Fishphone.com: Personalized web content for your Polycom Phone

• Tweet from your Phone?
• Weather and news reports on your phone?
• Pictures and personalized directories on your phone?

1. Introduction
Together with emerging VoIP technology to reduce costs and increase sound quality, the features of VoIP phones are also enhanced: some new models also have a micro web browser such as the Polycom SoundPoint phones. Unfortunately, most Polycom SoundPoint users can not take advantage of the micro browser on their phones. 

Microbrowsers support only a very limited set of HTML and most websites can not be viewed properly on them. Recognizing the potential need for web content that can be viewed on a Polycom micro browser, East Agile has developed a web application that helps businesses and users easily build micro websites that can be viewed on their phone's micro browser. The application is now at the alpha phase of development and has been tested mainly on Polycom SoundPoint phones.

2. Using FishPhone to build micro websites
The application is available at http://fishphone.com and has a “very simple but easy to use” interface. Here are some basic instructions on how to use the application to build your own personalized micro websites that can be viewed on Polycom’s micro browser.

2.1. Register an account
To use FishPhone, user needs to have an account. Registering an account with FishPhone is very fast and simple. A valid email account is all the user needs for registration.

2.2. Manage micro pages
After logging in, user can start creating micro pages for their micro websites via a simple interface as shown below.

A micro website can have multiple pages. If the site has more than one page, the user needs to specify a home page and the system will automatically generate links to other pages from the home page when displaying on the micro browser. Creating and editing a page is done via a simple form with instructions explaining which HTML tags are supported.

2.3. Configuration Options
FishPhone allows users to specify the URL of the micro website or the weather location (using Yahoo Weather).
 

3. Fishphone Micro Website Examples
Here are some pictures showing a sample fishphone website on a Polycom phone.
 

Besides content created by users, Fishphone also provides some built-in utilities such as Twitter integration and local Yahoo weather reports.
 

4. Conclusion
FishPhone is the first free application to help Polycom phone users take control of the micro browser on their phone. There are many cases where a micro website can be helpful such as a personalized or company phone directory. If you or your company has a Polycom phone, you can use FishPhone today to replace your blank screen with rich content.

If you would like your calls to have absolutely the best sound possible, you should use a SIP provider like onsip.com (we use them) then use HD voice phones from Polycom (the HDTV of phones such as the Polycom 335, $115, or Polycom 550). HD Voice is starting to come out from other manufacturers and is supported by many SIP gateways. The difference between a conversation between two HD Voice phones versus two regular phones is similar to the difference between talking in person versus talking on the phone. Onsip.com provides the following comparison:

To give you an idea of what the difference is, this is what an HD call with a Polycom 650 sounds like, and this is what the standard phone call sounds like.

If you would like the best sound possible from Skype, you can use the following: a Blue microphone, stand and shockmount and to eliminate "pop" a shield.  This is unapologetic uncompromising overkill.