Freephoo Takes On VoIP Giants
Sweden-based Freephoo is a fairly new entrant to the fiercely competitive VoIP market. Going up against the likes of Skype and Rebtel, Freephoo is very similar in concept, offering free calls through 3G/WiFi and low-cost “premium” calls to mobile or landline numbers. The company does have some additional tricks up its sleeve though.
46elks Connect Apps To Voice And SMS
Making your app interact with voice and SMS often requires learning new software and buying hardware. 46elks is a Swedish start-up that offers a cloud-based platform that easily connects apps with telephony technologies. Founded in January this year, they have just released second alpha version of their product. The newest addition to the release enables apps to interact with phone calls as well as send and receive text messages. Developers can try it out for free with an invite, which you can get by registering on their website. Priority is given to developer communities from Europe to get feedback from their early users.
Freespee Analytics Version 1.6 Released
Freespee, a leading call tracking and Pay Per Call solutions announced the release of Freespee Analytics version 1.6. Freespee started off as a social phone number provider, a startup that provided consumers with virtual phone numbers. The purpose was to ensure user privacy when it came to posting classified ads and other public content.
Rebtel Moves To Lower Costs In International SMS Traffic
Just before Easter, Rebtel has announced that they are moving into the international SMS space with the launch of the ToIP (Text-over-IP) service. With this two groups of clients can take advantage of cheaper international SMSs. First, obviously the consumers using Rebtel's services are one group, but also app developers who require sending of international SMS as part of their service can also take advantage.
Freespee Continues To Expand, Launches A Revamped Website
Freespee, a Sweden based cloud communication startup with a focus on Pay per Call solutions and call tracking launched a revamped website a short while back. The startup has been around since 2008 and it has been growing ever since. I thought about going over a few statistics and they were quite impressive.
Global Call Stirs Up The Market In Iceland
During my visit to Iceland earlier this week I met with a local VoIP company called Global Call. While there are many VoIP companies around, Global Call had managed to arouse some serious interest and hate towards them. First of all, many of their clients like them for their low rates where as the other telcos seriously hate them for competing with them. I talked to Benedikt Bjarnason and Höskuldur Darri Ellertsson about their business and how they're doing.
Skype Founders Backing Inkspin1 Into Video Telephony
Toivo Tänavsuu has posted a blog post at The NextWeb site about a video telephoning solution being backed by Skype founders. The project is being run under the name of Inkspin1. The service itself is trying to bring free online telephony to the everyday life of people through television. Inkspin1 is currently being hatched in the Ambient Sound Investments incubator.
The goal of the project is to make the service as simple to use as possible. “Today, we have a solution for computer users. Yet, for an average home user, video calling is too difficult and thus they are not taking advantage of the opportunity. Our goal here is to make such calls equally easy for kids as well as parents. So that if people know how to turn on the TV and change channels, they would know how to make video calls,” Martin Villig, the leader of the project explains.
The product development is carried out in Estonia, but the software development is being worked on in Beijing, China.Villig says that the amount of coders needed for a job this wide are more plentiful in China than in Estonia. Also in China they are closer to the vendor manufacturers that are expected to partner with Inkspin1 to integrate the necessary devices to their televisions to enable Television Video Telephony. The unit in China is being run by a Finn, Jussi Nyfelt, who has been working for Nokia in China.
Inkspin1 is still very much at a design stage as Villig states that the service is expected to be up and running in one to two years. Inkspin1 is currently recruiting lots of different talents.
It's interesting to see ASI working hard on bringing a consumer service to the masses through better usability. The idea itself is nothing new, but then again it's all in the execution. I'm guessing there are tons of ideas like this waiting to be improved. Yet further proof that you don't always have to come up with a new idea to become an entrepreneur.
