Gizmo5, a service of VoIP service provider, SIPphone is offering free conference calling to its customers. I have been a big Gizmo user for a long time, but my usage has gone down mostly because their voice quality isn’t up to par. In fact, for all my VoIP calling, I had almost exclusively switched to using Skype. Over the weekend, however, I was reintroduced to the service when Gizmo5 emailed a free conference call offer. I wanted to talk to a few buddies and normally, I would call them on my cellular phone and then join the calls to create a conference call. However, I decided to try out the new offer.
I went to their website and got a conference room number. Those who wanted to join call in 1-605-475-8515 and punch the room number and join the conversation. It worked surprisingly smoothly and phone conversation with a couple of my buddies went without a hitch. Each conference room can handle between 2-to-10 people. Gizmo5 subscribers can call into the conference room and that doesn’t count a dime.
The whole thing went without a hitch, though given Gizmo5’s quality-record, I am going to try it out a couple of times before making a final decision. However, I can see the potential. I can use this service to interview folks and tape the conversation for easy archiving. If you are looking for an easy conference call option, you should try it out.
How many times have you wished for a simple and easy way to create and export email lists by mining your email inbox?
Wait no more! Clear Context, a San Francisco-based start-up that makes an in-box management plug-in for Microsoft Outlook has come up with a new product called, Contact Exporter for Outlook. Of course you will need their inbox management plug-in, a for-pay product.
The Contact Exporter is a beta feature in ClearContext IMS v4 that lets you create and export groups of email addresses found in messages stored in the Outlook folders you select.
What it essentially does is create a list of email addresses found in messages from a set of folders users choose. And these can be used to create distribution lists. You can create say, an email list for a birthday invite and export the list in the CSV format. You can export files and import them into any application that will allow you to import CSV files. Facebook and Socialzr are two such web services. I think this export feature is quite handy. If you want to know more, check out their website.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is about to announce an online storage space. Some call it GDrive, and I see it as a vital component of Google Computing Cloud. Regardless, instead of obsessing over the minutiae, I want to know what you folks specifically think about it. Take this poll and let us know.
Dimdim, a Burlington, MA.-based web meeting services startup, wants to take on Cisco Systems’ (CSCO) WebEx and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Placeware by emphasizing simplicity and ease of use. The company, which is backed by investors including Draper Richards, Index Ventures and Nexus Capital India, launches its service today at DEMOfall 2007. Co-founded by Computer Associates alumni DD Ganguly and Prakash Khot, Dimdim has so far raised $2.5 million. Continue Reading.
You know a web 2.0 application is hitting an upward inflection point when your inbox starts filling up with the likes of “Joe Doe wants to add you as a friend on VagueSter.” Over the last few months, it’s been Facebook’s turn.
The site’s rise in traffic is in no small part due to developers being enabled to deliver their apps using the Facebook API. Here is how you can use Amazon Web Services to scale your Facebook Apps. Continue Reading.
Skype, one of the primary means of communication for web workers has been on the fritz for past few hours, possibly because of some software upgrades from Microsoft.
Let this be a reminder that Skype is not quite your phone company replacement. This must have impacted thousands (if not millions) of companies and web workers who lost money and productivity.
Are you being impacted by this outage? Is your business suffering as a result? Share your story with others.
Google, this morning spent $625 million in cash to buy Postini, a start-up that provides encryption and security as a hosted service. Google believes this deal is further testimony about its serious commitment to providing hosted apps to businesses, especially small and medium sized businesses.
Google Apps are being used by 1,000 small businesses, universities and also there is an interest from large companies. On their Google Apps blog, Rajen Sheth, Product Manager, Google Apps writes:
For organizations that are not yet ready to jump full force into hosted applications, Postini’s proven messaging security and corporate compliance management solutions are a great place to start.
That addresses at least some of my own personal concerns about the security of using these applications, but you think you are ready to take a chance on Google Apps for running your business.
Additional Reading: GigaOM: Google buys Postini, How High Can Google Go?
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
