The Top 10 VoIP Blogs of 2007

Influential voices you can't afford not to hear.

David Hakala on December 26, 2007

Back in the mid-1990s, when VoIP first caught the collective eye, a handful of visionaries took to the bulletin boards, newsgroups and magazines to holler, “People, phone calls just gotta be free!” Now a commonplace technology, VoIP does not inspire quite the same kind of passion these days. But there are still voices shouting in the darkness, telling the world what’s good and what's dangerous about VoIP. Here are 25 of the loudest and most influential.

The Jeff Pulver Blog : Jeff Pulver single-handedly jump-started the VoIP industry in the early 1990s. His evangelical experiments in free IP calls for the masses proved the concept. Pulver founded the VON (Voice On the Net) conference and expo, which still runs today. Now, Jeff is urging the VoIP industry to move beyond its telcolike business model to “social media,” and he's jumping headfirst into the Internet video world. It remains to be seen whether he’s right again.

VoIP Watch : At age 14, Andy Abramson’s high-school newspaper writing led him to a job with the Philadelphia Wings hockey team. Today, he is the founder of Comunicano, a PR and marketing consulting firm that has gravitated to the Internet telephony market. He is immensely influential in publicizing all aspects of cutting-edge communications. Abramson’s VoIP Watch blog is brimming with timely news and analysis of VoIP issues.

Saunderslog.com : Headlined as “an explosive mix of VoIP technology and the Web,” Saunders’ blog delivers a diet of both. Saunders is the CEO of iotum Inc. in Ottawa, Ontario, an Internet telephony services company with especially good conferencing capabilities. His postings are concise, stimulating and widely read.

GigaOM : Founded by a senior Business 2.0 writer, Om Malik, this blog is driven by professional journalists and covers a wide spectrum of new technology and venture-capital issues, including VoIP. It claims a monthly audience of 1.5 million readers. Before starting GigaOM in 2006, Malik covered telecom and broadband beats. The Voice/VoIP section of the blog reflects Malik’s interests, with frequent postings on the minutest issues in the VoiP world, such as the quality of VoIP calls on Facebook.

IP Telephony, VoIP Broadband Blog : Russell Shaw got his credentials with tech publisher Ziff Davis Inc. He’s now with the ZDNet Web-publishing spinoff, where he opines on telephony and broadband issues with a bold, no-nonsense style. Shaw’s many years in the journalism business give him the contacts to pull off scoops that others can only envy.

Skype Blogs : A collection of blogs hosted by Skype, this site is one of the busiest VoIP-related blogs on the Web. There is content for developers, business users, Mac and Linux users, and many other subcategories. But if you don’t use Skype, it’s not as interesting.

VoIP Blog — Tehrani.com : Rich Tehrani is president of TMCnet. Tehrani’s blog is for deep-thinkers — people who want to know not only what happened, but what it means. Here you will find thoughtful analyses of FCC (Federal Communications Commission) minutes and decisions; what was discussed at the latest conference; and what Google could mean by its Android development platform.

Skype Journal : Very nearly as well-patronized as the aforementioned Skype corporate blogs, this private venture run by Jim Courtney has more of a traditional blogging style. The posts are lengthy, detailed and helpful. News reports from around the world keep readers informed about the entire Skype community and all kinds of VoIP-related issues.

O’Reilly Emerging Telephony : O’Reilly Media Inc. is best known as a publisher of technical books, but its blogs are also great sources of information. The Emerging Telephony blog was edited by Bruce Stewart, a computer scientist with a strong background in telephony systems. The posts tended to be short, right on point and well-written. This is in the past tense, because in October 2007, O'Reilly Media pulled out of the Emerging Telephony blog and the VoIP space, but this blog still makes the cut for 2007 because of the depth of coverage it had before it came to an end. For a form of successor, see the eComm (Emerging Communications) 2008 Conference wiki.

VoIP Central : Run by one or more anonymous administrators, VoIP Central is an active source of news about new products and services. The blog's readers contribute quite a bit of content as well as comments. News of industry events such as litigation also keep VoIP Central lively, despite the derivative nature of much of the main content.

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