Comunicano

Samsung Canada Channel Partners To Offer “Calliflower” Conferencing With New Laptops

In Exclusive Deal, Samsung Canada Resellers To Offer Multimedia, Social-Network-Style Conferencing Service to Purchasers of Select Netbooks and Laptops

OTTAWA, CANADA. (Mar 9., 2010) – iotum announced today that Calliflower, its interactive conferencing and collaboration service, will be promoted through the VAR and system integrator channels of Samsung Canada. Under an exclusive agreement from March 1^st to April 30^th, 2010,, Samsung resellers will offer purchasers of selected Samsung netbooks and laptops the first year of Calliflower service free, and will receive commissions when their customers sign up. 

Calliflower, applies an engaging, social-networking-style visual interface to the task of conferencing and collaboration, and under standard pricing charges a $50 US   monthly flat rate for unlimited use for up to two organizers.   Participants can join through local access phone numbers in major Canadian cities and around the world, or via Skype into a single conference, all while sharing presentations, documents, links, and chats with all those remotely assembled.

Calliflower’s  intuitive controls also allow participants to see the status of other callers and raise hands to request the floor, while also providing call recording, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

“This partnership is a great way to grow customer relationships for our small-business retailers and system integrators, by offering another powerful, money-saving tool alongside our laptops and netbooks,” said Michael Dodgson, Product Marketing Manager for Netbooks at Samsung Canada. “We also see the chance to promote great Canadian technology in a space – teleworking --  that’s very much in demand.”

iotum CEO Alec Saunders, for his part, acknowledged that Samsung Canada’s promotion would provide a great boost to Calliflower’s long-term user base. “We’re so confident in the service and the sales channel, that we’re willing to offer the first year’s service for free – a $600 dollar value,” he said.

Samsung Canada resellers and retailers will have customers sign up for Calliflower through a web site, entering PC serial numbers for proof of purchase and downloading the client software.

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About iotum

iotum is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. 

 About Samsung Electronics Canada Inc.

Samsung Electronics Canada, Inc. (SECA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., markets a broad range of award-winning digital consumer electronics, information systems, telecommunications and home appliance products. SECA upholds Samsung’s mission to provide consumers with innovative digital convergence products that possess exceptional technology, quality, features, performance and value.

Samsung has been a global TOP sponsor of the Olympic Games since 1998 and has been a presenting sponsor of the Olympic Torch Relay from 2004 to 2008.  Also through Samsung’s Four Seasons of Hope charity, Samsung helps athletes and celebrities raise funds for their respective charities, including the Wayne Gretzky Foundation in Canada.  Samsung is also a proud sponsor of Hockey Canada.

For customer service inquiries, please call 1-800-SAMSUNG (1-800-726-7864), and for more information, please visit www.samsung.com.

 

 

FREETALK Connect Alliance Formed at IT EXPO 2010 with 14 Charter Members; Open Alliance Members Will Offer Products and Services that Leverage FREETALK Connect, Voice 2.0 Applications and Cloud-Based Services

  

 Members will offer innovative products and cloud-based services that interoperate with FREETALK Connect via Asterisk, Skype, SIP, Skype for SIP, or PSTN

MIAMI, January 21, 2010 — FREETALK® and 13 other companies today announced the formation of the FREETALK Connect Alliance, an open alliance of companies that will provide innovative applications, products and services to expand the capabilities of the FREETALK Connect communications system. The alliance is open to companies that offer products and services which build on the capabilities of the FREETALK Connect, “Voice 2.0” in concept, and can interoperate with Asterisk, Skype™, SIP, Skype for SIP or the PSTN.

The FREETALK Connect simplifies set up, enabling small business users that are not tech savvy to use it quickly and simply, without formal training. Supported telephones are plugged into the company’s network and the FREETALK Connect auto-detects and configures them. An on-screen wizard then guides the customer through a few business-related questions that help configure the company’s communication system and enables Skype calling from every supported desktop phone in the office. Adding users and administering the system after installation is just as easy.

The FREETALK Connect Alliance opens the door for many new developers, service providers, including cloud computing and Internet communications providers to offer new and innovative applications, products and services for businesses of any size. These will be available later this year in the U.S. through the FREETALK Connect Store (http://www.freetalkconnect.com) and the Skype Shop (http://skype.com/shop), both of which are operated by In Store Solutions.

The charter members of the FREETALK Connect Alliance include:

•    AbbeyNet/Sitofono (Italy)
•    Cloudvox (USA)
•    FlatPlanet Phone Company (Israel)
•    FREETALK (Spain)
•    IfByPhone (USA)
•    In Store Solutions (Hong Kong)
•    Iotum/Calliflower (Canada)
•    Jazinga (Canada)
•    Skype (Luxembourg)
•    Tatung (Taiwan)
•    Thomas Howe’s Light and Electric (USA)
•    Voxeo (US)
•    Voxygen (UK)
•    Voxbone (Belgium)

“The FREETALK Connect Alliance members are building an entire ecosystem of products, applications and services around the FREETALK Connect communications system,” said Andrew Hansen, B2B manager at FREETALK. “The Alliance’s products and services build on, and powerfully leverage, the strengths of each other, and the market reach of the extremely affordable, fully featured and self-configuring FREETALK Connect.”

Companies that want more information about this alliance, or want to join the FREETALK Connect Alliance should contact FREETALK at alliance@instoresolutions.com.  

About FREETALK
FREETALK is a product innovation catalyst – identifying market gaps and working with its global partners to design, manufacture and quickly bring to market products that disrupt traditional categories.  Leveraging untapped market opportunities, FREETALK products are designed to be environmentally friendly, sold online and delivered globally at aggressive price-points. Always at the forefront of innovation, FREETALK is known for creating synergistic products that add unique value to its partners’ branded points-of-sale.

About Skype
Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Every day, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Download Skype to your computer or mobile phone at skype.com.

Access to a broadband Internet connection is required. Skype is not a replacement for traditional telephone services and cannot be used for emergency calling. Skype for SIP is meant to complement existing traditional telephone services used with a corporate PBX, not as a stand-alone solution. Skype for SIP users need to ensure all calls to emergency services are terminated through traditional fixed line telephone services, connected to the local exchange, or through other emergency calling capable telephone services.

Skype, associated trademarks and logos and the “S” symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited.

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

iotum Adds Skype Access to Calliflower Conferencing Calling

Calliflower’s Interactive, Collaborative Conference Calls Can Now be Reached Via Skype ID or Web Button

MIAMI, Fla. (Jan. 21, 2010) -- iotum™ announced today at IT EXPO an open beta program through which customers can access their highly interactive Calliflower conference calls via Skype.  Calliflower, which applies a social-networking-style visual interface to the task of conferencing and collaboration, can now be reached from any Skype-enabled PC or phone as well as from traditional PSTN phones. 

Previously, participants could only dial into Calliflower conferences through PSTN access numbers, potentially incurring local charges.  In regions or countries where no such access numbers are available, customers would incur long-distance and even international charges, or use up Skype-out minutes calling access numbers overseas.  Now callers can access Calliflower through a Skype ID – CalliflowerSkype – or via a web button in the Calliflower UI, overcoming this disadvantage.

“We’ve had many requests from potential Calliflower customers who had no local access numbers, especially from  parts of Africa, India, China and the Middle East,” said Alec Saunders, iotum CEO. “Now, as long as they have Skype, that doesn’t matter anymore.” 

In addition, users gain from the better audio quality they will enjoy through direct Skype access, as well as from all the visual information, documents and presentations that are shared through Calliflower’s interactive dashboard. These tools go a long way toward improving understanding on international conference calls.

Available on PC, Mac and iPhone, Calliflower makes organizing and participating in multi-party calls simple and engaging.  It allows participants to see the status of other callers and raise hands to request the floor, while also providing interactive chat, document sharing, intuitive conference controls, call recording, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

The conference service is available on an unlimited basis for $50 per month for two organizers. Additional organizers cost $25 per month each.

 

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About iotum

iotum is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. 

 

 

iotum Supercharges Online Conferencing Service for Event Holders, Entrepreneurs and Enterprises

New Software Release Facilitates Seminars, Press Conferences, Classes and More

 Ottawa (Sept. 23, 2009) –Web meetings innovator iotum today announced powerful new software that simplifies and enriches its Calliflower service for use by current and prospective online event holders and enterprises.

The versatile collaboration service now allows users to add and change moderators on-the-fly, schedule recurring calls and easily expand online meetings by including participants who are not Calliflower subscribers.

This takes Calliflower farther beyond plain vanilla offerings in a crowded field of one-dimensional conference calling services. It’s already widely used for multifaceted meetings that can include document sharing, text chat and more with far-flung employees and customers. Mobile users can join using their iPhones.

One current customer, inmedia Public Relations Inc., uses Calliflower for internal, media and client calls and now plans to use the new features to enrich a variety of online business meetings and sees events in its future.

"We see the enriched Calliflower service as an enabler for large events for us,’’ said inmedia Managing Partner Francis Moran. “With offices and clients in three countries, and regular contact with journalists just about everywhere in the world, we’ve already found Calliflower to be powerful, easy-to-use and extremely cost effective.”

“This software release is designed to optimize Calliflower for those seeking to hold events online, such as seminars, classes and press and investor relations gatherings, in a simple and effective manner for organizers and participants,” commented iotum CEO Alec Saunders.

Powerful New Features

iotum has added Simple Sign-in that enables those that aren’t subscribers to Calliflower to easily join events powered by the service.

Targeted at large online gatherings which often include participants from around the world, Calliflower’s new Co-Moderator feature enables one-click sharing or changing of moderators while meetings are in progress. The feature can be used in calls where multiple participants need the floor to give presentations or where one user presents while another manages the ongoing call.

Calliflower’s new Recurring Call Scheduling feature enables event organizers to quickly and easily create and keep events compelling by setting regularly held conference calls. This eliminates repetitive tasks and lets organizers ensure consistency for even the largest online events.

The new features are now available to Calliflower Premium users and are accessed using the company’s function-rich dashboard.

Calliflower Premium is currently available in 31 countries and over 130 cities in Europe, Asia, and North and South America thanks to a sweeping network expansion announced in late June.

Calliflower Premium is priced at $50 per month, for two organizers, with a no-risk 14-day free trial period. Additional organizers cost $25 per month each.

For more information on conference calling collaboration services with Calliflower, visit http://www.calliflower.com.

About iotum

iotum is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want

 

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The Voice 2.0 Manifesto: Then and Now

And why the mobile browser is the key to easy application development

Do you remember just how amazingly different the Internet and mobility were in 2005?   Facebook, a fresh new entry on the social network scene with fewer than 4M members, had just allowed high school students to join; MySpace had been purchased by News Corp earlier that year; Google’s IPO was just one year earlier; eBay acquired Skype; Evan Williams hadn’t yet thought about creating Twitter; the term “Web 2.0” was new; and, oh yeah, that was still two years before Apple launched a little thing called the iPhone.

I’m taking this trip down memory lane because of Alec Saunders’ speech at eComm 2009.  Saunders, the CEO of iotum, took a retrospective look back at the Voice 2.0 Manifesto he had authored all the way back in 2005, to see how far we’ve come.   We’ve come a long way, baby.

Manifesto Destiny

Back in 2005, Saunders’ basic idea was that voice would be commoditized, and that a “long-tail” market of applications like what we now call voice mashups would ultimately be the real value in the network.  It was a very user-focused vision, and included these elements:  presence (noting when people are available to have a conversation), the ability for users to provision their own directory entries (back in the day when operators controlled the directory listings), and technologies like scripting languages and XML (which could be the foundation for call control).

In his speech at eComm 2009, Saunders assessed how much progress had been made:

Long-Tail Market of Applications.  The Voice 2.0 Manifesto said that all kinds of interesting applications would be built and communities would spring up around them and that would be where the real value was going to be created.  How did we do?  There’s definitely a long-tail market for applications today.  You just have to look at Skype marketplace or the iPhone application store or what Calliflower (iotum’s product) is doing.  That happened.

Presence. Progress is uneven.  Skype is the exemplar of the implementation of presence in the market today.  Everyone’s got it on their desktop.  But Twitter shows us that people are very interested in more granular information about what people were doing – not simply availability info.  In some ways what Phweet has done in being able to trigger a call based on a Twitter message is much more akin to what people want with presence.  Thus, progress has been uneven on presence.

User-managed identity.  These days, on any social network, you can create a profile and hang any contact information off it (phone, email, and it has completely escaped the operator’s control.

Scripting. The state of the art in programming has advanced dramatically, with Jaduka, Adhearsion, Twillio, Tropo, Ribbit… and the list goes on.  There’s a growing consensus that voice applications ought to be easy to build.

Made Manifest by the Web Browser

Iotum’s experience in building voice applications is that it’s easy to build applications quickly by using browser-based and open source tools. Iotum’s product, Calliflower, is such a browser-based application. The application server is a Rail server running on Linux, Apache, and MySql; the interactive components are all delivered  through MQ, an open source queuing package; the call flow server and the bridge are provided by ThinkEngine; and the streaming server which enables document sharing is hosted at Amazon Web Services.   Using this collection of highly distributed tools, iotum is able to create sophisticated voice applications in just 10-12 weeks.

This is night and day from iotum’s tortuous experience developing the same applications for the BlackBerry, where they encountered extreme platform and channel fragmentation. Every single version of the BlackBerry device may have a different implementation of the OS, and that leads to extreme channel fragmentation when marketing to carriers. It was a problem that was untenable for a company iotum’s size, so it gave up.

By contrast, once Apple had launched the iPhone, iotum was able to develop Calliflower in just 10 weeks as a wrapper around the embedded Safari browser, which is why Saunders concluded his speech by saying that “all the other handset manufacturers are going to have to come up with a standard like the one that Apple has created.

Alec Saunders can reached at alec@iotum.com, or 613-482-9088.

eCOMM 2009: COMUNICANO CLIENT PRESENTATIONS

This collection of presentations from eComm 2009 indicates the diverse expertise of our clients. From "deep dialing" to CRM over voice, from video on the iPhone to cloud telephony -- there's something for everyone's taste in tech.

Fonolo: Shai Berger's Presenation at eComm09

View more presentations from ShaiBerger.

Mobivox: Peter Diedrich’s Presentation at eComm 2009

View more presentations from eCommConf.

Global IP Solutions: Jan Linden’s Presentation at eComm 2009

View more presentations from eCommConf.

Alec Saunders’s Presentation at eComm 2009

View more presentations from eCommConf.

IOTUM TURNS CONFERENCE CALL REFERRALS INTO CASH AND LAUNCHES CALLIFLOWER AFFILIATE MARKETING NETWORK

OTTAWA, Canada (Feb. 10, 2008) -- iotum™ developers of the acclaimed Calliflower Web-based interactive conferencing service today unveiled the Calliflower Affiliate Marketing Network, featuring commission sales opportunities for Calliflower users and resellers.  

With free conference calls, an innovative Web-based conference call dashboard, flat-rate pricing for unlimited global meetings, unlimited international conference calls, local dial-in numbers, document sharing and a mobile version for iPhone, Calliflower has pioneered a new category of interactive conferencing for business and social networks.  In November of 2008, Calliflower Premium was launched.  Sold exclusively direct, until now, Calliflower’s new affiliate program is designed to help associations, Internet marketers, resellers and enthusiasts profit by promoting Calliflower Premium to their networks of customers, associates and friends.

“Calliflower helps business people have better, more engaging and productive meetings. In today’s economy where we are trying to do more with less, Calliflower makes the difference,” said iotum CEO Alec Saunders. “Calliflower is a natural offering for affiliate marketing, because it’s so useful and easy to sell – everyone makes conference calls.”

The Calliflower Affiliate Network pays affiliates a monthly recurring commission on all sales of Calliflower. For each month that users subscribe to the Premium Edition of Calliflower, the affiliate earns a commission of 25 percent of the revenue received by iotum. Calliflower affiliates can earn additional revenues by signing new affiliates to the Calliflower Affiliate Network as well.

“With Calliflower, our affiliate partners should be able to build a nice recurring monthly income by simply helping their customers, associates and friends to have better online meetings,” said Saunders. 

To sign up for the Calliflower Affiliate Network, visit http://www.calliflower.com/affiliate_network.

Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAzuUvTZh4c

ABOUT IOTUM

iotum, a Voice 2.0 company, sets out to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. iotum’s business is to design and provide a simple, supportive and intuitive environment to enrich business conversations. iotum’s products and services bring greater meaning and productivity to typically stale and static multiparty communications and meet the growing teleconferencing needs of a broad range of customers across many industries. iotum’s flagship service, Calliflower, makes it easy for people to plan and participate in engaging and meaningful conference calls that bridge business and social networks, and follow up afterward.

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CONTACT: Alec Saunders, CEO – alec@iotum.com, 613-482-9099

IOTUM ANNOUNCES GENERAL AVAILABILITY OF CALLIFLOWER CONFERENCING ON IPHONE™

OTTAWA, Canada (Feb. 3, 2008) -- iotum™ today announced that its innovative Calliflower conference-calling service is now mobile and available to Apple® iPhone™ users.

With free conference calls, flat rate pricing for unlimited global meetings, local dial-in numbers and document sharing, Calliflower has pioneered a new category of Web-based interactive conferencing. Now, Calliflower on iPhone makes organizing and participating in multi-party calls simple and engaging by allowing participants to see the status of other callers, along with features such as interactive chat, intuitive conference controls, recordings, call archives, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

“Users have told us what they like most about Calliflower is that it brings together all the key elements they need for meaningful collaboration into an easy-to-use interactive dashboard,” said iotum CEO Alec Saunders. “Now we’re liberating Calliflower conference calling from the desktop and extending all of its features to the world’s most powerful mobile device.”

“Now iPhone users can easily participate in and manage Calliflower conference calls wherever they are and have the full richness of the Calliflower experience in a mobile environment”, said Saunders. “As of today, Calliflower Mobile on iPhone is in the iPhone App Store.”

Calliflower on the iPhone is free. Users can download Calliflower on iPhone by visiting the iPhone App Store and searching for Calliflower Once loaded on the iPhone, users can create a new Calliflower account from the iPhone, or existing Calliflower users can simply log in using their current Calliflower account.

Calliflower on iPhone Screenshots

View this photo: Launch screen

View this photo: Scheduled calls

View this photo: Dashboard

View this photo: Controls

ABOUT IOTUM
iotum, a Voice 2.0 company, sets out to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. iotum’s business is to design and provide a simple, supportive and intuitive environment to enrich business conversations. iotum’s products and services bring greater meaning and productivity to typically stale and static multiparty communications and meet the growing teleconferencing needs of a broad range of customers across many industries. iotum’s flagship service, Calliflower, makes it easy for people to plan and participate in engaging and meaningful conference calls that bridge business and social networks, and follow up afterward.

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VATOR.TV CAPTURES COMUNICANO CLIENTS AT "UNDER THE RADAR"

For those who couldn’t make it to yesterday’s “Under the Radar,” Vator.TV offers a chance to see what you missed. Check out Bambi Francisco's interviews of Comunicano clients iotum, Mobivox and Palringo.

• iotum’s Alec Saunders unveils iPhone capability for his company’s Calliflower conference-calling service.
• Peter Diedrich and Larry Lisser of Mobivox talk about the company’s business-model evolution, including recent partnerships.
• Palringo CEO Kerry Ritz tells viewers that Palringo makes instant messaging work on mobile, and explains why that’s so important.

iNUM IS FOCUS OF SQUAWK BOX PODCAST

iNum was the focus of the Nov. 11 Squawk Box podcast, featuring Rod Ullens from Voxbone—which just announced the availability of its iNum service, with the +883 global country code. Also on the call were Truphone’s Tom Carter and Peter Diedrich of Mobivox, representing two of the many providers that are integrating iNum into their own platforms. And of course, Calliflower—which is the conferencing service supporting Squawk Box—just announced it will also use Voxbone's iNum service for international calls. Check out the podcast here.