in a constant state of flux. With an ever changing business environment that needs to constantly adapt to the transforming competitive landscape, you need an office telephone system that is not only open-ended, robust, and sophisticated but is also affordable and easy to use.
Good business phone systems invariably result from the extra effort made by your supplier to understand your distinct needs. With a customer – centric business model in place, these companies stress upon studying the client’s business processes up close. Office telephone system from quality suppliers are designed ground up, which make them almost custom-made to support your mission critical operations, efficiently and cost effectively. The service-oriented resellers not only empower you to choose from a complete range of business communications equipment from the world’s best manufacturers but also provide the whole portfolio of supporting products and services.
Advanced services to suit diverse needs
Over the years, the communication space has changed and evolved constantly. This trend has lead a number of vendors to adopt a business model centered around providing exceptional support and services to beat back the competition. These companies not only provide you the equipment but also research your business, your customers, and the markets to try and identify the weak spots. This is followed by intense brainstorming to arrive at the best possible solution in the shape of communication system that is robust and simple, enhances productivity, and brings about a perceptible change in the way you go about doing your business. Digital phone systems marketed by some of these players is a case in point that truly demonstrates these capabilities.
No nonsense digital phone system
Owing to their accumulated knowledge base, the top line service oriented suppliers now posses proven expertise in installing tailor-made high utility digital phone systems. Shorn of complex features rarely used, these companies focus on equipping your office telephone systems with services such as Caller Line Identification (CLI), Direct Dialing Inwards (DDI), business telephones integration with databases, and Trunk to Trunk technology. Of course, the digital phone system has enough scope to integrate other services as and when the need arises. A simple, and effective voice mail phone system is another example where highly qualified and experienced professionals make it easy for you to adapt new technology.
Voice mail phone systems offer the answers to your need for streamlining your messaging system. It provides you seamless access to your messages anytime, and from anywhere. You no longer need to scribble notes on pieces of paper, or get onto the e-mail to stay in touch. Every time a call goes unanswered, an efficient voice mail phone system lets you leave messages that are sure to get across to the right person, sooner or later. While Installing a voice mail phone systems the seller should be able to clearly comprehend your unique needs, and install a system that is simple and easy to use. The sellers have a key role to play to get you quickly up to speed from the word go, thus eliminating any stoppages in your work flow.
The End Of The Landline
T-Mobile has announced a new service which allows home users to abandon their expensive home phone services without losing their phone numbers. Is the end of wired line home phone service soon to be a thing of the past?
The offering gives the customer a wireless router for a one time charge of $50 and a monthly fee of just $10 per month for unlimited nationwide calling over the WiFi internet connection. Customers simply plug their touch tone or wireless home phone into the new router and will then be able to make and receive calls as they once did on their landline (customer needs a broadband connection).
T-Mobile has been trying to get customers to “Cut the cord” and switch to cellular phones. But this service is also aimed at eliminating the competitive advantage that its big rivals AT&T and Sprint have had in the wired services. With “T-Mobile @Home service”, customers may finally have the financial incentive to get rid of their landlines once and for all. To the consumer, the service is essentially the same as what they had before, only much less expensive.
The T-Mobile @Home service is very similar to what Vonage has been offering for years as “Voice Over IP”. Customers have been slow to adopt the new technology, but as major carriers such as T-Mobile begin to offer these new services in a more main stream way, momentum for low cost home service replacement is sure to rise.
T-Mobile has begun marketing their new service. The deep pockets of T-Mobile and others may just be enough to push VoIP to a new level of consumer acceptance. The other big factor which may help VoIP is the sagging economy. As consumer pockets are pinched, lower cost solutions, like VoIP, become more and more attractive. If the price of gas continues to rise right along with T-Mobile’s advertising budget, this could be the perfect storm for a whole new world of telecommunications.
Business users have been switching to VoIP and its sister, SIP, for many years. But only the earliest adopters and the technically savvy have done so in the residential market. That looks to change very soon. As consumers realize that VoIP offers all the same functionality as their landline phone but with additional options at much lower prices, the future becomes more and more obvious.
AT&T and Sprint gave up on saving their landline business years ago. Both now focus on cellular phones as their primary consumer product, along with broadband internet connections. But they would be wise to pump up the excitement for the true landline replacement, VoIP, as well. It is only a matter of time.
The phone is dead! Long live the phone!
The VoIP alternative for call shops
What you commonly know as a phone shop, a telecenter or a call shop can now become more cost-effective and more advantageous by means of VoIP enabled features. In fact, there are many parts of the world where the phenomenon has already been put into practice and what resulted was a beneficial call shop market strategy. VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) is already broadly acknowledged as very likely the most economizing (budget saving), time-saving and practical manner of communicating on a long-distance basis.
When broadband phone services (another name for Voice over Internet Protocol, strictly touching upon the most appropriate “channel†for telephone communication over Internet) combine with the plus points offered by the assistance the customer finds in a call shop, then communication is exploited at its peak through: 1) reliable means of voice transfer, since the technology which facilitates VoIP guarantees unfailing voice data conveying; 2) low payment conditions since ITSPs and call shops charge less than a regular landline; 3) profitability for the call shop owner who benefits from the low costs necessary for acquiring VoIP characteristic services and from the customers’ increased confidence in competitive call shop businesses.
The regular call shop – i.e. the private business establishment which provides its customers with the means of initiating and carrying through local or long-distance telephone calls at cut rate costs – can be situated anywhere in a city, from hotel hallways or airport waiting rooms to shopping centers or university campuses. Provided that a high speed Internet connection is made available – a phenomenon which is no longer a novelty nowadays, nor is it difficult or time-consuming to make it operational anywhere in the premises of a city – the same locations and even Internet cafés can be at an advantage from being converted into call shop centers functioning on a VoIP basis.
Of course, the regular call shop which aims at transferring its services to a VoIP operation alternative has to acquire, additional to the Internet connection, the required software and hardware equipment which enables the proper functioning of any VoIP-based call shop. This means that the owner has to make sure that he is in the possession of the software indispensable for the management of his business; such software will provide him with the means of establishing call rates, of obtaining billing reports and other information concerning call tariffs. Additionally, you have to make certain that call routing is operational, which means that, after having made a deal with your VoIP gateway provider, you should be able to operate your calls on a VoIP basis.
Moreover, the hardware and software systems solutions available for working on a VoIP basis should also allow the owner of the VoIP-based call shop to observe in real time the activity going on in a selected number of booths. In other words, basic software for broadband phone services in a telecenter additionally provides the owner and the call operator(s) with a call detail record (frequently known as a CDR in such telephony services) on the basis of which the precise payment for the call can be established. Subsequently, both prepaid and postpaid opportunities are made possible.
To what concerns the network gateways which will allow the proper working of a phone shop operating with the assistance of Voice over Internet Protocol technologies, the common SIP (session initiation protocol) convertible gateways or the standard H.323-compliant gateways are the most reliable and the most cost-effective. Additionally, calls operated from such a phone shop can be forwarded to any local public switched telephone network (PSTN) and they will not suffer any form of delay or any other king of unwanted, ill-timed interruption during the conversation.
All in all, the basic requirements for a phone shop to operate successfully while benefiting from Voice over Internet Protocol superiority are: a computer with an Internet browser (Internet Explorer is reliable and the most commonly employed) and a broadband phone service with telephones. Afterwards, the purchase of the software making possible call display records, call billing and routing to local PSTNs will render your telephone services impeccable.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (voip) in the Australian Marketplace
There is increasing awareness of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in the Australian marketplace of late, and understandably so. VoIP has the potential to revolutionise the way we communicate.
Much of the hype has been around residential VoIP, rather than business VoIP communications. It is crucial to understand that major differences exist between residential and business grade VoIP solutions. Relying on a residential grade VoIP service can have disastrous effects for a business, including loss of sound quality in phone calls and down time where your business’ ability to communicate may be cut off entirely. The integration of a business grade VoIP solution has many cost and efficiency benefits for Australian Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs).
The most obvious advantages of a business-grade VoIP solution are the reductions in call and line rental costs, however, there are many other significant business advantages for SMBs of all sizes to realise:
* Increased productivity by integrating VoIP with the computer desktop and allowing features such as Click2Dial from Outlook
* Increased business metric capabilities from detailed reporting on inbound and outbound call patterns
* Vastly improved and centralised personal attendant and reception capabilities allowing visibility of all staff extensions in a consolidated view, simplifying transfers to extensions and voicemail
* Awareness of an individual’s location as ‘available’, ‘busy’ or ‘out of the office until 2pm’
* Increased efficiency from converging the voice and data networks (operating both voice and data on the one network)
To decide how best to integrate VoIP with your existing voice and data infrastructure you must have a clear understanding of your business drivers and the results you wish to achieve.
VoIP Gateways
Ideal times to consider the introduction of a VoIP solution are during an office relocation, or during times of high growth. An excellent entry level solution for businesses who wish to experience the benefits provided by VoIP is to connect their phone system to PSTN via a VoIP gateway device. A VoIP gateway device is a simple piece of hardware that allows the basic integration of VoIP with a traditional phone system, most often without having to physically change any configuration.
Pacific Internet’s VoIP gateway is connected via a business-grade broadband service and will send calls destined for external locations (whether local, national, mobiles, international or another VoIP service) across the VoIP network and into the traditional phone line at the destination point. It is Pacific Internet that maintains connectivity to the traditional phone line. This scenario allows for the seamless integration between the two networks (PSTN and VoIP) and a traditional phone system to co-exist with a VoIP solution. The advantage of a gradual migration to a total VoIP solution is that it allows you to immediately appreciate some of the benefits of VoIP, without the upfront cost of replacing your entire existing voice infrastructure.
Connecting to Traditional Voice Networks via VoIP
A number of scenarios are available to connect your phone system to the traditional PSTN via VoIP, the most common of which are:
* Full replacement of traditional analogue or digital lines for all inbound and outbound calls, providing for standard geographic Direct Inward Dial (DID) numbers to be allocated to the VoIP service, for example, 02 9999 9999 for Sydney, 07 3333 3333 for Brisbane, 02 4900 0000 for Newcastle
* Partial replacement of traditional analogue or digital lines for all outbound calls
* Installation of additional VoIP lines to sustain call overflow during unexpected or regular peaks in outbound calls traffic
* Additional lines for calling only specific, designated prefixes. For example, making all outbound calls to mobiles via VoIP.
Each of these scenarios can be configured to either work automatically or to require manual user selection with most phone systems. For example, if VoIP is being installed solely to make all outbound calls to mobiles then the phone system can be set-up via Least Cost Routing (LCR) to automatically use a VoIP line when an individual calls a mobile.
An important consideration when integrating your traditional telephone system with VoIP is to very clearly understand current calling behaviour. For consideration are items such as:
* How many simultaneous inbound calls does the business receive?
* How many simultaneous outbound calls does the business make?
* How many spare PSTN ports (or trunk ports) does the telephone system have?
* Are the spare PSTN ports for analogue lines or for digital (ISDN) lines?
* If there are currently insufficient spare PSTN ports, can the phone system be cost-effectively upgraded with additional cards to provide sufficient port capacity?
Once you have a clear understanding of your current call behaviour and phone system, you can accurately determine how many VoIP lines are required and the resulting demands this will place on business-grade broadband service. You must consider bandwidth requirements, segregation of voice from data, and Quality of Service (QoS).
As your VoIP provider, Pacific Internet, can make qualified recommendations on the best configuration to achieve your desired business benefits. Integrating VoIP with an existing business data network and phone system takes a significant amount of careful planning and it is crucial that this step not be overlooked, however, it is an ideal way to test a VoIP solution and immediately start to appreciate some of the cost and efficiency benefits that VoIP can provide.
discovered an high quality Google Adsense Alternatives.
A 52 year old webmaster from the Netherlands got banned from the Google Adsense program in just a few clicks. He went looking around for alternatives and found a lot of very creative brand new advertising solutions. That webmaster was me. Do as I did and you will get a message like: Your account is disabled because of invalid clicks. What was all the fuzz about I started one year earlier as an affiliate for a German / American Voip company (voice over IP, internettelephony). At that time Adsense was new for me and I decided to give it a try. Doing some cutting, copying and pasting with the codes and voila, I was advertising competing Voip companies on my website. Spyware was already a big nuisance on the internet at that time. In my battle against it I experimented with anonymous surfing via so called anonymizers and proxyservers with the purpose of hiding my IP address. Simply just out of curiosity, whether or not the number of clicks on my ads could be influenced, I produced them and guess what happened? They were interpreted as invalid clicks. Adsense disabled my account and I have to admit it : they had a good reason to do so (stupid me, what a shame). However It was never my intention to harm the advertisers nor anyone else. I realised that the possibility to earn money with these ads had gone forever. For hardworking affiliate webmasters, generating 100% of their multiple website income through Adsense, this must be a nightmare. Google has no obligation to explain its decision in detail. So I begged to Google: Here are my sincere apologies. Ill never do it again pleas let me in again !!! No way, dont waste your time, forget about it, dont pull on a dead horse. Google wont unlock your account again. Remember we live in the internet age and everything is automated. Googles answers to my sincere and arguing emails were no exception. They were completely robotized. So would this be the end of a dream earning an income with my website? Answer: NO. As the famous Dutch football player Johan Cruyff ones stated: Every disadvantage has its advantage. I decided that I had to forget about Adsense forever being an internet advertising possibility for me and guess what I found out ? I was not the only one and this nightmare of the possibility of getting banned is discussed in forums all over the internet now. You want proof? Just google (yes this is a new verb) with banned from adsense and you will see. But what is more important is that the alternatives are given in these forums and on individual sites as well. Here Iam going to share with you what I discovered. Clickbank-ad-sense-script, a new program that serves Clickbank based affiliate products in your website. These ads resemble adsense ads but a lot of webmasters are preferring them. Unlike pay per click this program pays for every sale you make in over 11,000 Clickbank products. The yield is higher than adsense because it pays you between 50 and 75% of product cost, wich can mean $ 100 in your pocket from only one click. Clickbank-ad-sense lets you make a selection of your favorite products that you believe are not competing with your own product. Similar programs are: AffiliateSensor and CBPlugin. You want more money making advertising solutions? Just read on. Another creative way of adding something new is done by Chitika. Their eMiniMall is a CPC-based intelligent product merchandising service. Alternative to static web banner ads it combines product merchandising, a recommandation engine and comparative shopping. Go to Chitika.com and have a look for yourself. One picture says more then a thousand words. There are pros and cons and every rose has its thorn but what do you think of this one? Adbrite sells ad space on thousands of websites. There are two things you can do with Adbrite buy and sell ad space. If you are an advertiser they provide you with all sorts of websites. When you find the site you want to advertise on, you write your ad and pay. If approved by the webmaster your ad will appear on that site at the scheduled time. If you are a publisher you can set your own rates and approve or reject every ad thats purchased for your site. The revenue is split 75/25 in your favour. Adbrite provides publishers with more revenue and better ads by selling the ads directly to your visitors this is something the other ad systems dont do. The pay-per-click contextual advertising has grown into a $ 3 billion business. Thanks to Googles Adsense network contextual advertising, with the short text based links that appear next to a websites content, is a very hot item on the internet now. Steve Balmer recently introduced Microsofts version called Adcenter and Yahoo unveiled a pay-per-click beta program called Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN). Let me give you my impressive competitors list that I have found in my search to survive my ban from Adsense : adbrite, adcenter (beta), adengage, adgenta, adhearus, adsclick, affiliatesensor, allfeeds, bannerboxes, bidclix, bidvertiser, cbadwords, cbplugin, chitika, clicksaddirect, clicksor, contextweb, expoactive, fastclick, infograbber, intellitxt, kanoodle, mirago , miva, nixxie, quigo, revenuepilot, targetpoint, yahoo ypn (coming soon…).please browse for more information at our website :-swww.thegooglefund.com
The New Voice Interface For Search Engine: Searching Made Easy
At one point or another, every one of us has been faced with difficulties while trying to search for information. Whether you are using the Internet, a file system on your computer’s hard drive, database, or a global information system of your company, searching for information can be quite a tedious task.
The problems that you will encounter are numerous and even though you are searching with the aid of keywords, it’s all to no avail. It is times like this where modern technology can be considered as a double edge sword. How so? Well, since the memory of a single PC is virtually equivalent to the amount of text data that is stored in a real land base library, searching for a certain piece of information is like searching for a needle amidst a bunch of hay. As for the Internet, the problem is much worse. That is why it is quite necessary to create search systems and technologies that would simplify as well as accelerate access to the necessary information.
There are various search technologies already available and selecting one that is suitable would depend directly on the specific tasks that you would need to solve in the future. So just imagine if you are caught in a deadline, desperate for that one data and at the same time your hands are tied to the phone or on your computer? Do you have to keep on halting your searches simply because you cannot type those keywords? Not necessarily so.
Have you heard of voice-activated Internet surfing and searching? Believe it or not that technology is now well within our grasp. As a matter of fact, Google had recently made announcements regarding their plans to offer free software online that would allow users to search the Internet with the use of voice-activated tools. Pretty cool is it not?
Indeed, but not quite. Those who are familiar with voice-activated software that is currently available either for business correspondence or in writing schoolwork is probably aware of at least one drawback in this type of technology. The drawback is actually minor and can easily be solved. You see voice activated software requires special microphones, or else the background noises and vibrations will make it difficult for your voice-activated software to comprehend your requests. Simply put, you will not be able to search around the Internet this way without it.
Another thing, the environment is also significant. If you want your voice interface to work properly, then your environment must be peaceful enough. If you are near a railroad or an airport, forget it. The noise and vibrations would simply mess up the words that you spoke into the microphone and would only confuse the voice-activated software. But then again, those are just minor setbacks and can easily be conquered with the right tools and location. Do not let it keep you from experiencing the next big thing in the Internet – voice interface for search engines.
Just what is a voice interface for search engines? Well, this is one of the most promising search technologies. According to its patent, voice interface for search engines is a system that would provide search results from a voice search query. How does it work? The theory is simple enough. Naturally, the system would receive a voice search query from a user, then it will derive one or more recognition hypotheses. Each one is associated with a weight, from the voice search query, and constructs a weighted boolean query using the recognition hypotheses. Then the system will provide the weighted boolean query to a search system and then provides the results of the search system to a user.
The voice interface is would be beneficial to the information retrieval systems and, more specifically, to a system and method for supporting voice queries in information retrieval systems. The main objective of this technology is to help those people in their searches. The voice interface to a search engine will allow them to perform searches without the need to type words, since it recognizes spoken queries and are guaranteed to return highly relevant search results.
There are several problems that exist in designing satisfactory voice interfaces. One of which is that current speech recognition technology has high word error rates, particularly for large vocabulary sizes. Meaning a change in intonation may confuse the command.
Other speech recognition applications a recognizer can use context, like a dialogue history in order to create certain expectations and guide the recognition. This is another problem. Voice search queries do not have such context. Voice queries tend to be very short and are on the order of only a few words or single word. Thus, there is little information from the voice itself in which to make a voice recognition determination.
Fortunately, the current patent application associated in voice interfaces for search engines addresses these problems. According to the said patent, by limiting the scope of the voice queries to a very narrow range will solve those problems. How would that work? Well, the user will be prompted to choose a small number of choices each time. For instance, at the initial menu, the user may choose from “news,” “stocks,” “weather,” or “sports.” After choosing one category, the system will again offer another small set of choices until the user reach the piece of information that he or she is searching for.
By limiting the number of possible speeches, the problem in speech recognition task would decrease to a level that is satisfactory enough. However, it is still likely that this approach might result in severe deficiencies. For instance, since the user still needs to go through several voice menus, it might be slow to use. Furthermore, if the user’s information need do not match any of the category, then it would be quite difficult to find the information that he or she desires. In the end it might cause some frustration on the part of the user, especially since he or she must adjust his or her interactions to the rigid, mechanical structure of the system. Therefore, a more effective voice interface for search engines is still at large.
