Comunicano

VAPPS RELEASES HIDEF CONFERENCING PLUG-IN FOR OUTLOOK

Audioconferences With In-the-Room Sound Quality Can be Scheduled, Invitations Sent Through World Leader in E-mail/Calendar/Contact Software

HOBOKEN, N.J.–July 1, 2008—Vapps, Inc., provider of affordable, flat-rate audioconferencing services with lifelike, in-the-room sound quality, today announced the release of the HiDefConferencing.com plug-in for Microsoft Outlook®, the e-mail/calendaring program open and running on more desktops and mobile devices than any other.

With the new plug-in, two buttons link the Outlook client to the HiDefConferencing.com service and its functions:

• “Schedule HiDef Conference” opens up a regular Outlook meeting invitation. From this familiar interface, users can see in-company contacts’ availability; select attendees from in-company and Outlook Contact lists; select other attendees; set the meeting time; and send invitations with automatically entered meeting details.

• “Manage HiDef Account” opens up the www.hidefconferencing.com Web site in which HiDef Conferencing plans can be chosen, payments made, and conferencing preferences chosen.

During the meeting, the moderator has full use of conferencing controls and preferences via the HiDef Conferencing Web site. These include such choices as mute/unmute and record, and whether conferences should remain open after the moderator has left.

Meeting details typically include both Skype and PSTN conference numbers for attendees to call, since Vapps’ HD-C service uniquely conferences in both PSTN and Skype endpoints. Those attending via Skype enjoy unprecedented sound quality through the Vapps platform’s wideband connectivity.

Better-than-phone sound quality

“Wideband” connectivity transmits a frequency range of 16 KHz, more than four times richer than the 3.5 kHz of traditional PSTN copper wiring. Result: attendees hear four times better than they do over traditional telephones, feel more “present” and can better detect who is speaking. And as with any IP-to-IP voice call, they avoid local and international calling charges, a particular benefit to an international phone conference.

The expanded audio range also helps listeners understand speakers who have accents, and non-native speakers understand the conference language. In any language, it promotes comprehension and retention by alleviating the ear fatigue of long phone conferences, and transmits more of the speaker’s inflection, nuance, attitude and even physical motion at a table or around the room. 

“Outlook is by far the environment best known and most used for scheduling meetings all over the world,” said Ben Lilienthal, Vapps CEO. “People already know how to use it to choose attendees, send meeting invitations and accept them. Because of this—and because a growing number of those meetings will seek to avoid actual travel—it is the logical place for us to put links to our groundbreaking, great-sounding conferencing service.”

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About Vapps, Inc.
Vapps, Inc., based in Hoboken, N.J., provides managed audioconferencing solutions to the SMB, enterprise and service provider markets using its patent-pending, wide-band audioconferencing technology. Founded in 2003 by Ben Lilienthal and Jerry Norton, Vapps' flagship service is its High-Definition Conferencing (HD-C), the first and only high-definition, flat-rate audioconference offering that can conference together a mixed-participant group of PSTN phone and Skype users. 

For Skype-using participants, HD-C transmits a much richer, more “in-the-room” voice quality than can be achieved with traditional phones, dramatically improving the productivity of team collaboration. Vapps’ fees for an unlimited number of conferences and conference minutes start at a fixed $25 per month for 10 attendees and scale with the number of participants. For more information, please visit Vapps at http://www.vapps.com.

Contact:
Sue Huss
Comunicano, Inc.
sue.huss@comunicano.com
619-379-4396

VAPPS ADOPTS NEW BRAND: ‘HIGH-DEFINITION CONFERENCING’

Drops ‘High-Speed Conferencing’ to Better Reflect High-Quality Audioconferences

HOBOKEN, N.J.–May 14, 2008—Vapps, Inc., provider of affordable, flat-rate audioconferencing services with lifelike, in-the-room sound quality, today announced it has adopted High-Definition Conferencing (HD-C) as its new brand to better reflect the crisp, crystal-clear audio fidelity of its audioconferences via Skype™ Internet communications. High-Definition Conferencing replaces Vapps’ previous brand, High-Speed Conferencing, effective immediately.

“We want to let everyone know Vapps is raising the bar on sound quality in audioconferencing because we’re the only conferencing company able to give users a ‘high definition’ audio experience through Skype, while still admitting participants on any kind of phone,” said Vapps CEO Ben Lilienthal. 

“When we speak, our voices produce sound in the 20 Kilohertz (KHz) range and our ears hear 20 KHz, but the copper wiring of traditional telephone networks supports only 3.5 KHz. Our High-Definition Conferencing operates in the 16 KHz range for Skype audioconferencing, a quality difference you can easily hear. At the same time, we conference in traditional telecom users, so that no one is excluded.

“We believe it’s definitely a tool for improved productivity because High-Definition Conferencing participants tell us the clarity they’re experiencing lets them better understand everyone speaking, especially those with foreign accents,” he said. “It stands to reason that people who can hear each other more clearly will work together more efficiently. This is especially important for very large group meetings with more than 100 participants.”

Lilienthal said Vapps has a newly redesigned Website for users to learn about and sign up for High-Definition Conferencing:  www.hidefconferencing.com.

Vapps recently updated its Skype Extra, a plug-in that launches the full feature set of its Web-enabled service from within Skype. Those on Skype may click on the “Do More” menu option to open the HD-C plug-in, which will now appear and operate in Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish, in addition to English.

From that interface, they can start meetings on the spot, inviting fellow Skype users by sending automated chat messages. (Should Skype contacts be caught with their headphones unplugged, the chat invite offers a telephone phone number for joining the conference as well.) They can also click on the interface’s “schedule” button, auto-logging into the HD-C site, to schedule meetings of as many as 500 attendees and send e-mail invitations to others, as well as their Skype contacts. 

About Vapps, Inc.

Vapps, Inc., based in Hoboken, N.J., provides managed audioconferencing solutions to the SMB, enterprise and service provider markets using its patent-pending, wide-band audioconferencing technology. Founded in 2003 by Ben Lilienthal and Jerry Norton, Vapps' flagship service is its High-Definition Conferencing (HD-C), the first and only high-definition, flat-rate audioconference offering that can conference together a mixed-participant group of PSTN phone and Skype users.   

For Skype-using participants, HD-C transmits a much richer, more “in-the-room” voice quality than can be achieved with traditional phones, dramatically improving the productivity of team collaboration. Vapps’ fees for an unlimited number of conferences and conference minutes start at a fixed $25 per month for 10 attendees and scale with the number of participants.  For more information, please visit Vapps at http://www.vapps.com.
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VAPPS' BEN LILIENTHAL CHATS (IN HIGH-DEFINITION) WITH JIM COURTNEY ON SKYPE JOURNAL

Ben Lilienthal, CEO of Vapps, talks about the future of High-Definition Conferencing with Jim Courtney, editor of Skype Journal.  The audio quality of the conferencing service is captured in the recording of the phone interview: http://skypejournal.com/blog/images/VAPPS.SkypeJournal.BenL.2008-04-22.mp3

VAPPS UPDATES SKYPE EXTRA: HIGH-DEFINITION CONFERENCING TOOL LAUNCHES WITHIN SKYPE IN NINE LANGUAGES

With Skype’s Contact List, a Click and a New Multilingual Interface, Users Create Audioconferences in Which Two to 500 Sound Live and In-person

HOBOKEN, N.J.–April 22, 2008—Vapps, Inc., provider of affordable, flat-rate audioconferencing services with in-the-room sound quality, today announced an update of its Skype Extra, a plug-in that launches the full feature set of its High-Definition Conferencing (HD-C) service from within the globally adopted Skype™ Internet communications application. 

Vapps’ added HD-C to Skype’s Extras Gallery in October 2007, uniquely conferencing together public switched telephone network (PSTN) and Skype users for a value-priced flat monthly fee ranging from $25 for as many as 10 users to $200 for as many as 500. The convenience of Vapps’ Skype plug-in—with 100,000 registered users to date—encourages frequent, ad-hoc use, and along with the flat-rate pricing makes it easier for growing companies with remote teleworkers to manage costs.

Those on Skype may click on the “Tools/Do More” menu option to open the HD-C plug-in, which will now appear and operate in Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish, in addition to English. From that interface, they can start meetings on the spot, inviting fellow Skype users by sending automated chat messages. (Should Skype contacts be caught with their headphones unplugged, the chat invite offers a telephone phone number for joining the conference as well.) They can also click on the interface’s “schedule” button, auto-logging into the HD-C site, to schedule meetings of as many as 500 attendees and send e-mail invitations to others, as well as their Skype contacts. 

Better-than-phone sound quality

Skype-connected participants enjoy unprecedented sound quality through the Vapps platform’s wideband connectivity. The traditional phone system, with its century-old copper wiring, transmits a frequency range of only 3.5 kHz out of the 20 kHz or so the human ear can hear. With a range so clipped, “f” and “s” are indistinguishable, singing is tinny and people feel distant. Through the wideband data lines used by Skype and other VoIP providers, HD-C can fit a voice frequency range of 16KHz. Result: Attendees hear four times better, feel more “present” with more true-to-life sound and can better detect who is speaking. And as with any IP-to-IP voice call, they avoid local and international calling charges, a particular benefit to international phone conferences. 

The expanded audio range also helps listeners understand speakers who have accents, and non-native speakers understand the conference language. In any language, it promotes comprehension and retention by alleviating the ear fatigue of long phone conferences, and transmits more of the speaker’s inflection, nuance, attitude and even physical motion at a table or around the room.   

Vapps’ Skype Extra plug-in allows meeting coordinators to see who has joined or left, to mute and unmute participants and to record the conference. Attendees have their own HD-C browser-based controls with which to raise their hands, mute themselves and see who is on the conference.

To demonstrate high-definition voice quality to a conferencing public that has only known the phone, Vapps is offering a free, 10-day trial of its 25-user package. This provides unlimited conference calls for as many as 25 people on Skype and on the telephone. After ten days, users may sign up via credit card. Without sign-up, any further use of HD-C will be charged on a pay-as-you-go plan in cooperation with Skype, which will deduct four cents per minute of use from users’ Skype Credits on Vapps’ behalf.

“Millions of people have come to use and keep Skype running all day, every day,” said Ben Lilienthal, Vapps CEO. “The update of our plug-in in the Skype Extras Gallery encourages more people to use High-Definition Conferencing to the fullest extent and as often as possible, for the same monthly price. It attaches in-person-quality, crystal-clear audioconferencing, scalability, recording and playback capability, and professional moderation controls to the Skype contact list at a time when more and more business people are using Skype.”

About Vapps, Inc.

Vapps, Inc., based in Hoboken, N.J., provides managed audioconferencing solutions to the SMB, enterprise and service provider markets using its patent-pending, wide-band audioconferencing technology. Founded in 2003 by Ben Lilienthal and Jerry Norton, Vapps' flagship service is its High-Definition Conferencing (HD-C, www.highspeedconferencing.com), the first and only high-definition, flat-rate audioconference offering that can conference together a mixed participant group of PSTN phone and Skype users.   

For Skype-using participants, HD-C transmits a much richer, more “in-the-room” voice quality than can be achieved with traditional phones, dramatically improving the productivity of team collaboration. Vapps’ fees for an unlimited number of conferences and conference minutes start at a fixed $25 per month for 10 attendees and scale with the number of participants.  For more information, please visit Vapps at www.vapps.com.
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AUTOZONE SELECTS VAPPS, INC., AS SOLE PROVIDER OF ITS AUDIO CONFERENCING SOLUTION, SERVICING 4,000 LOCATIONS NATIONWIDE

NEW YORK (March 31, 2008) – Vapps, Inc., a leading provider of VoIP audio conferencing services worldwide, and AutoZone (NYSE: AZO), the nation's leading retailer and leading distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories, today announced that Vapps’ Conferencing Enterprise service will become the internal audio conferencing service for more than 4,000 retail AutoZone locations. 

Vapps’ Conferencing Enterprise solution was selected for its easy conference bridge customization, scalability and round-the-clock customer service.  The Conferencing Enterprise solution uses the same technology platform upon which Vapps’ flagship service HighSpeed Conferencing is built. HighSpeed Conferencing (www.highspeedconferencing.com) is a wideband, high-definition (HD) voice conferencing service that beta-launched in October 2007 for the SMB market with low, flat-rate pricing and superior, high definition (16 kHz) audio quality.   

“Vapps proved itself as a good choice for an audio conferencing solution that meets the needs of our business,” said AutoZone IT Director Randy Byrum. “The flexibility of the Vapps staff and the easy customization of the Conferencing Enterprise service made it the right choice for us.  It is a great product, which has many of the key features that you would find from a major telecom offering.”

AutoZone will use Vapps’ customized Conferencing Enterprise service to address its large number of retail locations, which will participate in frequent calls using a toll-free dial-in number, as well as for team meetings.

“AutoZone’s shift to Vapps is validation by an enterprise level customer for our mixed mode conference calling platform that blends IP based voice communications with the more established PSTN dial-in approach that has been around for years,” said Ben Lilienthal, CEO, Vapps, Inc. “Companies like AutoZone want to reduce cost, while increasing their capabilities. Now their team can meet anywhere in the world using the highest voice quality conference service from their computers, traditional landlines or mobile phones, depending on their situation. We’re giving AutoZone the best of both worlds, without any sacrifices, while also lowering their costs.”

Vapps’ cutting-edge audio conferencing solutions are also used by leading corporations, trade associations and non-profit organizations, including MSN, Yahoo! and Skype.  Vapps’ latest innovation, HighSpeed Conferencing (www.highspeedconferencing.com), is the only high-definition (HD) audio conferencing solution in the industry that allows as many as 500 audio conference attendees, including Internet users through VoIP products, such as Skype, toll and toll-free participants, into the same conference “room,” while providing the service at a low flat-rate price, starting at $25 per month.

About Vapps, Inc.

Vapps, Inc. is a technology company utilizing its patent-pending audio conferencing technology to provide managed audio conferencing solutions to the SMB, Enterprise and Service Provider markets.  Founded in 2003 by serial entrepreneurs Ben Lilienthal and Jerry Norton, VAPPS Conferencing is a turnkey hosted service that enables any business to cost-effectively make conference calls over the Internet or any telephone that approach the realism of in-person meetings – dramatically improving the productivity of team collaboration.   

About AutoZone

As of February 9, 2008, AutoZone sells auto and light truck parts, chemicals and accessories through 4,000 AutoZone stores in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in the U.S. and 128 stores in Mexico.

AutoZone is the leading retailer and a leading distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories in the United States. Each store carries an extensive product line for cars, sport utility vehicles, vans and light trucks, including new and remanufactured automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories, and non-automotive products. Many stores also have a commercial sales program that provides commercial credit and prompt delivery of parts and other products to local, regional and national repair garages, dealers, and service stations.  AutoZone also sells the ALLDATA brand diagnostic and repair software.  On the web, AutoZone sells diagnostic and repair information, and auto and light truck parts through www.autozone.com.  AutoZone does not derive revenue from automotive repair or installation.

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Contact:
Sue Huss
Comunicano
619-379-4396
Sue.huss@comunicano.com