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happygeek 2,411 Most Valuable Poster

AOL has announced its that will allow voice application developers and device manufacturers to create new tools to extend the functionality of the still relatively new AIM Phoneline service. Examples of the new APIs for call personalization (or ringtones as mere non-marketing mortals might say), untethered devices (that will be cordless handsets then) and incoming call management (caller ID and the like) will be on show at booth 449 at the Fall 2006 VON conference, running from September 11th - 14th at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

A move that makes good sense if AOL wants to seriously challenge Skype in the emerging voice markets, not least because they are already playing catch up and then some. Sure, AOL has those 43 million AIM users, but that is less than half the number of Skype users. What is more, Skype have massive market penetration of the kind AOL could only once dream about. Analysts have suggested that Skype accounts for anywhere between 40 and 55 percent of all VoIP calls placed in North America, for example.

However, if the Open AIM Phoneline initiative can successfully build on that of the program that has over 50,000 developers registered, then AOL could make some progress I guess. In order to try and kick-start this registration process, AOL has also announced the Open AIM Phoneline Developers’ Challenge. This simply asks developers to create the most innovative and useful applications to enhance the AIM Phoneline experience, by leveraging the Open AIM SDK.

Given the importance to AOL of the whole Phoneline developer thing succeeding, and the opportunity for such a competition to attract some real talent in this area, I am somewhat surprised to see that the first prize is just $3500 with the runner up bagging a measly $1000. Still, if you take these things more seriously than AOL apparently does, the competition runs from September 11th through November 30th, with the winner to be announced before January 31st 2007.

Me, if I were developing for this market, I’d probably concentrate on Skype…

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As suggested, betting on the platform with the largest, most-open install base was the pragmatic call for voice developers. Skype scaled into mainstream consumer use and was acquired by Microsoft in 2011, while AOL’s IM/voice efforts never reversed AIM’s long-term decline — AIM was eventually discontinued in December 2017. Microsoft announcement AIM discontinuation report. (news.microsoft.com)

For modern readers rebuilding or maintaining voice features, the durable approach has been to avoid lock‑in to a single IM vendor and instead use standards and neutral building blocks. Browser-native WebRTC is today’s standard for in‑browser audio/video, and the CPaaS model (Twilio and peers) provides reliable WebRTC↔PSTN bridging and managed SIP trunks. See the W3C WebRTC specification and Twilio’s Programmable Voice docs for the architecture and APIs developers actually use. W3C WebRTC spec Twilio Programmable Voice (w3.org)

Practical checklist (apply immediately):

  • Abstract signaling and transport so your app can switch between WebRTC, SIP, or a CPaaS without rewriting business logic.
  • Plan PSTN interop via SIP trunks or a CPaaS (numbers, routing, emergency calling) rather than hard‑coding a vendor client.
  • Implement STUN/TURN, secure HTTPS pages, and preflight tests to avoid NAT/firewall failures in real deployments.
  • Use Opus as primary codec and provide G.711 fallback/transcoding when bridging to PSTN.
    These are standard best practices covered in WebRTC infrastructure guides and CPaaS docs. WebRTC backend patterns and STUN/TURN guidance Twilio voice / SIP capabilities. (web.dev)

Taken together: historical luck matters, but implementable portability and open transport choices are what let a voice app survive platform shifts.

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