What is Digg?87 Comments
- digitalgopher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23As a customer, I've never really had a problem with their service... which is good because I hear their tech support is horrendous. Either way, I'm so glad that I didn't get in on the IPO that they offered us customers. A company burning that much in cash and facing stiff competition from the likes of Skype et al is going to have a long, bumpy road ahead in my opinion.
- lalee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I had no problem with Vonage 'til I tried cancelling the service. (Moved to Hawaii, and Vonage doesn't have the 808 area code).
It was at least a 30-minute wait on both days I called to cancel. (Got fed up the first time, and sucked it up by putting them on speakerphone the second time).
Having worked on large CRM call centers in the past, I'm quite certain they've tuned the routing of their phone queues to do this intentionally. - sTiVo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"..everything should be free"
Seriously, we need digg to ask for everyone's birthday so that I can filter out the 6th graders' comments. How awesome would a "sort by age" be? - Stormwave0, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13I've had Vonage for several months now with no problems. Yet I can't understand why Vonage is taking as much heat as it is on Wall Street. Critics are saying it has too much competition and yada yada yada. However, ask the average person if they've heard of Skype and they'll say no. Ask the same person if they've heard of Vonage and chances are they'll know what it is. Furthermore, Skype is going to get hit with tax charges from the federal government eventually. It's only a matter of time.
As far as cable companies offering VoIP service, after a while people will begin to realize they're paying $30 for the same service that Vonage provides for $25. Not only that, but chances are Vonage's emergency systems will be updated quicker than the cable company's are. - andreo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yeah, but then you find out that the comments are being made by people over the age of 20 and you'll want to shoot yourself. No age sort, it's for your own protection.
Anyway, about the stock. It was sold to high. If it would have come out at 7 - 8 bucks a share, it may have made it up to $10. But $17 was just to much for a company that admits that it hasn't seen a profit and most likely won't see a profit for quite some time. They also admit in their prospectus that they are fighting an up hill battle. Vonage even admits that people are very comfortable with their old phone service (personally I despise the phone companies). And they have to convince them to switch over. Throw in the constant barrage and very low cost of advertising that the local cable companies can provide to already existing customers, with the promise of giving a discount on services that they already have and the hill gets even steeper.
Early adopters, geeks, and people who are comfortable around and understand technology are their current customers. Skype is reserved for the uber geek at this point and I don't believe has anything to do with the Vonage stock performance. I've explained to several people how much less I paid with Vonage (yes, I've been a customer for over 2 years) and the only thing I've ever gotten back was a blank stare. Years earlier when I explained to people the advantage of Tivo (and DVR's in general) over video tape I was met with enthusiasm and people asking where they can find out more about the technology.
VOIP works well, cost less to the consumer, and will eventually over take conventional phone lines. But there's just to much competition out there for Vonage for them to be as big of a player as their IPO price reflected. - chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14Typical digg users commenting on stock pricing is priceless. Believe me, Skype Out being free has zero to do with it.
- pabster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Keep making fun of Skype...
The fact is, SkypeIn and SkypeOut rock ass. I had no problem paying the pittance for them as the quality and convenience are superb.
No VOIP service is worth a ***** with regards to 911, so give up on that one. - PopcornDave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Don't most IPOs drop after their initial offering anyway?
- mike_p, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I've been with Vonage for just about a year and I must say that I've never had a problem, ever! I've never had a problem with telemarketers but that might be due to the fact that I was on the DoNotCall list since my line was with Verizon.
The fact that I have a transatlantic relationship (i'm in UK now) doesn't help with a landline. I have a UK number for her to call (forwards to my home) and I can call everywhere in the UK as I would a local call while i'm in the states (minus mobile phones). If skype ever has a similar service with a lower price and Vonage goes bust, i'll switch but until then... I'm very happy. - usefulidiot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Apparently they got a hitchhiker to design their website as well. Damn i hate hippies.
- pabster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I love clueless idiots.
They already do!
I have several SkypeIn numbers and guess what... they ring to a "real phone" ! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9And the invention of free news on the internet has nothing to do with the falling newspaper sales.
- catbeller, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Almost all the stocks are dropping in price. The worst May market in twenty years. In case you all haven't noticed -- and I'd be surprised if you did, considering the almost Stepford Wife quality of American reportage -- we're crashing.
We're 9 trillion in debt, up 3 trillion in less than six years. The Admin and its rubberstamps are spending like money is going to disappear soon -- and they're right.
We've killed Social Security with tax cuts and stealing the fund blind. Medicaid and Medicare, MUCH bigger costs, are about to hit. The middle class is decimated. We've lost our well-paid factory jobs. We make nothing, so we can't sell anything abroad, which is sent the trade decifit rocketing.
To finance the "tax cuts" for the last 26 years, we've borrowed 9 trillion, 1 trillion alone from the Chinese bankers, and emptied the Social Security trust fund. We spend at least a quarter trillion on interest on that debt each year, and that cost will increase, as anyone whose watched a normal human bury himself in credit card debt will attest.
Defense spending against 19 guys with boxcutters has gone mad. We're spending at least 20 billion alone on NEW nuclear weapons, breaking a lot of treaties -- and we're to spend vast sums more.
We've privatized (Kellogg Root and Brown, Halliburton, AKA the USA incorporated) everything that we could a fast as we could, and lo! the prices are far higher for less service. We're getting reamed.
Now, the Euro ascends as the world standard currency, and even the Chinese have decouple their yuan from the dollar, apparently willing to take the hit if we freefall to get rid of the deadbeat. In other words, kids, they ain't gonna lend us anymore money 'cause they know we won't pay them back. Altho there are other ways -- the Chinese are getting a free pass diplomatically 'cause we need their cash.
The housing market? 40% of home purchases last year were second homes. That mean the wealthy, swimming in cash from their targeted tax cuts, ARE the home sales market. There is no home market, which fact people are coming to realize. The only source of our "wealth" in the last five years is about to pop. Paper money, fake money, fairy gold.
All the bills and all the wars and the ends of delusions are coming to a head, and Bush won't be around when the check comes to the table.
However, the stock market is tanking, gold is rising on a pillar of flame, and trillions of dollars of "home equity" are about to disappear seemingly overnight. It's called a depression, and it came of "conservative" (radical and quite mad) economists finally getting their way for the "free market" which looks a lot like looting.
Apple is in the mid fifties from the mid eighties in five months. That's a GOOD stock. How many dead fish do Americans have to have slapped in their faces? Apparently a whole lot. I guess the media, liberals and the usual suspects will be strung up while the bastards who did this lock themselves up in their gated towns. - Chocks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I had Vonage, dropped it when I got tired of having to reset the router and cable modem. I travel all the time, and needed trouble-free phone service for the wife when I am away. Skype and Skypeout are DA BOMB. I am out of the country 50% of the time and 10 bucks in my Skype account usually lasts a couple months or so. I know my company has saved hundres of dollars alone by my using Skype and staying off the company cell phone or phone card.
- chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The reason online news is replacing newspapers is that, frankly, people have a lot of free time at work to browse the internet. The reason SkypeOut is not affecting Vonage is that most people using SkypeOut are not using a handset and are tethered to their PCs, which most people don't like to be when on the phone.
- yeahright, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3sTiVo >> Most definitely not true. DSL customers have the ability to use what is known as a dry loop. Meaning, the DSL service is tied to the (physical) circuit number for the local loop, instead of the (logical) phone number. In Canada, a dry loop runs for about $10/mo, which covers the cost of "leasing" the local loop from the telco.
Even with the dry loop charge, Vonage is still quite a bit cheaper than your traditional phone line, once you add up all the feature and long distance costs. - davidirock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ebay (and skype) will rule the world.
- rmassie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Vonage botched their IPO and legal action may be involved. This is why the stock price has gone lower.
Forget the competition side of things. When you've got legal action and a possible SEC investigation facing you investors don't really want to buy your stock.
Source: http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/10288762.html - serpentor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Certainly didn't help that they IPO'd a tech/internet company on the NYSE instead of the NASDAQ, no idea what the hell they were thinking....
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5And it should rain money. Oh wait, same thing.
I can understand charging for a service you can't get anywhere else, but when you can get skype to do the same thing and add on video, what's the point of Vonage? - Thujone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I just chose Packet8 over vonage for my service because it is 20% cheaper... maybe they arent taking competition seriously enough...
- bbrosemer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ummm lets think about why Vonage is doing so bad first off 9/10 people have no idea what VoIP is. People do not want a service that they do not know how it works. Secondly I like having a phone because even if the power goes the phone still works, and if it doesnt everyone needs to put one non-handsfree set that doesnt require power (incase you didnt know phone carriers Voltage and works even when the power is down). Third how can a company do well with such pointless commericals.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2hmm...you've apparently had to use 911 alot?
- sark666, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Will all the praising of skype please stop. Look, skype is a good service and it's great it's free for this year, but in the end it's still a proprietary service. The de facto standard for voip is sip (session initiation protocol). Now what I don't like about vonage is that it is using sip, but they try and do vendor lockin. When you buy a phone adaptor to plug in a real phone, it's vendor locked to vonage. Hell, they even charge as an extra service to use a softphone! They call it some roaming option. That is total bs.
Taking the above into account I don't like the looks of either of them becoming the head honcho in voip. Like look at some of the cool things that happen when everyone sticks to open standards.
Check out sites like www.sipbroker.com. What they do is map your voip phone# to your sip address. Whats cool about this is let's say you have 2 users who on seperate voip services. Let's say both of them are on per minute plans (or are calling areas that are not in their unlimited plans area so per minute charges kick in). If both users have their number registered, it looks up their sip address and connects them that way. No charges incurred as the call never touched the pstn network.
There are so many cool projects when your dealing with sip, from video conferencing to running your own pbx via asterisk, to having a voip phone intergrated into mythtv. You won't have any of this stuff when dealing with proprietary stuff or vendor lockin. - rfunches, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The market may be down, but it's nowhere close to the 30% drop that VG has experienced since its IPO.
One of the things that strikes me when looking at VG (http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=VG) is the earnings/share ratio: -206.24. Vonage's prospectus (http://ir.vonage.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1047469-06-7592) notes that "we have experienced increasing net losses, primarily driven by our increase in marketing expenses." Their operating revenues are consistently half of what their operating expenses are (from 2003-present), and convertible notes of nearly a quarter-billion dollars are costing the company "of at least $12.7 million annually" in interest expense. What is very worrisome is that VG's "significant losses to date may prevent [them] from obtaining additional funds on favorable terms at all," which would effectively cap the number of subscribers that Vonage's infrastructure could handle.
For a company whose future is at the mercy of [possible] government regulation, the rollout of broadband Internet access, and the historically monopolistic and predatory cable and landline telephone companies, one has to wonder whether this company is truly worth a market cap of $1,870,000,000. (Yes, Skype's services are biting at Vonage's heels, but for most consumers, it's not a choice between Vonage and Skype, it's between VG and their DSL/cable company's VoIP offering.) - tokyopimp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't care what anyone says, in my experience Vonage rocks. It has worked flawlessly for over a year, I don't have any kids in my household that don't know what address I live at, and I've inputed this at Vonages website. So the 911 service doesn't scare me, not to mention all the cell phones have E-911 in my house.
I've never once, never once called Tech support, anything I need to change, I go to vonage.com and log in. Not everyone is going to be happy with Vonage, as factors such as your Cable companies bandwidth, and filters can screw up service. But my cable company doesn't suck, and vonage works perfect. I can't complain. - sTiVo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Yeah, but then you find out that the comments are being made by people over the age of 20 and you'll want to shoot yourself. No age sort, it's for your own protection."
Man, thats funny...but is it true?
:) - dhuck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2the only thing i'm impressed about with vonage is that their CEO is 27 years old.
thats pretty cool, probably would explain why he's burning through cash too.
but whatever, i'd never pay for vonage and it'll soon get edged out by skype and co... - whizzbang, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The whole market is going down at the moment, very little to do with Vonage specifically. Check it out http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EIXIC&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
- knightcrawler75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes the employees and other investment firms cash out for a quick profit. It is not a good indicator of stock performance to judge it on the first few months. I guarantee it will go up after the initial sell off. And my guess is that Vonage decided to go public because they needed the cash for acquisitions or to expand, not to quickly cash out. If they wanted to liquidate the company they would have instead sold it to a larger company like google or Microsoft. I am sure the patents they poses alone would make them a profitable buy.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1when you look at this way, it makes you take a sigh of relief for not having the bucks to invest on day one...
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.asp?Symbol=VG&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&CP=0&PT=3&C5=5&C6=2006 - h00ligan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2everyone thinks that skype is killing vonage.. it's a different freakin service. I have to be at a computer to use skype or with a wireless hadset. Call me crazy but i like having my handsets. Vonage rocks. And I can cal London for the same $25 a month now.. as well as a few other countries.. HOW is skype better? It's not.. it's a pc solution, not a phone solution... i may as well chat with audio over ichat or trillian.. receiving phone calls from my pc is NOT what i want to do. Skype phones blow so far.. and Vonage is also scripted to give me my morning wake up calls... pfft.. skype's a rookie still.
Begin the mod downs for talking ***** about skype on Digg.. it's overhyped right now. - pabster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Um, no. I use Skype all the time, even when I'm nowhere near my PCs.
I wish people would get a ***** clue before spouting useless drivel.
There is a plethora of cordless phones, speakerphones, and other devices to utilize Skype just like you would a POTS line. - tutivlahos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Exactly. i agree with catbeller. I live in Greece and most blue-chips went down 6% last monday, and kept dropping the day after. The same is happening in various countries. Investors are leaving high risk stocks, in high risk countries, (like Brazil) for more secure investments, like U.S. BONDS.
- XStatic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd bet Wall Street is worried more about competition from VoiceWing and CallVantage than Skype.
I just don't see how Vonage and Skpe will be able to stand out long term against the carriers for the mass market. Sure for small groups of young customers that want the best deal or specific features, these will survive though.
BellSouth tried to partner with Vonage a couple years ago, Vonage thought they were good enough to stand alone and canceled the deal. - tutivlahos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1^^^
http://www.paulstips.com/brainbox/pt/home.nsf/link/30052006-The-easiest-way-to-fool-smart-people - samdu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1SkypeIn numbers are free? Who knew?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They do. This is why they're typically offered only institutional investors, who agree to hold on to the stock for the long-term. The "offering it to retail investors" thing is just an anomalous artifact of the dot-com years that Vonage has bizarrely decided to resurrect. In this case, it's actually suspected that the management knows the company is ultimately going nowhere (it's just not profitable, and operating in a very competitive market against much stronger rivals) and is just doing the IPO so the insiders and early investors can cash out; hence, they've offered the stock to their users, who might hold on to the stock longer than is prudent since they have a stake in the company not collapsing.
Of course, this might all just be conspiracy theorizing. - daRoach, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Along with service quality apparently, I have been using vonage for over a year and it seems in the last month or so people have been having trouble hearing me and calls have been dropped.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If there's a great deppression on the way I'm investing in Miller stock
- beatmix01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2just say no to vonage and their rickity old hi-tech VoIP system....
- tutivlahos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The first to sell the stocks after the IPO, even if the price goes up a little, are the employees.
- andreo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One word: Mastercard
- mightymouse, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5I hate their commercials. Oh, and I hate it how their 911 service absolutely sucks- I'm pretty sure thats why most people don't use their service. I think people prefer safety to saving a few bucks.
- ers35, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually thought of that myself, but using your Skype phone or laptop. Use your imagination.
- serpentor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Everything you've said has a shed of truth except this:
"and trillions of dollars of "home equity" are about to disappear seemingly overnight"
The idea of a housing bubble has long since passed, the market is more efficient, housing prices have cooled drastically in the overbought markets (Vegas, FL, etc), some as much as 20% or more. No one is claiming a crash is due in the non-overbought non-speculative parts of the country (98% of everywhere else).
In inflationary periods, hard assets are the best places to park your investments (gold, silver, commodities, and *real estate*, which is a hard asset). Part of housing's boom has been caused in part by the depreciation of the US dollar. - ideadude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For the market enthusiasts out there... Frank at InvestorGeeks wrote about the fundamentals of Vonage before the IPO. Interesting read about why this company is not a good stock to invest in. Link:
http://www.investorgeeks.com/articles/2006/05/21/vonages-ipo-an-offer-you-cant-refuse/ - titanass, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I'm just sick of their telemarketers calling my house trying to sell me service. How many times must I say NO.
- vegasbright, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Abandon all hands on the SS FREEVOIP!!!
- klepto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'm just waiting to see the telcos and cable Co. filter out the current VOIP providers when they have the multi-tiered internet in place."
This could be one of the reasons why people are scared to invest in Vonage. Investing firms are not stupid. Especially anyone looking at Vonage stock since it is a relatively unknown tech company. Not very many people invest in NASDAQ stocks in the first place, even further, not very many stocks survive NASDAQ. It's relatively untouched by investors who just look at the Wall Street Stock market.
and to the people saying that Vonage is losing money because of its marketing budget don't have a damn clue about the business market. Literally all Fortune 500 companies spend a huge part of their budget on marketing. Just ask the pharmecutical companies, when they try to sell a product that is relatively unkown if at all.
AFTER your company has established a reputation, THEN you can cut back on the marketing. If nobody knows you or your service, then you are not going to sell anything. -
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