Disruptive Telephony

As 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 (in the new way they are counting) there are 84 daily active users of the app, as of today.  The RebTel folks have also launched a Facebook group for RebMe users, although there doesn't seem to have been much activity in the group after its initial launch.

I'm also not entirely sure I'd call it a "VoIP application", because it's really all about making cheap calls from your mobile phones.  No doubt there is VoIP involved someone in the infrastructure, but when I think of a "VoIP app", I'm really thinking of something that does use VoIP protocols (like SIP)  and that involves IP endpoints in some fashion.  In any event, it's cool to see another telephony app inside of Facebook.  Kudos to the RebTel team for launching the app.

FYI, over on his blog, Pat Phelan put together a list of Facebook voice apps.  Nice to see... and I was not aware of the GrandCentral app (although, since you have to copy/paste the web call button embed code from your Grand Central page, the "app" really doesn't seem to be anything more than a box on your profile that can contain HTML code... and a way for the app developers to put some Google Ads in front of you on your Facebook app page).