The other day I came across an interesting product in a SkyMall catalogue, called Power Strip Liberators (catalogue number 238359). I am sure you have faced the situation of trying to plug multiple peripherals into a power source, but couldn’t because they have a bulky transformer that takes up two or three of the outlets. The Power Strip Liberator, which is nothing more than a 13” long mini-extension cord, eliminates that problem. You plug the transformer into the Liberator's grounded outlet, and plug the Liberator's grounded plug into the power strip. The catalogue item comes with a bundle of 5 cords and costs $13. The problem is real and the solution is legitimate. Still I wonder whether there is a market for this. (I know pet rocks and Baby on board decals sold a lot.)
Instead of buying this, I suppose one can use power cords from older, discarded machines like PCs and monitors. Alternatively, one can daisy chain power strips. Since only the anchor power strip needs to be a “good” quality, others could be as inexpensive as possible. I located some for $3 in some stores. So there is an analogous solution that is either inexpensive or free.
VoIP is in the same boat. Once the word gets out that with the advent of always on connection to the Internet, two or more people can communicate among themselves without the need for a service provider. This is the dilemma facing the industry.
Posted by aswath at February 23, 2005 07:30 PM
I actually bought a dozen of these. If you have a lot of wall-warts, even two power strips are going to be eaten up in very short order, while this solution is quite efficient. Have you looked at the price of cable turtkes recently? These are designer rubber spools you wind excess cord around to reduce clutter, the Container Store sells the large model for $14 apiece...
The same thing for VoIP: people will pay for convenience. Probably not as much as operators would hope, but there could be some room in niches like what GoToMeeting or WebEx do. VNC is free and will do everything GoToMeeting can, but GoToMeeting has a much better user interface.
Posted by: Fazal Majid at February 23, 2005 10:01 PM"two or more people can communicate among themselves without the need for a service provider"
Two or more friends, yes. But making it scale to strangers will require a new digital identity infrastructure.
There's no money in VoIP, but there is in identity.
Posted by: Martin Geddes at February 24, 2005 08:08 PM