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Speech Is the Ultimate Invisible Computer InterfaceIn the next 10 years more than 50% of computer interactions will be via voice. The computer, the device and the legacy interface will disappear, all that will persist is the volition, intention, interaction and results.In the summer of 1952 Bell Laboratories actively tested Audrey (Automatic Digit Recognizer) [1] the first speaker independent voice recognition system that decoded the phone number digits spoken over a telephone for automated operator assisted calls.Schematic of Audery the first speaker independent voice recognition system.In 1962 IBM demonstrated at the World’s Fair its “Shoebox“ machine [2], which could understand 16 words spoken in English and was designed to be a voice calculator.Demonstration of IBM's “Shoebox“ at 1962 World’s Fair.Moving forward in time there were hundreds of advancements. Most of the history of speech recognition was mired in speaker dependent systems that required the user to read a very long story or grouping of words. Even with this training accuracy was quite poor. There were many reasons for this, much of it was based on the power of the software algorithms and processor power. Additionally continuous speech recognition, where you just talk naturally has only been refined to a great extent in the last 5 years.In the last 10 years there has been more advancement then the last 50 years. The line back to 1952 on to 2016 moved speech recognition to be one of the most important technology advancements in computer history.Speech Requires Less Mechanical Load And Cognitive LoadThe most powerful and efficient interface for communication is the human voice. It sounds obvious in this context and it has had a few million years of evolutionary development. Yet we take speech quite for granted as we only recently took to a mechanical system (typing, clicking, pointing) to interact with computers.Human speech is a far more refined tool that can convey densely packed instructions and requests in-situ more effectively. The mechanical load and cognitive load on the human is far lower when we can utter a phrase like "Alexa, what does my commute look like?" as compared to the 30+ cognitive and mechanical steps using the best smartphone and best apps. The alternative to speech requires the cognitive load on the brain and mechanical load to type with the cognitive load on the brain to interpret what a map may be relating. Simply asking a question is far more superior.Speech based interactions fundamentally have three advantages over current systems:Speech is an ambient medium rather than an intentional one (typing, clicking, etc). Visual activity requires singular focused attention (a cognitive load) while speech allows us to do something else.Speech is descriptive rather than referential. When we speak we describe objects in terms of their roles and attributes. Most of our interactions with computers are referential.Speech requires more modest physical resources. Speech-based interaction can be scaled down to much smaller and much cheaper form-factors than visual or manual modalities.The power of speech based systems have grown profoundly powerful with the addition of always on systems combined with machine learning (Artificial Intelligence), cloud based computing power and highly optimized algorithms. The speech recognition is combined with almost pristine Text To Speech voices that are so closely resemble human speech that many trained dogs will take commands from the best systems. Siri, Google Voice and Amazon Echo Alexa are the best consumer amiable examples of the combination of Speech Recognition and Text To Speech products today.We take for granted the mechanical processes we all have adapted to use computers we will be able to eliminate many if not all of these steps with just a simple question. This process can be broken out to 3 basic conceptual modes of voice interface operations:Does Things For You- Task completion:- Multiple Criteria Vertical and Horizontal searches- On the fly combining of multiple information sources- Real time editing of information based on dynamic criteria- Integrated endpoints, like ticket purchases, etc.Gets What You Say- Conversational intent:- Location context- Time context- Task context- Dialog contextGets To Know You- Learns and acts on personal information:- Who are your friends- Where do you live- What is your age- What do you likeIn the cloud there is quite a bit of heavy lifting working at producing an acceptable result. This encompasses:Location AwarenessTime AwarenessTask AwarenessSemantic DataOut Bound Cloud API ConnectionsTask And Domain ModelsConversational InterfaceText To IntentSpeech To TextText To SpeechDialog FlowAccess To Personal Information And DemographicsSocial GraphSocial DataVoice based computers seem to have limits on what can be accomplished. However when one truly analyzes the exact results we are looking for, a vast majority of times can simply be answered by a "Yes" or "No". When the back end systems correctly analyze your volition and intent countless steps of mechanical and cognitive load is eliminated. We have just recently entered into an epoch, at this moment, where all the right technologies have converged to make the full promise of an advanced voice interface truly arrive.The Secret "Project Doppler", Yap, Evi, And IVONAAmazon surprised just about everyone in technology when the secret 'Project Doppler' or 'Project D' from Lab126 offices in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Mass. was announced on November 6, 2014. This was an outgrowth of a Kindle e-book reader project that began in 2010 and the acquisition of voice platforms it acquired from Yap, Evi, and IVONA.The original premise of Echo was to be a portable book reader built around a very well designed and powerful omni directional microphone and surprisingly good WiFi/Bluetooth speaker. This humble mission soon morphed into a far more robust solution that is just now taking form for most people.Beyond the the power of the Echo hardware is the power of Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is one of the largest virtual computer platforms in the world. Echo simply would not work without this platform for the local electronics in Echo are not powerful enough to parse and respond to voice commands with-out the millions of processors AWS has at its disposal.Since the 2014 limited release of Echo, Amazon recently added Echo Dot, which is hockey puck sized version of the Echo designed to connect to existing speakers since it only has a small speaker and the Amazon Tap, a portable and smaller version of the Echo with dual stereo speakers. They all are basically work the same.The evolution of Echo has been constrained and slowly new features are added. Today (Feb 4, 2016 version 3077 software update) Echo can:Order items from Amazon from both previous orders and the creation of new orders.Create shopping lists for use at other stores, not just Amazon.Read books from your Kindle library using Text To Speech.Play Audio books from your Audible library.Sports Update with details such as scores and upcoming schedules for NFL, NBA, MLS, MLB, NHL, WNBA, NCAA, and other American sports.Present weather and news from a variety of sources, including local radio stations, NPR, ESPN, TuneIn.Play music from owner's Amazon Music accounts and built in support for the Pandora, and Spotify streaming music service and streaming services such as Apple Music, and Google Play Music from a phone or tablet.Support for IFTTT (If This, Then That) voice-controlled alarms, timers, shopping and to-do lists.Personal workout trainer using Skills settings.Access Wikipedia articles.Respond to your questions about items in your Google calendar.Integrates with Philips Hue, Belkin Wemo, SmartThings, Insteon, and Wink with anticipated support of Countertop by Orange Chef, Scout Alarm, Garageio, Toymail, MARA, and Mojio.Give traffic reports.Hail an Uber car.Tune a guitar.A growing set of ASK (Alexia Speech Kit) developer "Skills" qusi-API.For many this is more then enough to justify a ~$150 purchase of the original Echo. These features were enough for me to have an Echo in the Kitchen, Master Bathroom (not in the toilet area) and in a car. I was fortunate to have one in early December 2014 and found it useful in ways I could not have predicted. In each setting there are unique and sometime unexpected use cases.Echo In The KitchenIn the kitchen Echo has become indespenible in creating family shopping lists. There is no way I would go back to the haphazard way that was replaced. We all simply call out to Alexa to add X to the shopping list throughout the week with a sort of frenzy of scouring the refrigerator, freezer and cabinets in a group effort just before we go shopping. Echo forms an unexpected connection with non-Amazon physical grocery stores. It is one of the largest oversights from Amazon not to have an easy way to convert all or part of a shopping list into an Amazon order. I am certain this deficit will be addressed soon.Echo also is very useful in cooking situations. Timers, timers and timers, I never used so many timers and frankly should have. Measurement conversions and recipe adjustments and recommendations have also been very useful.Echo in the kitchen also is a centerpiece for the family with my two boys asking just as many questions to Alexa as to me, "Alexa, why is the sky blue?". We have sort of a game where we see who can answer a question faster then Alexa, I win quite a bit but my children have caught up. I see Echo as important as any encyclopedia or school text book for education. This extends to the books that I have narrated during Breakfast and some other meals that seems to captivate all of us and promote questions and ideas from the minds of curious boys.Echo In The BathroomLets face it, even the most care free person spends quite sometime in the bathroom getting "ready" for the day. The majority of us (56%) take any time between 11 and 30 minutes getting ready [3]. That means 30% of American spend over a week in getting ready in the bathroom each year. I and my wife use this time to set todo lists, shopping lists listen to books and music and most indispensable to me, take notes for ideas and send an occasional Tweet. Since December 2014, Alexa and Audible has read me ~45 books while I was getting ready. It is a powerful learning tool, these are 45 books that I would have likely had to read at other times and perhaps conflicting with other things I wanted to do.I have been able to hack together a non-elegant way to use Echo to read Quora postings and I can say this has really extended my consumption of the work of the most amazing minds in the world on Quora. My method is an ugly hack that I hope will be made pretty in the future.I also set the Nest thermosstat via the IF (ifttt) app to a pleasant temperature in the morning. As well as set the final over night temperature. Although I do not yet have an Echo in the master bedroom, I do set light music in the evening that fills the room with more then adequate sound.Echo In The CarI am a researcher and this does compel me to try the unexpected and extreme. Thus I wanted to test just how effective and useful Echo would be in the car. This was in January 2015 and Echo was still not in wide distribution and I am rather certain I was one of the pioneers here.Echo in the car became absolutely indispensable, perhaps even more so then in the Kitchen. For obvious reasons driving requires the minimal amount of distractions. I use Echo for the same things I do at home but in many ways it is more effective. I use Echo to read a lot of Quora, news and books while on the road. The hack I use to post to Twitter is useful when a stream of ideas prompt me.The few hours a week I spend on the road has allowed me to access 1000s of Quora postings, daily headlines, a few hundred Tweets and about 31 books since December 2014.The experiment became permanent the moment I was able to get another unit to install in the car. The car has an AT&T hotspot built in and actually only added about $15 per month with all of my use. I also have a built in 120 VAC plug and found a sort of ok location for Echo in the car.Alexa, Google Or Siri? I Say Yes To AllLiving and working with Echo in three primary locations for over a year I am fully convinced that Echo and the many products I see that will come in the future will dominate our homes and vehicles. I think it is important to add that I am also a very heavy user of Apple's Siri and wrote quite a bit about it here on Quora [4]. I see Echo and Siri as similar but quite different on a few fundamental levels. Siri to me is very useful and quite indispensable for me answering text messages and composing short to medium amounts of dictated text. In fact, about 40% of this posting is being composed using Siri. To me it will never be an either/or situation but a rich mixture of uses that each system does better. I also use Google Voice to some degree mostly for searches, in fact all of the searches I used for this posting was conducted using Google Voice.As I mentioned above, even Amazon is in early days with Echo with the inability to convert a shopping list to a live Amazon order. When Siri was released I wrote quite a bit about the commerce aspect of Siri and speech in general [5]. I wrote of the prospect of Siri (or any voice based system) to become a transaction completion system. I wrote about a future in 2011 that I was certain Apple would adopt far faster then they have. I was writing about Apple getting into payments also at the time and knew that the product that became Apple Pay had to be released first. This finally took place on October 2014. Apple has made many improvements and updates to Siri but thus far has feel behind in some ways behind Amazon Echo. I am rather certain with Apple Pay 4.0 and really large changes to Siri that I am predicting, Apple will perhaps surpass Amazon. We already see a hint of this with the newest version of Apple TV.APIs Are The Future Of Voice InterfacesThe speech technology as it stand in March, 2016 is quite rich and useful and if the evolution were to stop today, it would have already made a permanent place in my life and the life of my family. But of course the innovation will not stop here. There is a huge future ahead with the possibility of open APIs from Amazon, Apple and Google that will extend the usability of Speech to far more extend use cases. I wrote about the prospects of how APIs can be the most defining element of a voice interface in 2011 with the release of Siri [6]. The Ontology of information accessed by a voice interface will continue to expand with higher momentum in 2016. Additionally access to controlling everything from lights to coffee makers via a voice interface will also gain higher momentum in 2016. Thus far none of the three large voice interfaces have open and useful APIs-yet but this will change. Although Amazon is well on the way with Alexa Skill Kit [7].Specimen of the Alexa Skills flow pattern.Education, Commerce And Advertising are the "Killer Apps" For Amazon EchoEducation: It is very clear to me after a year with Echo that Education is a fundamental but yet to be discovered aspect of this technology. So much so that I think in the next five years many students will find this type of voice interface as a study guide to be almost common. Amazon and Google are in a very unique position to leverage their huge inventory of indexed information into a speech based expert system powered by advanced machine learning technology.Commerce: Commerce seems logical to the inception of Echo, but as I mention, this was not the fundamental driving force during the development of "Project Doppler". It was a Kindle extension taken to an extreme. Thus it is not surprising that Amazon is just now catching up to the commerce element of Echo. You can order items of course today, but the expense needs to evolve. The external connection to Domino's Pizza presents just how deeply APIs can go.Advertising: The Domino's Pizza relationship presents a new advertising model that could very well change the entire industry. Very much like the Pay Per Click model Google refined in the 1990s the Pay Per Voice Order model can become a dominate platform. Amazon, Google and Apple can control this future where APIs and integrated payment systems from these companies complete transactions with just about any merchant for just about any product. Over 75% of sales on Amazon.com is from marketplace sellers and not Amazon. Amazon has great experience with being an advertising and payments platform and I am certain Echo will define this new advertising model."Alexa order a large cheese Pizza"These are the base foundations of why voice interfaces will thrive moving forward. If even one dominates short term it will be a revolution. Clearly the commerce and payments aspect is perhaps the largest element short term. Today you can sit in your kitchen and say "Alexa, order a large pizza from Domino's". It will be delivered in about 30 minutes and it will have already been paid for. Imagine how many mechanical and cognitive steps this six word command replaces. I have studied it, there are over 200 "Demming" steps.It may seem that Amazon will dominate this space. I firmly assert (and have for the last 3 years to clients) that after Apple Pay, voice commerce is the largest payments opportunity in this epoch. Simply put it may very well be someone in a garage right now building the foundation for this new payments and commerce recolution. The "winners" today have no guarantee to be "winners" in this new voice commerce world. This is not retail payments nor is it in-app or web based payments for many fundamental reasons.Voice commerce, history will show, is an entirely new and unique paradigm. I have studied every aspect of voice interfaces with attention to commerce and payments for over 20 years and we are at the pricipase of something revolutionary. I have identified a road map of over 200 points on how new payment paradigms, new non Amazon hardware and new businesses will develop in this eco system. Thus far not a single payments startup or legacy company is positioned to not only truly understand this opportunity, they may be edging away from it.Echo, A Novelty?I am certain in the era of punch cards being the primary user interface to a computer, a keyboard seemed like a novelty. I can fully attest to the fact that in the era where a keyboard as a primary user interface the mouse was considered a novelty. Finally the touch screen was certainly seen as a novelty in the era of the Blackberry micro keyboard.Demonstration of IBM'Punch Card interface at a time when the keyboard and display were considered a novelty.The Keyboard trumped the punch card. The mouse coexisted with the keyboard. The touchscreen made redundant the mechanical keyboard. In the the future just voice interfaces will make redundant the need for all of these things for a growing number of tasks. We will extract ourselves from the mechanical and cognitive processes of tasks we perform today and use our voices to command these very powerful systems in the cloud. These systems will do all of the work completing the tasks and report to us when they are done.Self Driving cars will require a voice interface for control and interaction. There is little doubt this technology will be critically important. Very much like how I use Echo in the car today, I am certain this too will become a popular way to consume information in this setting.Speech based interfaces allow you to multitask and do other things. Unlike the paradigm using a device and reading a screen, using your voice is liberating and increase productivity to an extend simply not possible with mechanical interfaces alone.The computer as we know it has been shrinking and in many ways will disappear and become a nexus connecting us via speech. There will still be touch screens and perhaps VR headsets, even perhaps holographic ephemeral displays in the next 10 years. However voice interfaces will continue to grow and supplement these experiences.One year of Echo use has informed me that the unabashed confidence of being a stand alone voice interface, always is its greatest strength. Unlike an appendage to a TV, Smart Phone or web browser, Echo truly defines the physical space where it lives. It is remarkable how quickly I have become used to entering a room and instantly addressing Echo with a request. I can see clearly where this will lead us all.The ultimate destination for the voice interface will be an anotnomous humanoid robotic system that very much like a science fiction movie, will fundamentally interact with us via voice. This feature is not as an afterthought but the centerpiece of the humanoid robots we will certainly have in the future.What we call a computer will fundamentally and profoundly change, our great granchildred will marvel at the Keyboard and Mouse and perhaps even a touch screen. They will see these user interfaces as a historic novelty.We have traveled so very far since Audrey in 1952. Echo, a novelty? No, Alexa is us just getting started._____[1] Popular Mechanics[2] http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/specialprod1/specialprod1_7.html[3] The morning routine: 30% spend over a week in getting ready each year[4] Brian Roemmele's answer to Why is Siri important?[5] Brian Roemmele's answer to Will Siri become a transaction completion system?[6] Brian Roemmele's answer to What do application developers need to know about Siri to interface with it?[7] Alexa Skills Kit (ASK)

Twilio is a company founded by developers for developers! Twilio provides a software-based platform which enables customers to easily add voice, messaging and video to their apps. Twilio is NOT selling a final product that can be consumed by an end-user (e.g., prepackaged software to solve their business problems), but rather is providing developers/customers with the prefabricated building blocks (i.e., APIs) needed to build any communication-based functionality they desire right into their application. By just virtually buying a phone number and swiping their credit card for potential per minute usage, developers can build contextually relevant communications by preventing their own customers’ users from leaving the application when they need to interact with someone (think why WeChat is popular in China). On this side of the world, popular use cases include ridesharing apps enabling anonymous communication between passengers and drivers and e-commerce companies sending automated delivery notifications or promotional messages.So how does it work?A developer signs up for Twilio, chooses a local virtual number (e.g., with 415 area-code for San Francisco, 212 for New York City) to send and receive voice, or SMS messages. The developer then maps the virtual number to a ‘request’ URL (the application’s URL, which Twilio would request from the developer’s application server when receiving a voice call on behalf of the developer/customer). The URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, created by the application developer, would describe to Twilio how to control the content of phone calls.The developer defines a set of business rules, or instructions to handling incoming and outgoing calls for each customer cohort. These instructions include: 1) Say - inform the customer that his or her order has been processed, or play a prerecorded sound file (message or music); 2) Gather - collect information from the caller; 3) Record - record the call; 4) Reject - hang up; and 5)Dial - dial this specific rep number to forward the customer to, or set up a conference call. In essence, on one end Twilio ‘ingests’ the phone call or the message flow, while on the other, it provides APIs for developers who, in turn, instructs Twilio on how to handle the incoming or outgoing phone calls. An API, or Application Programming Interface is a prefabricated block of software code that performs basic, reusable functions—e.g., displaying text on a computer screen, enabling inter-app communication—to allow developers to simply focus on building value-add, user facing applications.The call gets ‘load-balanced’ to a number of nodes/servers in Twilio’s cluster (managed by AWS). Each group of machines/servers perform specific roles—for example, some roles might be CPU-bound, a task is determined by the speed of the central processor, while others are memory-bound, determined by the amount of memory required to hold data—allowing Twilio to scale each group of machines independently of one another. The call comes in, gets load-balanced to a ‘Voice’ node cluster (i.e., a group of servers dedicated to voice function) to be answered by Asterisk, an open source PBX software platform.In general, a PBX allows telephone users to set up circuit-switched calls to other users in the same company (without toll charges) or to connect with users of the public telephone network. Effectively, PBXs shift some of the switching system out of the telephone company’s central office ‘CO’ and into the customer’s premise. The switch permits direct inward dialing ‘DID’ to a specific extension. Twilio stores the ‘DID’ numbers in its database; on the other end, the developer/customer would associate her or his assigned ‘DID’ number to a specific URL of a web application. As the call comes in, Twilio would make an HTTP POST request to that URL. In turn, Twilio would receive from the application server the XML instructions on how to handle the call.How does a phone call work? Historically, the telephone network has been a hierarchy of smaller networks performing different switching functions. In the US, switches were organized into classes from 1 to 5, Class 5 being assigned to the End Office or Local Exchange ‘LEX’. Classes 1 to 4 were Toll Centers or Transit Nodes ‘TN’. For a particular country, this network hierarchy would also be connected to international networks through a higher switch called International Gateway. Even if the modern structure has flattened, removing the Class 1 to 3 switches from the hierarchy, Class 4 and Class 5 designations remain in use today.The core of a telephone network is made of switches—TN and LEX. The primary function of these switches is to establish connections between telephones and the transmission equipment used to carry the voice call. When a called is placed, the switch detects that the receiver has been lifted, provides a dial tone and collects the called number. It then translates the dialled digits into a destination path by finding and reserving an idle circuit—if not it returns a busy-line tone. When the connection is established it sends a ringback tone to the caller until the destination picks up the phone. Then the connection is established by linking all the connections previously reserved in the transmission network and in the end terminates the call by releasing network resources reserved for the call.Typically, residential customers are connected to switches through an Access Node ‘AN’ or a Digital Loop Carrier ‘DLC’. This equipment converts the incoming voice into the appropriate digital format and also performs some basic call-processing functions. DLCs are access solutions that enhance the reach of the switch for remote customers. They do so by multiplexing many customer lines into just a few trunk lines that return to the switch.How does an internet connection work? The main historical way to access the Internet was a dial-up connection or narrowband access. Narrowband access uses the phone line to the Local Exchange, which is then connected to the data network through a Narrowband Access Switch ‘NAS’. The data network is typically a set of IP and/or ATM switches. The most widespread broadband internet access today is DSL. It re-uses the telephone copper wire up to Digital Subscriber Line access Multiplexer ‘DSLAM’ that directs the voice traffic onto the PSTN and the data traffic to the data network through a Broadband Access Router ‘BAS’. The PSTN, or the Public Service Telephone Network is a circuit-switched network that sets up dedicated voice circuits across a network of copper and fiber optic cabling.How do converged networks handle calls? There are many different ways to converge networks. In general, Network convergence requires the addition of two types of network elements: Media Gateways (MG) and Softswitches. Media gateways act as the physical bridge between the two networks. Their main purpose is to convert the TDM voice packet into data packets—generally IP or ATM. The softswitch acts as a media gateway controller by extending the voice network signalling ‘SS7’ into the data domain.When a phone call is placed on such a converged network, both the voice connection and the signalling are routed to the data network through a media gateway. The softswitch is a central database ensuring that Media Gateways properly communicate between each other.How does Twilio Fit in? To properly understand the inner workings of the Twilio platform, it is important to understand how basic web browsing work.What happens when you type a URL into a web browser. When you type aws.amazon.com for example, into a web browser, a behind-the-scenes process occurs translating the domain name (aws.amazon.com) into the IP address (54.239.31.69). The IP address is sent to the web browser so the user can be connected to the website. This process, called resolution, relies on a global network of name servers. The browser is a program that requests information from a web application server, which in turn finds the requested information and sends it back to the user’s client (desktop, mobile).A web server is essentially a software program that sits in the middle tier of an ‘N-Tier’ computing environment between client-side environments (web browser), and server applications. Application servers allows developers to focus on creating specific business logic objects without having to code at the system level. The primary role of the application server is to access enterprise servers (e.g., AWS’ servers) for business logic and data, serving application objects to clients in the form of static or dynamic HTML pages, JavaScript, etc.Clients and servers communicate using Hypertext Transfer Protocol Language (HTTP). IP addresses are what machines on the Internet use to identify one another. It is a 32-bit address defined by Internet Protocol, or IP that uniquely identifies each computer on the Internet. Every computer, or machine on the Internet has a unique IP address. If a machine does not have an IP address, it is not really on the Internet. When searching for frequently visited Websites (e.g., aws.amazon, Facebook, Google, etc.), the recursive name server already has the information cached in its memory and passes the IP address on to the user’s computer browser without having to take any further steps.The ‘conversation’ taking place between the browsers and the local recursive name server is analogous to the following dialogue:User’s computer: “What is the IP address of the URL Amazon Web Services (AWS)recursive name server: “I already know that. The IP address is 54.239.31.69.” The local recursive name server then delivers the address to the end user’s browser.Under ‘the cover’, a ‘load balancer’ differentiates between a request to a main page and another to its extension (e.g., www.amazon.com and today’s deal extension www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox ),and sends the request for the web page of today’s deals to a group of servers that is optimized for that task. A load balancer goes one step further by allowing traffic routing decisions to be based on the so-called HTTP header (HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application-level protocol that is the foundation for the World Wide Web). A load balancer’s controller not only examines the URL, but also information such as cookies, client source address, etcTwilio Client SDK enables VoIP communications. Twilio Client enables developers to integrate Voice Over IP, or VOIP into their applications.To illustrate, let’s examine a scenario whereby hypothetical InsuranceCo were to roll out Salesforce CRM Call Center mobile application through which is provisioned several customer service numbers (local numbers, international, 1-800 etc.) provided by Twilio. InsuranceCo buys a virtual 1-800 number from Twilio. InsuranceCo’s customer calls the 1-800 number. Salesforce has set up workflows, on behalf of InsuranceCo, for how to deal with inbound calls. Twilio Client SDK enables VoIP communications within the Salesforce application. The customer’s carrier (e.g, Verizon) routes the call to a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier ‘CLEC’ with whom Twilio has contracted (e.g., Level 3) . The call is routed through AWS to Twilio, triggering an HTTP request to Twilio’s call API to initiate the call.On the other end, Twilio 1) looks up the voice URI (Uniform Resource Identifiers) of the Salesforce Service Cloud application, and 2) provides Salesforce’s web server +information about the caller (e.g., originating and dialed phone numbers, date and time of the call, geographic location of the caller, etc). Twilio would also request instructions from the Salesforce application server on how to handle the call. The process is quite similar to how a browser makes a request to a web server discussed above.Once the Salesforce application receives the caller’s information (i.e., the call is logged into Salesforce). Processing function follows, involving a caller/customer database lookup to map customer’s caller ID to her or his historically stored information (e.g., caller's support ticket history). Caller’s information are then injected into the Salesforce application workflow. In this example, InsuranceCo.’s marketing database (maintained by Salesforce) has been capturing data about the customer’s behavior from various sales and communications channels.Twilio’s TaskRouter. Salesforce’s application server then sends to Twilio’s server (which is hosted on AWS) XML instructions on how to handle that specific phone call (e.g., since the analytical engine determined the caller is a high value distributor/customer, please forward immediately the call to highly skilled call-center rep A). An HTTP request is sent to a virtual call router’s API (i.e., Twilio’s TaskRouter's API). The call router, or TaskRouter authenticates, or looks up the account holder’s unique ID, matches the caller to the intended rep, then sends an HTTP request to Twilio’s server to initiate the phone call between the caller and the rep.The existing data on the caller/customer is enhanced by the overlay of the real-time contextual communication data elements; i.e., putting the customer call in context of the Salesforce’ customer service application, providing the call center agent real-time intelligence, needed for improved customer profiling. The agent can instantly access and view prior communications, use real-time analytics identify the personalized best next-action for the customer (e.g., promote a special offer, provide a service alert), and through, for example, Pitney Bowes’s content-creation platform, automatically integrates incoming data, compose new offer and send it to the customer through the relevant channel.What is Voice over IP ‘VoIP’? Voice over IP (VoIP) is a technology that involves sending telephone calls over data networks, such as the Internet, rather than the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network ‘PSTN’. Traditional phone calls across the PSTN use a dedicated circuit that transfers calls as uncut streams, allowing no other information on the circuit regardless of available bandwidth. Conversely, IP networks transfer data more efficiently in packets that get reassembled on the receiving end rather than using a dedicated circuit. For a VoIP call, audio is first converted from an analog signal to a digital signal through a codec, separated into discrete packets, sent across an IP-based network, put back into order at the termination point, and then converted back to an analog signal to create audio that the end user can recognize. There are three major VoIP protocol standards—namely, H.323, SIP, and MGCP.The Session Initiated Protocol, or SIP In March 1999, the Internet Engineering Task Force ‘IETF’ introduced Session Initiation Protocol ‘SIP’, which was designed to support quicker call set-up times and enhanced Web capabilities. SIP does not require gateways to maintain all call information during the life of the call and, as a result, it is less demanding of servers and is more scalable.SIP focuses on session initiation, modification and termination, and leaves the session and connection details to be negotiated by the end points. SIP uses a simple text command structure with HTTP syntax and URL addressing. Thus, SIP is well suited for any Internet- and Web-based applications.SIP allows direct communication between clients via a peer-to-peer ‘P2P’ connection using only IP addresses, and in most cases a SIP proxy will query a Domain Name Server ‘DNS’ to resolve a domain name into an IP address of record. An important characteristic of the SIP protocol is that it allows endpoints to establish a peer-to-peer connection and communicate directly. This is in contrast with other protocols that require resources on the network to control communications between end points.How does SIP “Work”? To initiate a phone call, the SIP phone issues an INVITE containing the caller’s IP address and the type of media requested (e.g., voice). From there, the SIP servers (Proxy and Redirect server) send back the SIP-URI where the called party can be reached. In this respect, the SIP servers somewhat resembles the DNS, or Domain Name Server servers on the Internet.What is the Domain Name System ‘DNS’? The Domain Name System (DNS), a global, distributed database infrastructure, is part of the fabric that holds together the Internet—performing the simple, straightforward function of mapping URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) to IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. Every Web server on the Internet has one or more unique IP addresses, represented as four sets of numbers, called octets, separated by periods (e.g.,140.211.169.9). The DNS enables people to use domain names (e.g., www.opendaylight.org ), which are much simpler to remember, to identify Web servers as opposed to IP addresses (e.g., 140.211.169.9). Each time a user enters a domain name into a computer’s Web browser, the DNS translates the user-friendly URL into the IP address needed to locate the appropriate Web server.SIP uses the above request and response method to establish communication among the various network components and ultimately enable a multimedia conference between two users. Users are identified by globally reachable unique addresses called URIs. URIs use the same format as email addresses to describe IP service points (e.g., [email protected]). Users register their assigned URIs with the registrar server, which provides this information to the location server upon request. Users can have multiple URIs with different service providers that point to the same device, but they can also be reached with traditional telephone numbers. Calls using these traditional numbering schemes are translated into SIP URIs using the ENUM method.E.164 Number Mapping ‘ENUM’: Telephone Numbers on the Internet ENUM, or E.164 Number to URI Mapping translates telephone numbers into Internet addresses. ENUM is a protocol that merges the Public Switched Telephone Network ‘PSTN’ and the Internet—mapping complete international telephone numbers to URIs. Since the SIP protocol is IP based, it provides users (and applications) globally reachable addresses called URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers). URIs use the same format as email addresses to describe IP service points (e.g., tel: [email protected], mms: [email protected], etc.) and can be reached with traditional telephone numbers. Calls using these traditional numbering schemes can be translated into SIP URIs using the ENUM methodology.To put ENUM into context with the aforementioned technologies, SIP performs the initiation of interactive communications sessions between users, as well as termination of those communications and modifications to those sessions. SIP is one protocol that may be used by ENUM to send out initiation attempts to multiple locations in order to find the user who is receiving a call. By placing telephone numbers into the DNS, ENUM can facilitate a range of applications including addressing for fax machines, email, instant messaging, etc.What Value Does ENUM Add? ENUM enables users to access Internet services from Internet enabled phones, ordinary phones that are connected to Internet gateways or proxy servers and/or other Internet devices that may have inputs limited to a numeric keypad.ENUM also provides users with greater control over communications, including allowing users to indicate their preferences for receiving communications. For example, a user can indicate a preference for voice mail messages over live calls during certain times, or may specify a call forwarding location.ENUM allows an end user to reach an IP device by dialing a telephone number rather than entering a URI. A traditional number is entered into the calling device, and the number is then transformed into a fully qualified address by an application or a device that supports ENUM.A developer’s customer dials a Twilio provisioned virtual phone number. The SIP proxy queries the ENUM DNS server to resolve the fully qualified domain name into a URI. The SIP proxy will then query a DNS server to determine the IP address to send the invite. To illustrate, let’s walk through a scenario whereby End User A dials a Twilio’s business customer, or User B:User A dials User B’s phone: +1-646-470-8021.Internet Gateway converts number to a domain name and queries VoIP local recursive name server: 1.2.0.8.0.7.4.6.4.6.1.e164.arpa. By using ENUM, e.164 numbers can be used in DNS by transforming the phone number into a hostname. This is simply done by reversing the numbers, separating each digit by a dot and then adding the e164.arpa suffix.13 For example, the number +1-646-470-8021 would be transformed to the fully qualified domain name 1.2.0.8.0.7.4.6.4.6.1.e164.arpa.Local recursive name server: “I don’t know that address, but I’ll check with a name server that does. Hold on for a millisecond.”e164.arpa Tier 0 server: “Here are the addresses for the authoritative name servers for the CC1 1.e164.arpa domain.”domain.com name server: “The URI for 1.2.0.8.0.7.4.6.4.6.1.e164.arpa is [email protected].”User A’s telephone contacts User B’s (Twilio’s customer’s) telephone at returned IP Address. The local name server launches a query to the DNS, which responds with the IP address (e.g.,108.231.245.239) of the local proxy server associated with [email protected]. The SIP proxy server in User A’s network contacts the SIP proxy server in User B’s customer network, and the proxy server in User B’s network then contacts User B’s destination SIP IP phone.When the called agent receives the INVITE request, it determines if it can accept the call. If it can, it will ring the phone and then send back a response to let the calling agent know that it is ringing. When the phone is answered, User B’s, or Twilio’s business customer’s phone sends an OK response back to the calling agent along with its media capabilities. Both agents agree on a media channel, and User A’s phone sends an ACK to User B’s phone.After responses and acknowledgments are exchanged, an RTP ‘Real-time Transport Protocol’ session is established between SIP IP phones of Users A and B, or the end-user and Twilio’s business customer.Traditional Voice and the Public Service Telephone Network ‘PSTN’. The voice telephone systems are referred to as the PSTN ‘Public-Switched Telephone Network or POTS ‘Plain Old Telephone System’. PSTN is a circuit-switched network that sets up dedicated voice circuits across a network of copper and fiber optic cabling. The structure of the traditional telecommunications industry varies by country and depends on the nature of the regulatory environment.In the United States, the industry has been pushed into a competitive model consisting of a variety of participants, primarily oriented around local exchange carriers ‘LECs’ that provide last-mile connection for consumers and businesses within specific geographies ‘LATAs’, and Interexchange Carriers ‘IXCs’ that provide long-distance services. A more graduated categorization includes ILECs ‘Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers such as SBC/Verizon), CLECs ‘Competitive Local Exchange Carriers’ (e.g., Level 3), IXCs (e.g., MCI/Verizon and AT&T), and ISPs ‘Internet Service Providers such as Earthlink and Prodigy/AT&T.Twilio interconnects to the so-called Tier 1 carriers - carriers that own or control sufficient portions of their underlying network infrastructure;e.g., Verizon, Level 3 - to provide the PSTN integration. It uses SIP (described above) origination and termination to ‘talk’ to originate and terminate calls on the PSTN.Traditional PBX. As discussed above, a PBX is a telephone switch located on the premises of a company. Traditional PBXs were typically hardware-based solutions that ‘sat’ inside customer premises ‘CPE’, providing businesses with the benefits of direct dialing, call forwarding, and a variety of enhanced services. Put another way, PBXs were originally designed for businesses as a cost-effective alternative to the provisioning of individual lines to each end-user from the phone company’s central office. The PBX is like a mini-CO, owned and operated by the corporation itself. In this respect, traditional PBXs reduced both line provisioning costs for the corporation and telecom services expenses associated with intra-office calls.Mostly Proprietary. Nonetheless, because PBXs are highly proprietary systems, enterprises have had to rely heavily on the PBX vendor to deploy or integrate any new applications. In a traditional PBX, there is a proprietary operating system running on a computer processor in a proprietary chassis. The applications are also proprietary, running on the same or separate processors. The interfaces—trunk cards and line cards— are also proprietary. In short, the traditional PBX is like a black box, with the vendor controlling virtually everything—the addition or adjustment of applications generally needs to be made by the PBX vendor. The proprietary nature of the technology is often predicated by its complexity. In fact, a high-end legacy PBX usually incorporates about 5 million lines of code.Limited Scalability. One of the most significant limitation of legacy PBX systems may be scalability. PBXs are typically designed for a specific number of users, and once the enterprise expands beyond that specific capacity, a new and bigger PBX needs to be installed. Sometimes, small businesses have to purchase a higher-end PBX than they need in case of possible future expansion, resulting in a particularly inefficient use of capital. It is also problematic to connect PBXs across multiple sites, and the signaling between PBXs is proprietary. Another key problem is that handsets which customers may have purchased for the lower-end PBXs often do not work with higher-end PBXs. As a result, customer upgrades to a higher-end PBX system often necessitate the additional cost of purchasing new handsets.Asterisk and IP-PBXs. Enterprise networking focuses on three primary goals: 1) Scalability, 2) Controlling the cost of communication through the most efficient use of technology and carrier services, and 3) Improving the productivity and performance of workers by distributing information to support their activities. With the advent of the Internet, IP PBX systems were introduced and allowed for phone calls to be placed over IP-based, rather than over TDM-based networks. In such an IP environment, distributed communications servers ‘IP-PBXs’ provide scalability and redundancy by sharing and quickly reconfiguring resources in the event of individual server failure. This redundancy and distributed processing is only feasible because the architecture separates the voice traffic from the PBX, leaving only call signaling and processing responsibilities to the PBX; hence, enabling independent scalability.Asterisk, on the other hand, is commonly used open source PBX software platform, developed in 1999 by a company called Linux Support Systems that later changed its name to Digium. The development of Asterisk is predicated on the idea that modularity, or separating a PBX system into interconnecting components—akin to a boxful of LEGO bricks—would enhance scalability. An Asterisk based IP-PBX is essentially a x86 communications server, running on Linux.Hosted PBX With Hosted PBX, PBX functionality is delivered as a service over the carrier’s network. Enterprise customers typically pay for the service under a leasing arrangement. Rather than having a PBX system located on the enterprise’s facilities, those functions are located in the carrier’s network and delivered over IP-based trunks to the enterprise.SIP Trunking involves the direct IP connection of a SIP-enabled IP-PBX and SIP-compliant VoIP service provider. It is an IP-based service provided by telecom operators (and Twilio) to connect an enterprise’s PBX with the service provider’s network. Put another way, SIP Trunking is an IP connectivity consisting of a single pipe which connects a service provider’s network to an enterprise IP PBX. As discussed earlier, SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, is the protocol used to set up IP-based sessions between network endpoints such as end-user devices or servers. SIP trunks allow operators to provision VoIP voice sessions. Enterprises benefit from SIP trunking as it consolidates their voice and data networks, replacing premise-based connectivity, and thus reducing overall costs. In the past, enterprises had to connect bundles of physical wires—PSTN lines—to a business—PSTN endpoint. A SIP trunk eliminates the PSTN lines—reducing the number of SIP connections per port—and other associated equipment such as PSTN gateways.Thus, SIP Trunking offers a number of advantages over traditional TDM-based connectivity. First, SIP Trunking allows the enterprise to reduce its telecommunications costs. While many enterprises already save on the cost of voice calls between their sites by implementing IP-based PBX systems and using intra-corporation VoIP calling. Using SIP Trunking, enterprises can further expand their ROI by extending VoIP outside of the corporate LAN.The savings comes from: 1) Getting rid of traditional analog/POTS, ISDN BRI ‘Basic Rate Interface’, ISDN PRI ‘Primary Rate Interface’, or T1/T3 subscriptions; 2) More optimal use of SIP trunk bandwidth as both voice and data services can be delivered over the same connection; 3) Greater flexibility in purchasing voice capacity as enterprises don’t have to purchase lines in groups of 24 T1 or 30 E1 lines; 4) Flexible routing of calls to preferred carriers —long distance calls can be made for the cost of local calls; and 5) Lower operating costs of IP-PBX systems vis-à-vis traditional TDM-based PBXs.For most enterprises, the desire to save money is the primary force driving adoption of SIP Trunking. Least cost routing is an interesting example. Enterprises can utilize SIP trunks from multiple service providers and proactively route specific calls to certain carriers based on country codes—operators often charge different international rates based on availability, time zone differences, and geography.Moving beyond these types of cost-reduction initiatives, SIP Trunking enables a host of additional capabilities that enterprises can benefit from. As discussed earlier, the SIP protocol itself was designed to initiate all types of real-time communications over IP networks — not just voice. Today, enterprises are taking advantage of not only the significant cost savings afforded from SIP Trunking, but also the ability to improve enterprise productivity through the deployment of Unified Communications applications.Where Twilio fits in: Elastic SIP Trunking.Companies such as Acme Packet (acquired by Oracle) use their Session Border Controllers SBCs as SIP firewalls. A session border controller is a piece of network equipment or a collection of functions that control real-time session traffic at the signal, call control, and packet layers as they cross a packet-to-packet network border between networks or between network segments. SBCs are typically located at the perimeter of disparate IP networks, such as between headquarter and branch offices, and/or between call centers and enterprise data centers. They provide network operators with ‘policy-based control’ over VoIP sessions, furnish basic protocol inter-working and defend the carrier backbone against a variety of attacks.SIP trunks are VoIP trunks from service providers that use SIP for call control and routing,enabling enterprises to create a single, pure, IP connection to a carrier’s core network. This can be viewed as an Enterprise IP-PBX that peers with the service provider core SIP proxy. “Twilio-SIP is for use in TwiMl type applications to terminate or originate a call from a known SIP endpoint or address. Elastic SIP Trunking is utilized when you have an existing application or appliance that needs to have origination and termination capabilities (think a PBX like Asterisk/Freeswitch) and Twilio will be that provider”.Programming Messaging.Twilio’s Messaging API enables developers to embed text-based communications in their applications. Using the same virtual number, our hypothetical InsuranceCo (discussed above in the voice section) can use the same both make and receive voice calls, and send and receive SMS.SMS would follow a similar pattern of voice--the flow from caller/sender to receiver--yet with the addition of an SMS aggregator. Say for example an Uber rider contacts a driver. The Uber application would use Twilio’s API to generate and initiate the SMS to the driver’s number. The SMS is routed through AWS to a CELC (e.g., Level 3). The CELC would then route the message to an SMS aggregator with whom Twilio has contracted (e.g., Syniverse). The SMS aggregator routes the SMS to the driver’s carrier (e.g., AT&T). The driver’s carrier then routes the SMS to the driver.The SMS Aggregator. An SMS aggregator such as Syniverse (acquired by The Carlyle Group)is essentially a ‘clearinghouse’ provider that facilitates wireless roaming between different carriers’ networks. As a third party intermediary, it plays a necessary role in a complex telecommunications environment characterized by different network architectures, signaling standards, billing record formats, and network protocols. The aggregator serves as the middle hub connected to all carrier partners, allowing each to roam on other’s network (assuming a roaming agreement is in place).Continuing on with the Uber example, when the SMS is sent by the rider, a detail record is created. This detail record contains basic information about the SMS (e.g., who is the sender, where they sent, the length of the message, the carrier that authorized the message). This record is then stored in one of the several formats. For GSM, the format is known as TAP, or Transferred Account Procedure (TAP) file, while for CDMA the format is known as CIBER.The data record must now be communicated to the right partners—this is where an SMS aggregator comes in. Syniverse, for example, receives the information in its data center, aggregates the data, and distributes the information to the right carriers. The company then calculates the net obligation of each carrier based on the information detailed by the data records.The Short Message Service Centre (SMSC). SMS includes a number of distinct features, which I have highlighted below. These are made possible as messages are sent via an SMSC. The SMSC mainly acts in a similar way to a router of messages. However, it also acts as an important interface with other parts of the network and other systems on that network.In general, one of the main features of an SMSC is the ability to store and forward messages. If the receiving device is switched off, the central system stores the message until it receives a signal that the device is now switched on, when it will then deliver the message. In addition, the functions of an SMSC can include providing the senderInterface with Other Network Elements. In addition to the store and forward features, the SMSC can provide an important interface to an operator’s other applications and act as the router between these. For example, the SMSC may interact with the pre-paid billing system, location servers, user profiles and platforms for other SMS based applications.

Apart from the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840), and the California Gold Rush (1848–1855), the Internet is the biggest thing to happen in history.Here’s a list of the top 10 Internet companies and their estimated annual revenues as of 2019:Amazon — Annual revenue = $280.5 billionGoogle — Annual revenue = $161.8 billionJD (China) — Annual revenue = $82.8 billionFacebook — Annual revenue = $70.69 billionAlibaba (China) — Annual revenue = $56.152 billionTenCent (China) — Annual revenue = $54.08 billionSuning (China) — Annual revenue = $38.06 billionNetflix — Annual revenue = $20.16 billionByteDance (China) — Annual revenue = $20 billionPayPal — Annual revenue = $17.77 billionAs you can see, there are 5 Chinese Internet companies among the top 10. Chinese Internet companies are rising up very fast.Considering there are millions of websites making money on the Internet, the combined net worth of the Internet could be worth quadrillions of US Dollars. Maybe US Dollars is not even suitable to measure the value of the Internet.As you can see, the Internet is a goldmine.Here are some services you can offer online and make a ton of money:Provide Internet-based solutionsSolve problems for other peopleSell or lease out software and software servicesSell or lease out Internet servicesProvide online entertainmentProvide online servicesSell goods and services onlineLend money onlineTrade money onlineTrade in FOREX and cryptocurrencyLead generation.Basically, any service you can think of has an online business presence or brokerage.Let’s focus on the last item on the list—lead generation, for example.The Internet is driven by internet marketing and lead generation in particular. For example, Google earns 70.9% of their revenue through advertising. They simply sell clicks. Facebook earned 98.5% of their revenue through advertising in 2019.There are basically tons of companies and online agencies providing lead generation services. Here are a few you may or may not have heard of:Netflix — Movie streaming servicesSalesforce — Marketing automationUber — Vehicles for hire, food delivery, package delivery, couriers, freight transportation.Lyft — Vehicle brokerage and Uber competitor.Expedia — Travel broker, travel fare aggregatorsAirbnb — Rental servicesHotels — Worldwide accommodation servicesBooking — Worldwide accommodation servicesTripAdvisor — Travel brokerSpotify — Music streaming servicesMatch Group — Online dating servicesYandex — Transportation, search and information servicesGroupon — global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services.ETC…There are literally thousands of companies like these. The important thing is that these companies are mere brokers. They provide online marketing, and lead generation services and collect millions of dollars in revenue.When you look at Expedia, for example, they provide air travel and ticketing services, yet they own no airplanes. The striking thing is that their revenues surpass the revenues of any airline.Uber and Lyft, are perhaps the most popular online marketing companies controlling thousands of vehicles worldwide without owning any vehicle.Airbnb is perhaps the largest vacation rental company in the world without owning a single property.Returning to the question:“Can it be possible to make $100k a day with online marketing?”Absolutely!Let’s start with the basics.There are basically hundreds of thousands of online business models, but let’s start with online marketing because that’s what the question is about—and lead generation in particular.With lead generation in mind, earning your first $100 per day is where the real magic starts.Here’s the math to make $100k a day online:Sell 100 products at $1000 each.Sell 1,000 products at $100 each.Sell 5,000 products at $20.00 each.Sell 10,000 products at $10.00 each.Sell 20,000 products at $5.00 each.Sell 50,000 products at $2.00 each.Sell 100,000 products at $1 each.Notice that on the Internet, you can either sell a few high ticket product offers, or sell many low ticket product offers. Either way, depending on your selling strength, you can arrive at your goal.In our example above, you can either sell 100 items for $1,000 each, or 100,000 items for $1 each to arrive at the same result.The above figures represent commissions earned. For example, to earn a commission of $100 at a commission rate of 50%, you would have to sell an item for $200 each.Another way of looking at it is that you can drive 100,000 leads of web traffic to a particular website for a commission of $1 per lead. This model is commonly used by many online marketing companies and agencies.The model is sometimes known as Cost per Acquisition or Cost per Action (CPA), because the company is actually acquiring a lead for $1 per lead. It’s known as Cost per Acquisition because you’re basically acquiring a lead on behalf of the client.Customer acquisition is one of the most lucrative online business models.How Does it Work?All you do is sign up with one or more of hundreds of CPA affiliate networks and once approved, you can start driving web traffic to a particular offer you fancy.Fortunately, you don’t have to chase individual companies (merchants) to get started with lead generation services.If you tried on your own to sign lead generation generation agreements with big companies such as Microsoft, SAP, IBM, Okta, Bambora, Nike, Adidas, Coca Cola, LinkedIn, Norton, Kaspersky, Amazon, Apple, Dell, McDonalds, Walmart, Rolls Royce, VW, McAfee, Big Commerce, Alibaba, etc… you will get nowhere.These are just a few of thousands of large companies that spend millions of dollars a year to keep their businesses afloat.Instead of signing lead generation agreements with every individual, they approach a reputable CPA network like MaxBounty, Peerfly, CPABuild or AdWorkMedia, for example, who will then sign CPA agreements with individual CPA affiliate marketers who collect leads on behalf of the companies (merchants). The CPA network then draws revenue-sharing agreements with the individual CPA affiliate marketers.Top CPA networks include MaxBounty, ClickBooth, Peerfly, AdmitAd, and W4. Others include CPALead, CPABuild, CPAGrip, AdWorkMedia, AdscendMedia, and CPAMatica.Leads collected are then forwarded to merchant companies who use the leads to promote their goods and services.Companies can pay as high as $90,000 per lead depending on which company and CPA network you’re dealing with.There are literally hundreds of CPA networks you can join, that have already negotiated revenue-sharing terms with the merchants on your behalf. The CPA network shares with you the revenue they collect from the merchant companies.By far, this is the best and easiest online marketing business model to understand.The main difference between CPA affiliate marketing and traditional affiliate marketing is that with CPA affiliate marketing you don’t have to sell anything to earn a commission.All you do is generate leads to a product or offer. The only thing the lead is required to do is take a certain action like completing a survey, submitting an email or ZIP, completing an online form, or making a call.With traditional affiliate marketing, you have to make a sale to earn a commission.Affiliate MarketingThe other lead generation model is called Affiliate Marketing. With affiliate marketing, you get paid only when you generate a sale. The revenue is then shared with you as an affiliate on an agreed percentage or real dollar basis, depending on the particular offer or affiliate network.Affiliate marketing is also a very powerful model if you master it. You can set the system once and continue to earn perpetual revenues with the network for the foreseeable future.Affiliate networks are just administrators to bridge the gap between you and the merchant, in this case, the company where the money will come from.ScalingDepending on which lead generation model you choose, you can scale your earnings by driving web traffic at a much higher scale. For any effort that generates at least $100 a day, you should treat it as a business.Your entire marketing effort should be treated as a serious business from the beginning, otherwise you will not develop the seriousness required to earn serious money. For this reason, you can simply grab a good entrepreneurship book and spend some time reading.Then you can sign-up for a free webinar or enroll for an affiliate marketing course. Of course you can learn most of the stuff online for FREE, but the trade-off in time and effort will exceed the cost of learning under an expert.Although you can easily earn $100 per day with free traffic, the process is a little harder to drive thousands of web traffic using free traffic sources. That would mean you use aggressive SEO and Web 2.0 strategies to create massive content on blogs, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and other Web 2.0 channels, which takes a lot of time and hard work.At some point, however, you will have to spend money to buy web traffic. This is much easier and a faster way to make $100K per day.The web traffic you can get on Facebook is insane and dirt-cheap.For example, suppose you earn $100 per day using free traffic sources. You can set aside $50 for advertising on Facebook. This will allow you to spend at least $10 per day to reach 1,000,000 people per day. With a budget of $50, you can run Ads for 5 days.With a reach of 1,000,000 targeted traffic, you can easily scale your earnings. The average conversion rate for Facebook Ads is 9.21%. For Google Ads it’s much lower at 3.48%Going with Facebook Ads, an audience reach of 1,000,000 would convert to 1,000,000 x 9.21% = 92,100. These are real people who can actually click your links. Assuming that your offer converts at an average of 10%, your earnings will be $9,210 per day.Earning this kind of money depends on many things.For one, your Facebook Ad should be targeted to the right audience, otherwise it will cost you a lot of money. For example, if your audience comprise of people looking for houses to rent, you can’t send them to a gaming offer and expect them to click your offer. You’ll be wasting your money.Every CPA network has their own policies and rules stipulating which traffic is acceptable and which one is not.Returning to our earlier example of $9,210 per day, you can now afford to scale your marketing by doubling or even tripling or quadrupling your marketing spend. The earnings will correspond to your Ad spend.Let’s do some math:Marketing spend of $50 per day = $9,210Marketing spend of $100 per day = $18,420Marketing spend of $200 per day = $36,840Marketing spend of $400 per day = $73,680Marketing spend of $800 per day = $147,360Now, do you see how you can easily reach your goal of 100K a day?Please note that the figures given above are just examples and not the real figures as it will cost you to reach the audience stipulated. To get accurate figures, I suggested you go to your Facebook account and check the actual cost of reaching an audience of 1,000,000 per day.The audience reach is also estimated for illustration purposes. Don’t be surprised to discover that the audience you can reach with Facebook Ads is much less than is illustrated here.Note that Facebook has been limiting the audience reach over the last few years, and you require some knowledge in Facebook advertising in order to spend your money more economically.Wait a Minute!Is it that easy to make 100K a day with online marketing?The answer is YES and No. YES, if you have the right mindset and ready to learn. No, if you’re like the millions of other people who are unteachable.Of course, like any other trade, it may take you years to achieve this level of success. On the other hand, it may take you weeks to get the same results.This is entirely up to you.Some people have a knack for learning while others learn slowly.Further Reading...[Photo Credit: GETTY/iStockPhoto]For the sake of this article, further information and illustration, free guides and resources are available in my Quora profile.