Vonage Co-Founder on the Social Revolution

According to Jeff Pulver, who is known for his work with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and as the co-founder of Vonage, everything he ever needed to know about social media, he discovered at age 15. At that point, he understood that social media was all about listening, connecting, sharing, and engaging.

Pulver told us that all his work with VoIP was motivated by his goal of connecting people both on the telephone and on the computer. He believes that social media is not about single platform. Instead, he believes it creates more places to have conversations.

Three of his favorite words are “fear, greed, and disruption.” He said these words have “affected the way we all communicate in business.” During these words appear to be negative, Pulver pointed out that there such a thing as “positive disruption,” which triggers change. Social media is one example of this “positive disruption” and the changes it has brought about are extensive.

He associates social sites just as Facebook and Twitter with the “Purple Minutes” classification that he popularized back in the early 2000′s. The term was used to describe the value-added IP traffic to separate it from the black and white phone minutes.

“It’s all these years later we’re starting to start to see how people are using IP-based networks to do things they never could do previously,” he said.

Matter of fact change the way they do their business

“The companies that don’t get it may be disrupted out of business… those companies that understand this can as a matter of fact change the way they do their business,” said Pulver.