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 people out there who are color-blind and can't differentiate between the two.)  Unfortunately, about mid-way through the call, actually when I was in the middle of answering a security question that Moshe asked... the conference bridge failed. (or something failed - in any event, the call was terminated)  The others apparently all dialed back in, but I unfortunately had to prep for a 4pm conf call and couldn't make the time to rejoin.  Despite the glitch, though, it was a nice experiment in using it with a group of people in a public setting.

In related news, Alec Saunders has a nice roundup of the coverage of the launch of their Facebook application.  Worth checking out to see the opinions of others.

Conference 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 the app.  Basically, the app sends your mobile number a text message with a verification code.  You then enter the verification code and your number is put on file with the app.

Creating a conf call is then a simple process.  Click a link and then fill in the relevant time/date fields (which can be basically right away) and then choose whether this is a private conf call or should be listed in the public directory (click on image for larger view):

Since the app is still in test mode, there weren't really any public calls to see and I just tried it out with private calls.  The next step is to invite recipients, a process that is made very easy by having a search box in the upper right side that lets you easily search through your Facebook friends (click for larger image):

Note that there is the capability to "Invite Friends who are not on Facebook", although this functionality is still in development.  The basic idea is that that person could receive an email with dial-in instructions.  In the end, you have a conf call page listing the various participants (in this case only one) and you have the ability to send invitations out:

When you send the invitation out, it goes out in typical Facebook fashion to the user's Facebook account where the user is then given the choice to RSVP or Ignore the invitation:

In the end, you press "Finish and View" and wind up with a page like this:

It has the typical type of info you would expect for a conference call.  A place to add an agenda (although this was still being developed), list of attendees, etc. Once the call is underway, the portion at the bottom fills in to show the pictures of the participants who are on the call, with the participants in green when the call is underway and red when they are disconnected from the conference bridge:

I'll note that the images took a very long time to load on my PC (in fact, they never loaded in one of my browsers) but this is clearly a bug they are very aware of and working on fixing.  For Alec, the images loaded quickly (and he said it had nothing to do with him being on Iotum's network because all traffic is proxied through Facebook).

Alec indicates that the plan is to highlight the people currently talking, etc.  He also says that over time they expect to add more functionality like a "Wall" capability where you could write notes during a call.  In my brief testing I was able to create both an immediate conf call (by simply scheduling the call for the time it was right then) and also a scheduled call.

Regarding the scheduled call, back on my "Conference Call" application page inside of Facebook, I have a nice view of upcoming conference calls, a tab for past conferece calls and a tab for public conference calls (none currently listed):

The link to create a new conf call is up in the upper left.  Once the time came for the call, I got a red bar across the top that said "ACTIVE CALL" indicating that one of my conf calls was in session.

The call itself was rather straightforward.  I simply dialed into the conf call bridge (a number in Minnesota) and, because my Caller ID matched that of the number on file for my mobile, I was put directly into the appropriate conference call.  Had I called in from another line, I would have needed to provide my mobile number as the "PIN" to get me into the conf call (which may also be the case with some mobile providers that don't send appropriate Caller ID).  I'm not entirely sure how comfortable I am with relying on Caller ID to get you into the conference calls (since, wearing my security hat, I know how easily it can be spoofed), but when it works (as it did for me) it does get you in there easily. Alec said they will soon be sending out a text message prior to the call with the dial-in number, which would make it easier for mobile users to simply dial the number in the text message, and also serves as a useful reminder.

All-in-all, it seemed like a nice very basic conferencing system.  Not yet as full-featured as any of the regular conf call systems out there available for businesses (Full disclosure: My employer makes such a system.), but it's probably "good enough" for many people and more importantly, it's integrated with Facebook.  Yet to be seen is how well it really scales... and what, if any, security exposures are out there, but those type of things will appear over time. It's a new app and, again, it's integrated with Facebook. There's also the detail that it only has a North American phone number, but again, this is just its initial launch.

I had two questions for Alec: 1) Why a conferencing app from Iotum? What does this have to do with their "Relevance Engine"? and 2) What is the business case?  How is he providing the free conference calls?

On the Iotum connection, Alec freely admits that launching the conferencing app now is mostly about time-to-market and getting out there first with a conferencing app.  Having said that, Alec is very clear that iotum's plan is to add in their presence features over time and also integrate this app with their Talk-Now app for Blackberries.  Adding a "social networking" component to their products was always on their roadmap, but the launch of the Facebook platform allowed them to accelerate those plans.  For right now, Alec definitely sees how red-hot the interest in Facebook is and is quite obviously seizing the opportunity to ride that wave. (And the beautiful thing about being CEO of a startup is that he can easily adjust and do this.)

On the money side of things, Alec indicates he's funding the free conf calls in part through sharing termination revenue with the LEC hosting the conference bridge and also through ad-supported SMS messages.

So in the end, Facebook now gets a conference calling application.  Give it a try.    I would expect that it will actually be the first of many such apps, but Iotum is now first out there with a working app.  From my perspective, it's good to see an useful business app out there for Facebook, in whatever form.  Kudos to Alec and team - and I look forward to seeing what it evolves into.

(Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to see a true VoIP app for Facebook (that does more than just calls between FB users) .... )

Wow!  From the stage here at VoiceCon, Michael Rhodin, General Manager of Lotus Software at IBM just announced that they are acquiring WebDialogs, the makers of Unyte!

IBM just issued a news release announcing this acquisition.

For those of us following the Skype space, Unyte has been known for a long-time as one of the leading business/collaboration extras available for Skype. 

Congrats to the WebDialogics folks and it will be VERY interesting to see where this goes!

About a month ago, I wrote about the "IM+ for Skype" client that let you use Skype on your Blackberry. Well, a new version 2.5 is out now and Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal has a review.  Jim is quite enthusiastic about a new feature that lets you specify the number at which IM+ will call you back (rather than only calling you back on your mobile).  I also found this interesting:

As an added benefit, IM+ 2.5 will not only make calls to those in my Skype Contacts but also my Blackberry address book. In summary IM+ provides a very versatile way of combining access to both Skype and Blackberry resources.

Interesting to see the merger of Skype and Blackberry directories.  I've not yet played with it and don't see myself having the time to do so in the next bit, but Jim says he'll be writing more in the time ahead about it.

Last week I wrote some first impressions of iSkoot, a new Skype client for Blackberry, and while I still think it's a very cool idea, I don't see myself using it all that much.  Why not?  Very simply...

Battery life!

Or the lack thereof.  Yes, indeed, it all does seem to come down to batteries, and iSkoot seems to certainly consume its share of power.  Now granted, my Blackberry 7290 is an older model and for all I know could probably use a new battery, but in "normal" operation, I can charge it up and then have it run for a good 3 or 4 days before it needs a recharge.  However, start up iSkoot and I found I suddenly needed a recharge by the end of the day!

In fairness, iSkoot is not alone in this... the other Blackberry IM clients I've used, both the Windows Messenger client and also most recently the IM+ client for Skype also have this same problem.  I'm assuming it has something to do with the need to regularly use the data connection for updates to status and to update chat messages.

I can see this actually being most useful to me when I'm traveling and need to quickly reach someone from within an airport or something like that. Of course, that's also when I want the longest battery life, too!  I think I'll keep it installed on my BB, but I don't think I'll have it running except for those times when I'm somewhere and I want a quick way to do IM via Skype.

Too bad, really, because one of the fun aspects of it was that I had a very easy way to read Twitter updates and Facebook updates on my BB (since I have both Twitter and Facebook status streams piped into a Skype chat).

Ah, the joy of batteries...

NOTE: Please see the updates at the bottom of this post.

Back on Monday, Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal IM'd me (on Skype naturally) asking if he could do a test call to me on "another Skype client for the Blackberry". Naturally, I said yes and in a moment or so we were speaking.  It turned out that he was using a new beta application from iSkoot.  From the news release:

The new iSkoot v1.1 delivers a comprehensive mobile Skype experience on BlackBerry: With the click of a button, users can instantly chat with their Skype contacts, make and receive Skype calls, and use SkypeOut™ to inexpensively call regular phone numbers nearly anywhere in the world. iSkoot v1.1 also displays complete Skype contact status information, so BlackBerry users can see which friends, family members and business colleagues are available, as well as manage their own online presence. This latest release features a next generation, easy-to-use interface especially designed for BlackBerry users and will offer additional features soon. iSkoot works without any need for PCs, special hardware, custom phones or Wi-Fi hot spots, and utilizes the existing mobile network infrastructure to route Skype calls through the voice channel.

It sounded interesting and so, of course, I had to try it out as well and finally had a spare moment to do so today.  Now, both Jim and I had commented a month ago about the IM+ Skype client from ShapeServices (my posts first here and then here with a link to Jim's coverage) so that previous experience somewhat colors my own view of the iSkoot application.

The installation was fairly straightforward. I filled out a form on iSkoot's site and was then SMS'd instructions for the download.  I simply opened the link in my Blackberry's browser and proceeded with the install in the normal "over the air" process.  One minor detail was that my Blackberry 7290 was not in the list of supported handsets, but I took a guess that the 7100 binary might work and so I used that (and it seems to work).

Here are some initial positive impressions:

• Nice user interface - Very nice interface.  Tabs that you can use Alt+wheel to move between for your contacts, online contacts, SkypeOut contacts and chats.
  
• Presence worked - I could see the presence of the other Skype users on my contact list.  I didn't try to see what happens when a user changes to see what kind of time delay there may or may not be.
  
• Outbound calls worked, although with an annoying step in the process - Move to a Skype contact and push your thumbwheel twice to call.  (Or push it once to see your options.) The call then starts by initiating a regular mobile call from your Blackberry to a phone number in Massachusetts (for me).  It then seems to call the other person on Skype and connect you through the gateway at iSkoot.  The annoying step was that when I first initiate a call, my Blackberry throws up a menu saying that an application is requesting to make a call and do I want to allow it, with the default being No. I therefore have to scroll up and press my thumbwheel again.  It's a pain and I couldn't find a way to remove that request.  I don't remember having to do that step in the IM+ client (and my trial has expired).  In any event, once the calls were connected, the audio quality sounded fine on both ends.
  
• Chats worked, and alerted you to new chats - Easy to initiate chats. Nice list of current chats.  If a new chat is opened up with you, you get a notification and can open it up.  If there are new messages in existing chats, you get notified of those as well.
  
• No conference call appearance - Unlike the IM+ client, your call just appears as a regular Skype call.  In fact, there was really no way for me to know Jim was not calling me from his regular Skype client.  With the IM+ client, you wound up getting put into a conf call with the other recipient which just seemed a bit strange.

Realizing it is still in beta (like, it seems, most everything on the net these days), here are some negative impressions:

• No support for groupchats - Using the Skype 3.2/3.5beta clients, I'm accustomed to having several public groupchat windows open.  Unfortunately, groupchats are not supported per the FAQ, and my public groupchats did not appear.  This does work in the IM+ client, so score 1 for IM+.
  
• Very slow updates to chats - In our experiment today, Jim Courtney and I both had Skype running on our PCs and so we could see our chat messages in a chat window there as well.  There were times when it took 5-10 minutes for messages typed in the PC chat window to appear in the iSkoot window!  Given that this is supposedly instant messaging, such a delay was hard to fathom.  Now there is a "Refresh Now" choice in the menu which could force a refresh, but the normal process seemed to have some kind of refresh interval.  Not all the time.  Sometimes messages appeared right away... but other times there was as much as a 10-minute delay before seeing the other message.  Hopefully this is just a scaling issue as iSkoot deals with their release!
  
• Slow call initiation process - Forgetting about my annoying Blackberry question I had to answer, the whole process of initiating the call seemed to take longer than the IM+ client did.  I'd have to purchase IM+ to actually test the timing, but the iSkoot process just seemed slower.
  
• Status did not have DND/Busy - Curiously, you can change your status in the iSkoot client, but you only have the choices of: Online, Away, Not Available and Invisible.  One of the ones I use often is "Do Not Disturb", so that I'm not disturbed.  That choice isn't here.  Perhaps the assumption is that you'll just exit the application.
  
• You can't receive Skype calls if you have Skype Voicemail enabled - Per the FAQ.  Not entirely sure why but this seems to be a bit of a headache if you this is not your only Skype client.  I also have Skype on my PC and if I am not there, I'd prefer to have the call go to voicemail.  Since I'm mostly looking to use this for Skype chats and Skype outbound calls, I don't expect it to be a big deal for me (I'll leave voicemail on) but I could see it being a pain if I did want to receive calls.
  
• You still have to give over your Skype password - As with IM+, you have to provide iSkoot with your Skype username and password and then they log in as you from their server/gateway.  As a commenter pointed out, there is a basic problem here that with your Skype account being connected to your PayPal account which in turn is connected to your bank account, you are potentially letting someone you don't know have access ultimately to your bank account.  Do you trust iSkoot (or anyone else) enough?  On the other hand, I'm not sure how any of these services can really work if you do not provide that information.  (See update below.)

All in all, it's an interesting entry into the idea of taking Skype onto a mobile phone.  As I have time I'll keep experimenting with it over the next few weeks... I could see it be especially useful if you were travelling (which, for better or worse, I'm not doing).

As I'll write up in another post, the one interesting use for me was that I could see Twitter and Facebook updates appearing in a Skype chat window and could post Twitter updates (without using the SMS interface)... which was an interesting experience.

In the meantime, if you are a Blackberry and Skype user and want to experiment, you can head over to iSkoot.com and try it out.

UPDATE #1 - 11 Jul 07: Jim Courtney IM'd me with the following comment on the Skype<->PayPal linkage:

btw, I investigated re the PayPal access issue. To do anything meaningful you need to log into PayPal as well. Also PayPal would not allow a process that was open to abuse. All you can buy automatically are voice mail, SkypeIn, SkypeOut and even there you can put on a daily limit as low as $50. And my PayPal password is definitely not my Skype pwd.

UPDATE #2 - 3 Aug 07: Jacqueline Van Meter with iSkoot Product Management has responded in a comment to my later post about iSkoot, addressing a number of the concerns I raised here. 

News breaking out today is that Google has acquired GrandCentral for something around $50 million. GrandCentral is a service that gives you one phone number that can ring multiple numbers, provide one common voicemail - and all sorts of the other features (see "howitworks" for a list of features). As  the GrandCentral blog entry says:

We started GrandCentral because we wanted to create a service that puts users in control of their voice communications and not the other way around. As you have discovered, with GrandCentral you get all of your phone calls through just one number that never changes and you can link and ring up to six phones to ring when somebody calls you. But that’s just the start. You can set different rules for each caller (some ring all your phones, other can go straight to voicemail), create personal voicemail greetings for each of your callers, and even check your voicemail on the web with all of your messages in just one inbox. We’ll even save your messages for as long as you want.

I first learned of GrandCentral quite some time ago from Andy's blog and subsequently heard GrandCentral CEO Craig Walker talk out at O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony conference at the beginning of this year.  It seemed to be an interesting service, although unfortunately I didn't sign up for the service at the time. (Now you have to wait to be invited if you want to try it out.)

As to Google's motivation, they discuss it in the Google blog entry:

GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. We think GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users.

GrandCentral offers many features that complement the phone services you already use. If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling. This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more. You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more control over your phones.

So will we ultimately see voicemail inside of Gmail?  One would assume that we will eventually see integration with GoogleTalk, which would give that service its first direct PSTN connectivity.  With a GrandCentral integration, GoogleTalk essentially winds up with a "SkypeIn" kind of service that can route calls to you on GoogleTalk.  The "WebCall Button" and "Click2Call" services also fit in with other Google efforts to expand further into "click to call" (as you can do now in Google Maps).

All very interesting to see... congrats to the GrandCentral team and it will be very interesting to see what emerges from the integration.

One of the things that continues to fascinate me is the "mashup culture" we are in today where the whole "Web 2.0" (ugh! how I dislike the term!) motif is that you can mix and mash output and input from various services to come up with new and interesting integrations.  Anybody who has at this point NOT seen some mashup with Google Maps should probably stop reading this post now.  (In fact, turn off your computer and just go outside... you obviously haven't been paying attention, anyway!)  The programmableweb site lists now over 2000 mashups.  There's a wiki of Twitter mashups.  Mashable.com reports daily on more and more services that are very often new remixes and combinations of existing services.  It's a crazy but intriguing world we're in right now.

Today Skype joined the fray with their "Mashup Contest" calling on developers to join in building mashups that use the Skype API.  The contest will run until September 12th when they are having a "Skype Developer Days" conference in Prague.  From their announcement:

Judges will be from across Skype, eBay and Paypal, plus external judges. The winner will be chosen and announced on Sep 12th in Prague based on the following criteria: innovation, usefulness, cool factor, usability and a dash of weirdness.

It will be very interesting to see what evolves.  Having been in the Skype public chat that started initially to talk about mashups with Twitter, I'm fairly sure that we'll see some integration with at the very least Twitter and Facebook.  (Will Skype be the first with a Facebook VoIP app?)

Should be fun, at least... I'm curious to see what people do that involves "a dash of weirdness"!  :-)

For those who read my previous post about the ability to now post to Twitter from within Skype, Antoine "Ants" Bertout from Skype created a new Skype public chat to facilitate discussion around how Skype and Twitter could be integrated.  Anyone interested who has Skype 3.x is welcome to join by following the link below: 

We've all undoubtedly seen the chain-letter email messages that circulate around telling you that by forwarding the email you will make money or receive gifts and most people with half a clue understand that this kind of thing is pretty much impossible.  So it was with a whole lot of skepticism that I first greeted Microsoft's "i'm" campaign because the premise is: for every IM conversation you have with Windows Live Messenger, we'll donate some money to the nonprofit of your choice (from among nine choices).  To me, it sounded just a wee bit fishy.   In reading the "About" page you do learn a bit more.  First:

Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We've set no cap on the amount we'll donate to each organization. The sky's the limit. There's no charge, so join now and put our money where your mouth is.

and then this:

Once you've signed up, every ad you see in your message window contributes to the grand total we send to the causes.

So it's all about a portion of the advertising revenue that is generated from use of Windows Live Messenger (formerly "MSN Messenger").  But this second piece I find interesting... it sounds like Microsoft must be being paid on a pay-per-view basis versus pay-per-click.  The advertisers pay MS based on the number of times that their ad is displayed.  Ergo... the more IM conversations there are, the more times the ads are displayed... the more money goes to Microsoft.... and the more can be distributed to the nonprofits.  I was a bit surprised as I would have expected it to be more like pay-per-click - and undoubtedly it still is, i.e. for a view an advertiser pays $X and if someone clicks through an advertiser pays $X + $Y.

Digging into the Press area, there was the FAQ that explained a bit more:

Q: How much money goes to the organization from each conversation?
A: Although the donation amount from each user is small, the power of the Windows Live Messenger network makes this donation significant. For competitive reasons, we can’t share the per-conversation amount of advertising revenue that we will contribute, but every new conversation you have will lead to money being donated to the cause you select. Each organization is guaranteed a minimum of $100,000 for its involvement.

So ultimately it will amount to at least $900,000 in money being given out to these nonprofit organizations... certainly nothing to dismiss!  There was also this little piece of curiousity:

Q: Can everyone participate in this initiative?
A: The i’m Initiative is available to everyone in the 50 United States and the District of
Columbia.

Huh?  I first learned of it from a friend in the UK who signed up for the initiative.  How would Microsoft even know, anyway?  Last I knew you didn't really have to divulge geographic details to sign up for WLM... and even if you did those could be bogus... and people move all over the world anyway.  Strikes me as quite odd.

Regardless, kudos to Microsoft for finding a fun way to make donations to some worthy organizations.  I'm not so naive as to think Microsoft is doing this entirely out of the goodness of their hearts - I do realize that they hope to: a) attract more users to WLM; and b) increase the number of views of their advertisers ads.  I assume they hope that it will incent people who use multiple IM services to have more conversations on WLM because those conversations will count for $$$. Probably not a bad idea.  For me, WLM happens to be one of the two primary consumer IM services I use (the other being Skype) and for whatever reason the sets of people I communicate with are pretty separate.  So it won't really change my behavior, but I could see that potential where people have more overlap between their contact/buddy lists.

To go back to the beginning, why is this "real" when the email scams aren't?  Remember that the major consumer IM services (WLM, Yahoo!Messenger, AIM, Skype) are all "walled gardens" and in the server-based services (WLM, AIM, Yahoo) the companies controlling the servers know precisely how many conversations are going on, who is having them (and in fact what is being said).  In contrast, with email the network of servers is completely distributed with no one controlling them all.  As long as the walls remain, the companies controlling the servers have all that data.  (Skype is a wee bit different, being peer-to-peer.)

In any event, it's an interesting initiative and it's great to see companies trying out new things that do benefit nonprofit organizations trying to bring about change in the world.  Kudos to Microsoft - and if you are a WLM user, check out the initiative... it's very simple... if you already have WLM 8.1, just add a text string to your display name.  If you don't have WLM 8.1, you'll need to upgrade. (Hmmm... which might be a third benefit for Microsoft - encourage people to move to the latest version.)