VON trade shows may be in trouble

Network World - The founder of Pulvermedia -- the producer of VON trade shows -- has resigned, leaving in doubt the future of the shows, which were among the earliest venues for Internet voice and video.

In his blog last week, Jeff Pulver announced that he was resigning. "Just wanted to share the news that I have resigned as a director from Pulvermedia. And I am not able to say anything else nor can I address any questions about this," he wrote.

Perhaps more ominously, Pulver's sidekick in the VON shows, Carl Ford, left a brief farewell as his last blog entry on the Pulvermedia site last week: "So long, it's been good to know you."

There is speculation that financers backing Pulvermedia have stepped in to take over the company's resources, but there is no firm information about the future of the company or the shows.

A report in Tuesday's Trade Show Executive said that Pulvermedia has laid off some employees and is restructuring, and quotes the firm's event's group CEO as saying the company is in a silent period so he can make no statements about the reorganization.

The trade show publication also said that TICC Capital Corp., a backer of Pulvermedia, said in a March 13 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had lost $10.6 million on its investment in Pulvermedia.

Pulvermedia runs VON shows around the world, with its Web site listing three upcoming shows plus a virtual VON scheduled for Wednesday. It also runs Digium/Asterisk World and publishes VON Magazine.

Pulver is well known in VoIP circles for his work in Pulvermedia, as well as for his advocacy of VoIP in front of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. He is credited with convincing the FCC to ease its regulation of VoIP by declaring it to be neither telecommunications nor a telecommunications service, freeing it from a body of existing FCC telecom regulations.

To that end, in 2004 Pulver helped form the VON Coalition, a group of VoIP providers and companies with interests in VoIP, to urge the FCC to minimize regulation of VoIP until the technology had a chance to develop and mature. The idea was that overregulating it would stifle its growth and prevent it from reaching its full potential.

In addition to Pulvermedia, Pulver has invested in many VoIP and Internet video start-ups.

He is currently involved in PrimeTimeRewind.com, a site that centralizes access to TV video content posted by major TV networks with the goal of making it easier to access that content. Rather than going to each network's site and navigating to the show they want to see, users go to PrimeTimeRewind.com and use a tool that gives access to all the programming.

Pulver also founded the company that eventually became VoIP service provider Vonage, but left the company in 2002, well before its public offering in May 2006 and its subsequent legal wrangling with Verizon and other service providers over VoIP patents.