Sometime in mid-May, the Salt Lake Tribune published an article discussing the “angelic benefits” of cloud based phones. Much of the article seems to be based on statements made by Vlad Shmunis, founder of the award-winning VoIP service providers RingCentral. Unfortunately the article itself raised some concerns and questions.
Why there were concerns regarding the article
Upon first glance, nothing seems to be wrong with the article itself. It managed to define cloud technology, explain why hosted phone systems are far more affordable than convenient than other telephony options, and provide advice for finding the right cloud based phone service provider.
The thing is that some of the Utah-based publication’s readers felt that the article failed to include some details that users may find important. One such detail is the capacity of Internet-based telephony to handle emergency calls. Because emergency service phone numbers like 911 tend to place significance on geographical locations, VoIP technology makes it difficult to effectively connect with the relevant services. While there have been some improvements in this front, there are still some bugs that need to be fixed.
The article also failed to mention that there are network prerequisites for making cloud-based telephony work well for users, and that this solution may be better for some than it is for others. In other words, some readers felt that the article failed to give them all the information they wanted to get out of a piece such as this.
Where the article may have gone wrong
The article was published under the “Money” section of the Salt Lake Tribune, which meant that the people who are likely to read its contents are interested in making the right investments. While one can argue that this article does indeed discuss something that is worth investing in, it didn’t give enough information to make readers feel like they could invest in it.
See, before putting money into anything, many investment-minded people feel the need to weigh the pros and cons. Because this article only focuses on the pros of cloud phones, its authority in this particular section diminishes. Few people will trust it, because of the apparent bias it expresses towards the new technology.
And even if the article references a perceived authority in the field being discussed (Shmunis is seen as an innovator in his line of business), the obviously overwhelming favor towards the subject and Shmunis’ status as a cloud phone service provider’s CEO can still be seen as suspicious.
How the article could have avoided this
Of course, given the main concerns expressed by the readers, one would know that the number one thing that the author of this article should have done is to give readers more balanced information. It’s not that hard – he or she could have done this by simply asking more questions that can make the articles less biased and expanding the subject of the article beyond the benefits of the technology.
The other thing that may have helped is a bit of clarification. The article is largely informative, but seems to be formatted like an interview. It would have been better if the author chose to write a purely informative article on the pros and cons of cloud technology or went for a pure interview of Shmunis regarding his company and his projections for the cloud. The article, as it is, comes off as potentially confusing if not biased and lazy.
In fact, it may have been more appropriate for it to NOT have ended up on the “Money” section at all.
July 9th, 2012 
Lee 