Comunicano

IFBYPHONE, JUMPFORWARD ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP

Strategic Agreement Combines Leading Voice Applications With Communications-Based Sports Relationship Management Solution

CHICAGO–June 25, 2008—Ifbyphone, the telephone application platform company, and JumpForward, the on-demand sports-relationship-management (SRM) solutions provider, jointly announce a partnership today to deliver a comprehensive communications solution for high school athletes and college coaches that unifies the athletic recruiting process as never before.

JumpForward provides a converged on-demand communications platform that empowers high school athletes and parents to navigate and streamline the entire athletic recruiting and communications process. High school athletes are able to search detailed information for free on more than 2,500 colleges and 55,000 college coach’s e-mails and phone numbers. From their Unified Communications Dashboard, athletes can instantly call college coaches by clicking the “Start Call” button, powered by ifbyphone, while each call placed is automatically tracked.

For college coaches, JumpForward’s on-demand SRM solution automatically tracks, manages and organizes calls placed by college coaches to prospect high school athletes.

“Calling potential high school student-athletes is a core activity within the athletic recruiting process,” said Chris Higgins, a former NCAA Division I college coach. “JumpForward enables college coaches to seamlessly collaborate among one other, while automatically tracking, managing and organizing each call placed. It’s truly innovative—transforming a simple phone call and wrapping an intelligent recruiting application around it.”

Ifbyphone combines Web and voice services upon which breakthrough solutions like JumpForward’s can be built. Ifbyphone provides a sophisticated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform from which it offers click-to-call, toll-free numbers and voice-broadcast services directly and through more than 200 resellers.

“The breadth and elegance of JumpForward’s SRM solution is truly spectacular,” said Ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro. “We’re proud to partner with forward-thinkers like those at JumpForward who grasp the power of Ifbyphone applications to help them serve an area of obvious need, such as fostering communications for student athletes and college coaches.”

The intelligent Ifbyphone application first calls the athlete’s designated number and then dials the college coach’s phone—keeping the student athlete’s number private. 

This powerful combination of JumpForward’s SRM solution and IfByPhone’s platform eliminates time spent searching for college coaches’ phone numbers and allows high school athletes to focus more on contacting the coaches—while being assured that the privacy of their phone numbers is preserved.

Calling college coaches is by far one of the most critical communication steps within the collegiate athletic recruiting process. Many collegiate athletic affiliations, such as the NCAA, require that phone calls placed to college coaches be made only by the high school athlete and not by marketing or agent recruiting services. Since the initial relationship between a college coach and athlete has to be built over the phone, JumpForward provides high school athletes and parents with a powerful recruiting tool and eliminates the costly marketing or recruiting services.

To guide high school athletes through phone conversations they have with college coaches, JumpForward provides a calling question bank of more than 60 questions a high school athlete may want to ask the college coach. This feature also allows athletes to save responses and notes from their calls with coaches.

Ifbyphone’s Shapiro said the agreement with JumpForward is the latest of several his company expects to reach to expand distribution channels for its applications. Other potential partners can click on www.Ifbyphone.com to learn more about the company’s partnership programs.

#   #   #

About Ifbyphone
Ifbyphone is a hosted telephone application platform company that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy means to increase their customer conversations and drive sales—without the high cost and complexity typically associated with building interactive voice response systems. Leveraging Ifbyphone's extreme usability, web developers, interactive marketers and customer service professionals can quickly create everything from simple Click-to-Call links on Web pages and e-mail to sophisticated call-routing and interactive-marketing solutions-transforming telephones into powerful tools to increase leads, improve sales and enhance customer experience. Ifbyphone's solutions are available directly to SMBs and through a network of direct marketing resellers. For more information, click to speak to a sales professional or visit the Ifbyphone Web site.

About JumpForward
Headquartered in Chicago, JumpForward is a team of former NCAA and NAIA athletes and former NCAA college coaches dedicated to leveraging the power of the internet to deliver one of the most innovative on-demand sport-relationship-management (SRM) solutions designed specifically for athletes, high school athletic directors, club teams, and college coaches. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.jumpforward.com.

IFBYPHONE FEATURED ON "INTO TOMORROW"

Ifbyphone's Phone-Me-Now Facebook application was featured on this week's "Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline." Host Dave Graveline offered a 60-second promo of the widget, which enables users to place free calls from their friends' Facebook profile pages, without revealing either party's caller ID. Listen to the feature, presented in Dave's distinctive style.

IFBYPHONE iPHONE APP GETS ATTENTION OF CHICAGO SUN-TIMES AND MACWORLD

Ifbyphone’s new application for the iPhone and iPod touch was covered in a couple of prominent stories today. In home-town paper Chicago Sun-Times, Ifbyphone and the new app were discussed in Brad Spirrison’s TechMatters column (scroll past the YouTube item).

Also reporting on the Ifbyphone news was Peter Cohen of Macworld, whose story notes, “Applications  for Ifbyphone’s Voice Broadcast technology include traveling managers who need to send a voice memo out to their staff while being away, or for parents who want to reach the entire family all at once.”

All the details about the iPhone/iPod touch application are in today’s Ifbyphone press release.

IFBYPHONE APPLICATION ENHANCES VOICE COMMUNICATIONS FOR APPLE iPHONE and iPOD touch

New Application Enables Users to Broadcast Messages from Apple Devices

CHICAGO–June 2, 2008—Ifbyphone, the telephone application platform company, today announced the new Ifbyphone Voice Broadcast application for Apple® iPhones™.

Ifbyphone’s Voice Broadcast application for iPhones enables users to send recorded messages to as many recipients as they wish without using any of the users’ calling-plan minutes. The Ifbyphone telephone application platform delivers the broadcasts either immediately, or at a future scheduled time.

The new Ifbyphone application will work with any iPhone running the v2 software, both the original iPhones and the highly anticipated new version. In addition, the Voice Broadcast feature will also work with the iPod® touch, providing access and capability to a wider audience.

“Sales professionals and others are sure to find this new capability invaluable,” said Ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro. “For example, a sales manager who is leaving town can now schedule a voice broadcast to go out to his or her sales team while away. What’s more, this is an ideal application for Mom or Dad. With a couple of clicks, they can send messages to everyone in the family.”

After installing the Ifbyphone broadcast application, which will be available via iTunes distribution, the voice broadcast message is then created through a few fast and easy steps:

• Select the Ifbyphone Voice Broadcast application on the iPhone.
• Select the group of recipients from the iPhone’s Address Book and enter the delivery date and time.
• The Ifbyphone service then calls out to the iPhone so the message can be recorded. The call-back recording feature allows users to schedule messages even if they are outside of Wi-Fi range, since the voice message is recorded on the voice side of the network.

On the iPod touch, the user will select the phone number of a phone he or she wants to be called on to record the message with Ifbyphone.

“Since the voice broadcasts are delivered by the Ifbyphone telephone application platform, no iPhone calling-plan minutes are used, nor is there any requirement for the iPhone or iPod touch user to be online at the scheduled delivery time,” Shapiro said.

The Ifbyphone iPhone Voice Broadcast application and the enhanced Ifbyphone Voice Broadcast API (Application Programming Interface) will be available to users and developers starting July 1. The application is free, but requires an active Ifbyphone subscription.

In addition to the iPhone application, Ifbyphone also announced the release of an enhanced Voice Broadcast scheduling API. This new API supports the integration of voice broadcast messaging into any contact management or CRM solution and provides much of the core functionality of the Ifbyphone iPhone Voice Broadcast.

# # #

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone is a hosted telephone application platform company that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy means to increase their customer conversations and drive sales—without the high cost and complexity typically associated with building interactive voice response systems. Leveraging Ifbyphone's extreme usability, web developers, interactive marketers and customer service professionals can quickly create everything from simple Click-to-Call links on Web pages and e-mail to sophisticated call-routing and interactive-marketing solutions-transforming telephones into powerful tools to increase leads, improve sales and enhance customer experience. Ifbyphone's solutions are available directly to SMBs and through a network of direct marketing resellers. For more information, click to speak to a sales professional or visit the Ifbyphone Web site.

NEW IFBYPHONE APPLICATION SLASHES CREDIT CARD FRAUD

“Verify-Me-Now” Uses Automated Telephone Verification to Instantly Identify Fraudulent Account Applications

CHICAGO, May 13, 2008—As Internet service providers, online merchants and other enterprises look for innovative new ways to combat fraud, they often overlook something that every customer has: a telephone. Ifbyphone, the telephone application platform company, is showcasing Verify-Me-Now, a new solution that enables ISPs and any e-commerce or SAAS site to slash fraud rates by combining the power of the Web with the telephone.

Many fraudulent users provide false telephone numbers to limit an online merchant’s ability to contact them in the future. Verify-Me-Now turns that risk into a security feature with a simple process that validates that the person providing a credit card, banking information, or other form of payment is who they say they are.

Here’s how Verify-Me-Now works:

1. ISPs incorporate the hosted Verify-Me-Now application into their existing process that customers use to sign up for a Web hosting account or any other service.
2. A telephone number is collected as part of each registration or purchase transaction.
3. A PIN of up to ten digits is displayed on the customer’s screen.
4. The Verify-Me-Now service is then invoked, either transparently or via a user-pressed button, with an easy-to-use API that is compatible with most Web-programming environments.
5. The Ifbyphone server instantly places a call to the customer at the number entered in step one and then asks the customer to enter the previously displayed PIN using their telephone keypad. (The Ifbyphone server also can be configured to request and record the recipient name during this step.)
6. Depending on whether the PIN entered matches the one provided in step two, the API returns a success or failure message.

The Verify-Me-Now application is a member of a family of applications available on the Ifbyphone Telephone Application Platform (TAP). The Ifbyphone TAP empowers companies of all sizes to leverage the advantages of basic telephone calls with new and creative applications.

"Our applications all deliver enterprise telephone capabilities to businesses of any size," stated Irv Shapiro, CEO of Ifbyphone. “In this increasingly competitive world, small and medium-sized businesses need access to the same telephone technologies that large enterprises use in order to complete effectively.”

#   #   #

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone is a hosted telephone application platform that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy means to increase their customer conversations and drive sales -- without the high cost and complexity typically associated with building interactive voice response systems.  Leveraging Ifbyphone's extreme usability, web developers, interactive marketers and customer service professionals can quickly create everything from simple Click-to-Call links on Web pages and e-mail to sophisticated call-routing and interactive-marketing solutions-transforming telephones into powerful tools to increase leads, improve sales and enhance customer experience.  Ifbyphone's solutions are available directly to SMBs and through a network of direct marketing resellers.  For more information, click www.phone-me-now.com/8772955100 to speak to a sales professional or visit the company website.

NEW TELEPHONE APPLICATIONS HELP SERVICE PROVIDERS AND MARKETING FIRMS EXPAND REVENUES AND IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE

Hosted Solutions from Ifbyphone, “Your Telephone Applications Company,”
Help Drive Leads and Sales, and Reduce Costs

CHICAGO, May 13, 2008 — Ifbyphone helps Internet Service Providers (ISPs), direct marketing firms, online merchants and other companies balance customer service and overhead costs. Ifbyphone’s hosted platforms provide an immediate, cost-effective way for enterprises of any size to automate expensive people-based processes such as call routing, telesales, lead generation and customer care. These applications add a valuable new service line to an ISP’s or direct marketing firm’s catalog of services.

With the cost of telephone calls declining daily, companies recognize that telephone-based services are a new way to improve sales and reduce service delivery costs. Ifbyphone allows companies to add advanced hosted telephone applications and toll-free services to any phone—traditional office phones, cell phones or VoIP phones. These applications leverage the power of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems and free up human resources to focus on revenue-generating tasks.

Ifbyphone's call-routing technologies replace receptionist functions with a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week automated solution. With Ifbyphone’s SurVo Voice Forms and Web integration APIs, companies can quickly and easily create a variety of IVR applications for lead generation, call-center routing, customer satisfaction, employee notification and information delivery, letting customers enter information using familiar, intuitive methods, including speech and telephone touch tones. Historically, these same technologies were only available to large companies with sophisticated technology departments and significant budgets.

The automated, fully customizable SurVo Voice Forms provide a level of customer service that would be cost-prohibitive for many small and medium businesses (SMBs) using human-based processes. For example, instead of adding call-center staff or having other employees be distracted by constant calls, SMBs can use SurVo Voice Forms to collect and provide key information that most callers seek.

“We just couldn’t keep our ever-ringing phone answered,” says Tara Staglik at Papa Dean's Popcorn. “Ifbyphone not only eased the pressure on our in-person customer service by having to drop everything and leap for the phone every time it rang, it also succinctly and efficiently gave our call-in customers—both existing and prospective—far more information than any of our staff could have during such an extended rush of walk-in clientele. Ifbyphone has also proven invaluable in that it provides a reliable and tangible record of contacts, inquiries and orders. That’s one less thing we must struggle to organize. We also love the ease of adaptability of Ifbyphone, in that we can easily update and change the messaging on a whim. Ifbyphone has proven priceless from day one.”

Another Ifbyphone hosted application, Voice Broadcast, provides ISPs and other SMBs with a solution to the problem of overly aggressive spam filters, which block e-mails containing information that customers would find valuable. Voice Broadcast conveniently circumvents spam filters and junk folders by relying on an innovative telecommunications platform to deliver messages over the telephone.

For example, instead of using e-mail to alert customers of deliveries, sales events and other important information, SMBs can quickly create a Voice Broadcast message that’s distributed via a device that every customer has: a telephone. Voice Broadcasts also can be used to distribute interactive customer surveys, potentially leading to a higher response rate—and more insights—than if most of the surveys disappeared into recipients’ junk folders.

“An unfortunate side effect of spam filtering technologies is that e-mail is no longer a reliable medium for critical customer notifications,” says Irv Shapiro, CEO of Ifbyphone. “The Ifbyphone IVR, Toll Free Number Routing and Interactive Voice Broadcast technologies provide a suite of services that reliably deliver important communications to your customers over any telephone.”

#   #   #

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone offers a telephone application platform (TAP) that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy means to develop innovative ways to talk directly with their customers—without the high cost and complexity typically associated with building voice-enabled solutions. Leveraging Ifbyphone's major advances in usability, Web developers, interactive marketers and customer service professionals can now quickly create everything from simple click-and-call buttons embedded into Web pages and e-mail to sophisticated call-routing and interactive-marketing solutions—transforming the SMB telephone into a powerful tool to increase lead generation, improve sales conversion and enhance customer experience. Based in Skokie, Ill., Ifbyphone offers hosted VAP services that are available directly at www.ifbyphone.com or through a network of value-added resellers for an affordable monthly fee, with no upfront costs. For more information click www.phone-me-now.com/8772955100 to speak to a sales professional or visit the company website at www.ifbyphone.com.

IFBYPHONE'S IRV SHAPIRO AT eCOMM

Ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro's presentation at this spring's eComm conference gives some insight into how Ifbyphone's services can help SMBs convert clickers into callers. Here's Irv's March 12 presentation, "Phone Mashups, Integrating Telephony and the Web."

Slides for Irv's presentation:

| View | Upload your own

IFBYPHONE ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH SITEKREATOR, LAUNCHES SYSTEM UPGRADE FULL OF NEW FEATURES

Strategic Agreement Combines Leading Voice Applications, Web-design Tools

CHICAGO–May 7, 2008—Ifbyphone, the telephone application platform company, announced today it has entered a strategic partnership with SiteKreator, an award-winning service that enables small businesses to instantly design and host elegant, feature-rich and engaging Web sites.

Also, the company launched Ifbyphone version 2.7—the next system release to its flagship voice-based, hosted platform that offers SMBs a simple way to integrate Web and telephone services. The new version includes several enhancements—largely recommended by customers and developers—that add richer and more customizable functionality to the platform.

Ifbyphone combines Web and voice services to bridge online lead generation, offline conversion of sales and customer service opportunities. The company provides a sophisticated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform from which it offers click-to-call, toll-free numbers and voice-broadcast services directly to SMBs and through more than 200 resellers.

Ifbyphone 2.7 enriches customer communications by immediately increasing the availability of local telephone numbers in all major U.S. metropolitan areas and in most Canadian metropolitan areas beginning May 15. Customers are also able to select either toll-free or local numbers for use with the system’s Virtual Receptionist, Find Me, SurVo—the hosted Web IVR application—and other inbound call-routing applications.

Meantime, the SiteKreator agreement gives Ifbyphone another distribution channel into the market segment of tech-savvy small businesses whose entrepreneurial owners are comfortable building their own Web sites using SiteKreator’s tools enhanced by Ifbyphone applications.

“SiteKreator is a leader in the Do-it-Yourself Web site-creation and site-management space because they enable SMBs to design and launch great-looking Web sites at a price they can afford,” said Ifbyphone CEO Irv Shapiro.

“We’re tightly integrating a suite of Ifbyphone services with a suite of Web-design capabilities from SiteKreator in an easy-to-use, all-in-one environment because our two companies share a mission to bring SMBs the kind of sophisticated telephone-application platform tools that were only available until now to enterprise companies,” he said.

For example, SMBs designing their own Web pages using tools from SiteKreator can easily embed an Ifbyphone application such as Smart Click-to-Call as a means of turning Web site visits into ringing telephones.

SiteKreator has integrated the procurement and configuration of a Smart Click-to-Call account directly into its Web site. Additionally, Ifbyphone is making available a six-month, no-cost promotional package for partners to offer their customers.  This allows customers to stay within the trusted SiteKreator environment to launch their Ifbyphone Web site sales tools.

“We were looking for a solution that bridged the online and offline worlds, especially for SMBs building their first presence online,” said SiteKreator CEO Ivaylo Lenkov. “What we especially liked about Ifbyphone was the fact that there’s no entry barrier and the integration between our two products is so straightforward.”

SiteKreator was developed for entrepreneurs, SMBs and independent professionals who want to leverage next-generation Web technologies without investing thousands of dollars or requiring technical or artistic expertise. SiteKreator’s upscale designs help business customers build fully branded and feature-rich sites in as little as 30 minutes and are scalable and customizable to grow and adapt for almost every application.

Sites built with SiteKreator attract visitors with an elegant and consistent look and feel.  SiteKreator also keeps visitors coming back by fostering two-way communication though interactive features such as blogs, Web forms, newsletters and discussion forums. SMBs can click on http://sitekreator.com to explore how SiteKreator’s Web-design tools can help them.

Other potential partners with Ifbyphone can click on www.Ifbyphone.com to learn more about the company’s partnership programs.

#   #   #

About Ifbyphone
Ifbyphone is a telephone application platform (TAP) that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy means to develop innovative ways to talk directly with their customers—without the high cost and complexity typically associated with building voice-enabled solutions. Leveraging Ifbyphone's major advances in usability, Web developers, interactive marketers and customer service professionals can now quickly create everything from simple click-and-call buttons embedded into Web pages and e-mail to sophisticated call-routing and interactive-marketing solutions—transforming the SMB telephone into a powerful tool to increase lead generation, improve sales conversion and enhance customer experience.  Based in Skokie, Ill., Ifbyphone offers hosted TAP services that are available directly at www.Ifbyphone.com or through a network of value-added resellers for an affordable monthly fee, with no upfront costs. For more information click www.phone-me-now.com/8772955100 to speak to a sales professional or visit the company Web site at www.Ifbyphone.com.

About SiteKreator
Based in Santa Clara, Calif., SiteKreator launched in 2006 and currently powers about 50,000 Web sites worldwide. The company has been recognized to provide one of the most high-density Web hosting technologies on the market, capable of managing spikes in traffic without the slightest dent in end-user performance. The SiteKreator team has extensive experience in enterprise Content Management Systems (CMS), Content Delivery Networks (CDN), sophisticated visual art design and usability.

NEW IFBYPHONE WIDGET LETS FACEBOOK FRIENDS CALL FOR FREE

“Phone-Me-Now” Uses Mashup API to Demonstrate Power of Ifbyphone Technology

CHICAGO, April 29, 2008—Ifbyphone, the telephone application platform company, today announced a new Facebook application called Phone-Me-Now that enables users to place free calls from their friends’ Facebook profile pages, without revealing either party’s caller ID.

Facebook users can register for a free Phone-Me-Now account within their Facebook profile. Their Facebook friends can then contact them by setting up a two-person conference call—with the click of a button.

To place a call, a friend visits the Facebook profile of the Phone-Me-Now user with whom he or she wishes to speak, provides the number of the phone they want to use during the call and hits “click to call.” Then Ifbyphone rings both telephones, blocks the caller IDs and conferences the two callers together.

The application enables Facebook members to have personal conversations with other members while still keeping their phone numbers private. Users are also able to review the Facebook names of the last 10 callers and block specific callers.

“Even In this age of online social networking, there are times when only a real-time personal phone call can convey the right message between two people,” said Irv Shapiro, Ifbyphone CEO. “Phone-Me-Now makes it easy to connect privately with a friend by phone, without automatically divulging personal contact details the way caller ID does, and without leaving Facebook to make the call.”

The Phone-Me-Now application widget is a phone mashup that takes advantage of powerful Ifbyphone technology to enable all types of phones—whether mobile, VoIP or even old rotary handsets—to connect via the Web. Ifbyphone mashups enable inbound, outbound and click-to-call telephone applications with integrated interactive voice response dialogs.

Phone-Me-Now is an extension of Ifbyphone’s "voice of the Web" services that give small and medium-sized businesses enterprise-level presence on the Web for a fraction of the cost, through click-to-call, toll-free number, voice mail and other communications tools.

The first 1,000 Facebook users who sign up will receive free Phone-Me-Now accounts and 100 minutes per month of calling time to U.S. phone numbers. These free accounts expire in six months. Standard Ifbyphone subscriptions start at $14.95 per month.

The widget is available under Applications at Facebook.com by searching under “Phone-Me-Now” or through the following link: http://apps.facebook.com/phonemenow/.

#   #   #

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone is a telephone application platform (TAP) that provides small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy means to develop innovative ways to talk directly with their customers—without the high cost and complexity typically associated with building voice-enabled solutions. Leveraging Ifbyphone's major advances in usability, Web developers, interactive marketers and customer service professionals can now quickly create everything from simple click-and-call buttons embedded into Web pages and e-mail to sophisticated call-routing and interactive-marketing solutions—transforming the SMB telephone into a powerful tool to increase lead generation, improve sales conversion and enhance customer experience. Based in Skokie, Ill., Ifbyphone offers hosted VAP services that are available directly at www.ifbyphone.com or through a network of value-added resellers for an affordable monthly fee, with no upfront costs. For more information click www.phone-me-now.com/8772955100 to speak to a sales professional or visit the company website at www.ifbyphone.com.

Contact:
Sue Huss, for Ifbyphone
sue.huss@comunicano.com
+1 619-379-4396

IFBYPHONE ON SQUAWK BOX

Irv Shapiro, CEO of Chicago-based Ifbyphone, spoke to Alec Saunders on the daily podcast, Squawk Box. Ifbyphone is a converged voice and Web solutions company (and Comunicano client) that helps businesses have an enterprise-level, but inexpensive, presence on the Web. Listen to Alec's conversation with Irv here: http://saunderslog.com/2008/03/27/squawk-box-march-27-guest-irv-shapiro-of-ifbyphone/.