Alon Cohen
EVP & CTO of Phone.com
Entrepreneur & Inventor of the Audio Transceiver (Basis of VOIP)
Alon Cohen is an entrepreneur, inventor and widely recognized as one of the creators of the Voice over IP industry. He is presently EVP/CTO at Phone.com after founding and managing a successful series of recent business ventures including BitWine and RemoteAbility. Cohen was the co-founder of VocalTec Communications (NASDAQ:VOCL), the first company to provide Internet voice technology worldwide, which in 1996 was one of the earliest successful Internet IPOs.
As an innovator Alon Cohen holds 4 US patents on different communications technologies including the “Audio Transceiver” (US Patent 5,825,771) which is the basis for Voice over the Internet (VoIP) technology. He is the recipient of many awards and accolades for his innovative work including the “VoIP Visionary Award” (2005) from Pulvermedia. Cohen represented the State of Israel in the United Nations negotiations of the ITU Study Group 16 for the development and ratification of global VoIP standards.
Winner of the P&G innovation Contest August 2007 and named by leading Israeli Business Newspaper The Marker as one of the “100 Most Influential Israelis” in Israel’s High Technology history in September 2005. Cohen received an MBA and BSC.EE from Tel Aviv University, both Magna Cum Laude.
Session:
Web Site Success Factors: From Business Models to Traffic
Entrepreneurs will often get excited, fall in love with an idea and then forget the basics such as the business model.
To make the design and implementation process of a new web site or application simpler while increasing the likelihood of success, I have compiled a summary of my observations of some of the more successful Internet products along with the features that can be used as predictors for success and as a design guideline.
We will examine the successes of ICQ, Skype, MySpace, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Wikipedia and then ask the question “what traits do they all have in common?”
I have come up with a list of “success” factors (traits or features) that seem to repeat themselves in the more popular applications and web sites and have also added some of my own experiences to the mixture.
Some of the factors that will be discussed in this session are:
• Viral or Social Characteristics
• Simplicity & Reliability
• Lack of Installation
• User Participation (UGC)
• Usefulness
• Addictiveness
• Business Model
• Marketing and Budget
• Investment Structure
