Andy Abramson picks up
the main story over on his VoIP Watch blog about the integration that Alec Saunders and I (with my Truphone hat one) created over on Facebook.
At VoN in Boston last year Alec and I went out and had a few drinks. We discussed our respective Facebook applications and concluded that we had some interesting synergies there (prompted in no small part by Andy).
Alec has a Free Conference Calls application on Facebook. Nicely executed - you can mute people and callers can raise a "flag" to indicate that they want to speak making it a truly moderated system. You can also record conferences making it a great tool for podcasting.
At Truphone we have an embedded "button" which enables VoIP calling from right inside Facebook, contained fully within the whole Facebook experience.
Marry the two and, voila, you have audio based conferencing right in the heart of Facebook.
A good match and a fun thing to do for both sides. It's nice that we are in an industry where these kinds of applications can come out of a few drinks at a bar whilst at a conference (and here's a tip, most of this kind of business is done in this way). The bloggers congregate and make things happen.
Those of you on Facebook can check out the Free Conference Calls application
here
The button that powers the integrated VoIP side of this is the same as the original
Truphone Call Me Button and works in exactly the same way.
Dean