* VoIP Will Be Free, or so thinks VoIP Inc. CEO Steven Ivester, who claims that his company will make money because of telephony features and its unique position as a hardware maker and a wholesale provider. VoIP Inc, which till recently was traded on the Nasdaq BB is one of the three publicly traded VoIP pure plays – others are Voiceglow and 8X8 Inc.
* Mobile Music will not kill iPod. Despite wild and wooly claims by phone makers, Jupiter Research says that the chance of that happening are remote. Of course there’s that pesky problem of all the multimedia features sucking up battery life and preventing phone from doing what it does best – make phone calls.
* Microsoft has stopped Internet-activation of Windows XP CD you get from your OEM, aka PC maker. What a bummer, since you have to now call them everytime you install the CD, which is actually quite often if I believe my sadomasochistic friends who insist on using Windows.
* Michael Parekh was the other Internet analyst. While Mary Meeker and Henry Blodgett got all the headlines, Parekh did his thing for Goldman Sachs. He has joined that blogsphere, and in one of his first entries, he rips my TiVo idea to shreds. Welcome, MP.
* Two signs of an apocalypse. And in case you have forgotten the bubble. A quick reminder.