Whilst running the mash-up lab (aka ‘Mashing Room’) for Motorola, the first app we created was initially to explore the potential of IMS to support mash-ups. With its SIP-based architecture, IMS is ideal for creating mashable apps, except that it is an operator-conspiracy to maintain control over the apps plane, which is contrary to the mash-up ethos. Let’s ignore that problem for now - I shall return later with a refresh of a previous idea to get around this in an operator-developer mutually friendly way. You’ll find various other discussions here under the search term API.

Voice conferencing is usually a pain. The main pain points are the need to remember that there’s a call (I have missed or turned up late to many calls and I’m not particularly disorganised) and the need to remember access codes, PINS and so on. Then there’s the perpetual problem of knowing who’s on the call and who’s talking, especially if you arrive late or don’t quite hear a name properly, which is also common, often because it’s not from one’s native language.

The solution we came up with was to use a SIP application to set up the conference call, using Asterisk as the IP telephony hub and Google Calendar to set-up the meetings and handle invites etc. It worked quite well. Before the meeting, users get a text message to remind them of the conference. They can reply to indicate attendance. This solved another pain point, which is that you never quite know who’s going to turn up for the call, which wastes a lot of time hanging around at the beginning. At the specified time, the participants receive a call on their phone, they accept or deny (in-band) and then the call continues.

There are myriad ways to make this work better, including the use of presence to manage participation etc. In fact, it is possible to set up an IM group (SIP/SIMPLE) and session for the call and use this to indicate who’s present and as a side-channel for communication. It is also possible to use this to indicate who is currently speaking, thus solving the talker ID problem.

Believe me, this is a way cool app if you’re into conference calling. Moreover, I think that it actually takes conferencing to a whole new level that reinvigorates conf.calling as a useful collaboration tool at the fingertips of users immersed in the Web 2.0 world.

With a little thought, it is possible to create various mash-ups around the conferencing theme. In fact, conferencing is generally a really poor experience. The fact that operators haven’t really tried to improve the experience is further evidence that they are completely lacking the DNA to innovate even within their core domain - i.e. voice. After all, we had to wait until the iPhone to get an easy way to conference a 3rd party into a call. Duh! How obvious was that?

Technorati Tags: mash-up, SIP, IMS, conferencing, IP telephony, Google Calendar, iPhone