Category: Facebook
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Truphone embeds an IAX softphone into Facebook that lets you make calls to regular phones for free
Continue Reading: Truphone embeds an IAX softphone into Facebook that lets you make calls to regular phones for freeThe major product Dean Elwood has been working on now that he has moved to Truphone is the Facebook application that Truphone announced two days ago. Their blog provides a link to the Facebook application and, of course, in true Truphone style, offers us a video with cows:
I’ve not yet had a chance to do more with it than install it and play a bit with the configuration options:
but I’m very much looking forward to giving it a try. There are several interesting aspects to this app for me:- It is an embedded softphone (Java-based). No extra software you need. Just click the button and you can call the person who has it on their Facebook profile. To my knowledge this is the first time we’ve seen this in a Facebook app.
- From the user side, you can link that button to any of the following:
- Your Truphone number.
- Any regular landline or mobile phones in the US or Canada.
- A SIP address.
- A Google Talk address.
- A GrandCentral phone number.
- The Facebook app uses the IAX protocol used primarily by Asterisk. This gets around all of the firewall/NAT traversal issues that plague SIP. …
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New Facebook voice app: VoxCall lets you do free calls between SIP phones/numbers
Continue Reading: New Facebook voice app: VoxCall lets you do free calls between SIP phones/numbersBy way of my Facebook NewsFeed this morning, I learned that several friends had installed a new Facebook app called “VoxCall” (must be logged into the walled garden of Facebook to see the link). A quick Technorati search brought me to Alex Saunders’ blog post on the subject which clued me in to the fact that this was from the folks at Voxalot, some of whom I’d met down at Fall VON in Boston.
[Side Rant: This also shows the inherent weakness and stupidity of Facebook’s current implementation of “groups”. The Voxalot folks had posted info about this app in both the news and wall of their Facebook group, but of course I would never see it unless I just randomly happened to go there. Had they sent a message to all group users, I would have seen it in my Facebook Inbox, but it would be nice if instead Facebook had some way to notify you that you had new info in the groups to which you subscribe.]
The VoxCall app is basically a “click-to-call” app that makes use of Facebook’s directory. You simply click on the name of someone else who has the app installed…
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RIM *almost* gets it right with its Facebook app for Blackberries… (but it’s missing a good bit)
Continue Reading: RIM *almost* gets it right with its Facebook app for Blackberries… (but it’s missing a good bit)When I first heard from Jim Courtney and then Alec Saunders that RIM had released an official Blackberry application that let you use Facebook, I naturally went to look at the information and then downloaded the app (which you do on the Blackberry itself after you go to m.facebook.com).
I was initially extremely excited… and then almost immediately incredibly disappointed…
First, I have to say that I applaud RIM for putting this application out. I think this can be a great tool for those of us who use Facebook. I realize this is its initial deployment, so hopefully feedback like this can help the folks at RIM improve the app so that it is truly useful to us.
Before I get to the main screen, let me address the major source of my disappointment. After you have installed the app, you start getting notifications such as friend requests. Here’s the problem:
You MUST act on the friend request (Confirm or Ignore) before you can access the rest of the app!
So when I just wanted to zip into the app to change a status message, I was suddenly confronted by the fact that I had to act on a friend…
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Facebook group created for ETel conference… please join if you think you might go to ETel!
Continue Reading: Facebook group created for ETel conference… please join if you think you might go to ETel!For those of you using Facebook, we have created a Facebook group for O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony Conference (ETel) coming up in March 2008. Please feel free to join the group if you are planning to go to ETel – or at least thinking about it. We’re hoping to use it to connect people to each other in advance of ETel. We’re not entirely sure exactly how we’ll use it… it’s all part of the grand experiment in social networking. Please join us in that experiment!
Technorati Tags: etel, facebook, conferences
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FWD rolls out a "Voicemail" Facebook app… with the promise of calls to the *external* FWD client going to FB voicemail soon (i.e. FB becomes voicemail for SIP connections)
Continue Reading: FWD rolls out a "Voicemail" Facebook app… with the promise of calls to the *external* FWD client going to FB voicemail soon (i.e. FB becomes voicemail for SIP connections)Another new “voice” application for Facebook come out today, this one from the 12-year-old FWD (the service formerly known as “Free World Dialup” and backed by Jeff Pulver, who recently teamed with Daniel Berninger to relaunch FWD – read Daniel’s perspective here and also Jeff’s post about FWD’s beta of a tunneling service )
This first Facebook app, called simply “Voicemail“, was announced to members of the FWD group inside of Facebook with a message from Daniel Berninger providing the URL and stating this:
We are particularly interested in novel uses enabled by the several differences with traditional telephone voicemail.
1) CD quality audio
2) Messages public or private
3) Ability to re-record message without sending
4) Sent messages remain accessible
A direct integration with FWD will be available shortly allow you to pickup and leave Facebook voicemail via FWD.My initial response was admittedly a bit of a yawn. Back in June, I had written about the existence of several Facebook apps that allowed FB users to leave each other voicemail messages. The last sentence, though, was enough to intrigue me:
…A direct integration with FWD will be available shortly allow you to pickup and leave Facebook voicemail via FWD.
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Iotum improves their Facebook conference call app…
Continue Reading: Iotum improves their Facebook conference call app…What a difference a day makes. When I wrote about Iotum’s “Free Conference Call” app for Facebook yesterday, I mentioned that there were a few things still in development. Today, as shown in the image on the right (click on it for larger image), they’ve already addressed two of the issues: 1) the Agenda can now be completed (and in fact is the second step now while you are setting up the call); and 2) they’ve corrected the display issues with the participants. With a few participants, the pictures loaded in very quickly, and with a larger number of participants the pictures were removed and only the names were shown. Kudos to the Iotum team for iterating so quickly.
FYI, as shown in the image, I did participate in the “historic” public conference call hosted today by Moshe Maeir at 3:30 Eastern US time today. It was a good demonstration as at one point we had easily 10+ people involved. Very nice to see who joined simply by looking at the list of participants and seeing who was in green. (Hmmm… note to Alec, you might want to rethink the use of green and red as there is some percentage of…
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Facebook gets free conference calls with Facebook app from Iotum
Continue Reading: Facebook gets free conference calls with Facebook app from IotumConference calls – inside of Facebook? And for free?
Yes… courtesy of the folks up at Ottawa-based startup Iotum. As I’ve written before, there are tons of applications being developed for Facebook, but there haven’t been a whole lot of voice applications and there have been even fewer (in fact, almost none) voice-over-IP (VoIP) applications. Of the existing voice apps (nicely listed by Pat Phelan), most of them are really what I’ll call “consumer” apps… primarily focused on cheaper phone calls or making it easier to call people. Or “calling” other Facebook users – or leaving them voicemail. But there haven’t really yet been any interesting apps I’ve seen that could provide business features.
Until now. The team at Iotum just released their “Free Conference Call” Facebook application and now allowed anyone to install it. Until now, it’s been in a very limited test phase, but after Alec issued his request for volunteers last Friday, I naturally had to give it a try (and he asked us not to write about it until today).
So here’s the process. After you’ve installed the app, you have to go through a brief authentication process to put your mobile phone number on file with…
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RebTel’s "Reb Me" VoIP/telephony application for Facebook let’s you easily make cheap calls
Continue Reading: RebTel’s "Reb Me" VoIP/telephony application for Facebook let’s you easily make cheap callsAs I’ve written about previously (here and here), with all the excitement about Facebook’s application platform there haven’t been a whole lot of apps focusing on VoIP. Back on August 15th, though, another VoIP/telephony app did emerge, although at the time I was too caught up with VoiceCon travel preparations to blog about it.
The application is “Reb Me” (actual FB application here) from the folks over at RebTel. Essentially it allows RebTel users to very quickly call each other at cheap rates. (With RebTel, you get a local phone number to call international friends. You therefore only pay the costs for your local call, and some small rate to RebTel (or free).) Given that I’m rather “late” to the game on this app, I’ll point to other coverage for more details:
- RebTel blog:
- A developer’s take on our new Facebook app
- Reb Me brings mobility to the party
- blog of some of the developers of the RebTel Facebook app
- Jeff Pulver: Rebtel: One Year Later. And now available on Facebook (Q&A with RebTel CEO Hjalmar Winbladh)
- Russell Shaw, ZDNet: Rebtel adds Facebook calling capability
- Facebook Observer: Facebook Gets Another VoIP Application
According to the Facebook stats…
