Ribbit touts new telephony platform

What: Ribbit's VoIP/POTS/cellular/Wi-Fi/etc. softswitch

Why you should care: Calling itself "Silicon Valley's first telephone company" was a great marketing idea by new Web telephony firm Ribbit, regardless of how many people think it's a laughable statement. The company debuted yesterday with a switching platform that allows Internet-based calls to terminate on a variety of networks (see above), and is based on an open API model that should generate many new applications for the platform. As for being a telco, maybe we'll find out next year when Ribbit plans to launch its own voice services.

For more:
- Check out this posting on the CNET News Blog