Beautiful Barcelona Welcomes the VoxOx Team

And now, “we’re baaack …” and what a trip it was! Already a hip and trendy place, Barcelona welcomed VoxOx (and our new Universal Translator) with open arms!

Despite several, well, blunders affecting folks we were in the company of (one person having her purse snatched, some folks getting food poisoning, and one person not even being able to leave their country on account of their passport being revoked), nothing could throw us off track!

What amazed me about this trip was that almost everyone I spoke with about VoxOx had already heard of it. I imagine that’s how up-and-coming rock stars feel, to be greeted with a smile when folks realize who you are. What’s even more amazing is the amount of press attention we got at the show.

Walking around the show and peering in at some of the hundreds upon hundreds of booths, from infrastructure equipment manufacturers to mobile “adult content” vendors, it was all too obvious that mobile is where everything is going! That’s why it gave me great joy to tell reporters who asked “So, what’s your mobile strategy?” that VoxOx is completely platform independent and primarily runs “in the cloud.” What that means is, the infrastructure that runs the majority of VoxOx services does not run on the desktop, or on a mobile phone, but rather in the Internet cloud and can be accessed from virtually anywhere.

It is true that we are planning to launch apps for the iPhone, Android and other mobile phones, but more importantly, VoxOx has been built first and foremost to deliver a level of functionality that operates from any mobile phone, anywhere in the world, and not just “smartphones” that are operating on their local network with a (sometimes expensive or unavailable) data connection.

For example, imagine the billions of people around the world who are using phones that do not have “apps” at all, who want to place an inexpensive phone call while on the road. With VoxOx SMS CallBack, you can simply send a text message to a special number we give you, and then type in the number of the person you want to talk to. Within a minute, VoxOx calls you back and conferences you in with that person at astonishingly low VoIP rates.

Or imagine calling your VoxOx Personal Assistant from ANY phone and instructing it to call one of your contacts, create a 20-person conference call on the fly, change settings like your “Find Me” numbers, listen to your messages, dial directory assistance, and so on. No app to download or keep up to date, or to worry about a data connection for, and no need to continually launch something that takes over your phone whenever you want to access a feature.

One powerful example of VoxOx’s platform-independent mobile integration is the new VoxOx Universal Translator feature, which we launched at the show last week. From VoxOx, you can text someone in just about any country in your native tongue and the message will be translated to their language when they receive it. With NO app running on their phone (and, in fact, without them even needing to know what VoxOx is), their replies will instantly be translated back into YOUR native tongue – voila! If you think about the functionality a user wants in a mobile application, it’s often quite different than what they’d want in a desktop app. The media immediately “got it.” We kept hearing things like, “wow – there’s just NOTHING out there that covers the breadth of functionality that VoxOx does!”

So as I reflect back on the meetings and the comments about what the future looks like for us, my thoughts were validated on multiple levels. VoxOx seems to be the only player that has both the most advanced front-end technology (VoxOx) and back-end technology (the award-winning TelCentris cloud-based UC Service Delivery Platform) and that mobile is an increasingly important space that we will play in.

And now it’s time to get back to work… until next time!

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

follow Bryan Hertz twitter.com/bryanhertz

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

This looks to be on the heels of moves that Verizon has made with respect to Android phones that “opened” their network. AT&T had to emulate this in some way because of increasing regulatory pressure and their controversial positioning against Google Voice for blocking certain destinations with their calling service. AT&T is likely realizing that customer loyalty is more important than specific revenue streams, and there are two forces working in AT&T’s favor by being open:

(1) A vast majority of users probably won’t bother bypassing their calling plans on AT&T (or any operator) to install a VoIP application and use it to make calls. The overall risk from a business perspective is small in comparison to what something like this does for AT&T’s image.

(2) Over time, it is inevitable that all services will flow over a data connection. Fighting this concept is futile. The fact is, the customer is still using the AT&T network, and this might push more users to buy unlimited data plans to support these services. Most users will not get reliable enough service (yet) on a purely data plan, and without SOME sort of voice plan to rely on when the VoIP quality is not good enough (whenever there isn’t a very good 3G connection), the chances are they will be charging the customer the same or similar amount of money and providing less of the actual calling… this could convert to higher profit margins overall.

So embracing change as it happens keeps AT&T in a leadership position, and in the end they are not really risking much… they may even be increasing their average revenue per user as well as operating margins.

Do you agree? If you own (or will own) an iPhone, how likely are you to install a VoIP application for making cheaper calls?

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

follow Bryan Hertz twitter.com/bryanhertz

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

After many months of hard work, VoxOx 2 is finally out and ready for primetime! I am ecstatic. Thus far, the feedback has been beyond our expectations. In revamping VoxOx, we listened to your feedback and continued to develop cool ways to manage your communication overload. From now on, forget multiple screens, multiple IMs, multiple status updates – you can do it all from a single interface, and still keep your favorite programs running in the background. A few of my favorite new features include the Personal Assistant (if you haven’t seen her, she’s a cutie – but you can also change her personalty to a male voice), which can answer your calls and then screen or route them based on your preference and the caller. I also love the two-way worldwide texting from your VoxOx number and the really awesome Facebook, MySpace and Twitter IM integration. I think you’ll enjoy trying them all out, too!

As excited as we are (and we hope you are too!) about VoxOx 2, I should remind you that the product is in beta, so you may experience some minor glitches in your user experience. Any potential bumps in the road will only help us improve and propel our next version of VoxOx to even higher success.

At TelCentris, we are constantly growing and learning as a company, and trying to make our product the best it can be. We take our users’ feedback very seriously. We’ve listened to all of the issues and bugs you encountered with VoxOx, and coupled that with your very apt and innovative suggestions to make VoxOx 2 the most robust and user-friendly “Universal Communicator” service.

So readers, we’d like to hear from you. Don’t like a feature in VoxOx 2? Is something not working properly for you? Is there a feature you would love to have included? Share your thoughts and I will address some of your comments in my next blog entries.

Please get in touch – user comments, compliments, feedback and constructive criticism are all welcome!

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

follow Bryan Hertz twitter.com/bryanhertz

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

VoxOx CallBack comes in two flavors:

Web CallBack is useful when you have an internet connection and you can log into VoxOx or the VoxOx web portal. First I enter the “from” phone number (where I’m calling from) and the “to” phone number (who I want to call). Then it calls me back on the first number, connects the second number, and voilá, I’m on a live call using VoxOx, spending just a few pennies!

Next is SMS CallBack, which uses SMS text messages to initiate the call. It works in much the same way as Web CallBack. From any SMS-enabled phone (pretty much any mobile phone in the world), I send an SMS message to a special CallBack access phone number that all VoxOx users can use. In the body of the text message I type the phone number of the person I want to call, then send the SMS, and within 10 to 20 seconds my phone rings, and the person I’m trying to reach is connected. Magic!

A call from Thailand to the USA costs me 2.2 cents per minute. Compare that to the $1.40 per minute that AT&T would charge me on their normal plan, or $1.20 (yup, a whole 20 cent discount) if I had their “International” add-on plan.

Now I have to add a few details for accuracy…

In order for CallBack to work effectively in Asia, especially SMS CallBack, I had to buy a SIM card from a prepaid wireless carrier in the country where I landed. AT&T service works here, but it is horribly expensive and not nearly as much fun! So instead, I dropped the equivalent of $15 to pick up a SIM card and $10 worth of calling credit.

Now, in most cases that $10 worth of calling credit would last you 20 minutes calling the USA (if you’re lucky), and then it’s back to the mini mart to pick up another recharge voucher. That process normally repeats for business travelers looking to spend 50 cents per minute rather than $1.40 per minute, over and over again during their trip.

But I broke the cycle — the only expense I will incur on my purchased SIM card is the cost of sending VoxOx an SMS message. One SMS message per call, to be exact (about 10 cents per message).

So how can I receive calls of unlimited length from the VoxOx CallBack service on this SIM card (in my own cell phone) without it eating into my prepaid credit?

In most countries outside the United States, mobile customers do not pay for inbound calls. So all I do is send an SMS from my phone with the prepaid SIM card in it (as I described above), and VoxOx calls me right back on the same phone. (The cost of the inbound call to Thailand is only 1.2 cents per minute, charged to my VoxOx account.) When I answer the phone, I hear it ringing to the number I am trying to call (in my case I am primarily calling the States, which costs only 1 cent per minute for that part of the call). The total cost on my local SIM card is 10 cents for the entire call no matter how long I stay on the line (the cost of sending the SMS text message), and only 2.2 cents per minute is billed to my VoxOx account. It’d take an awful lot of calls for that to add up to anything that I’d lose sleep over!

So here I am using SMS CallBack on VoxOx to make calls while out and about, anywhere that is within cell phone range, and I still got some grief about my contacts not having a way to reach me easily while I am away. Of course that was intentional, but it didn’t last long! Most of my contacts know that VoxOx gives you a very cool way to allow your contacts to call you no matter where you are around the world. As soon as I got back to the hotel, I used the wi-fi voucher to connect to the Internet again, and opened VoxOx to set the feature up. All I had to do was enter my new local SIM card phone number into the VoxOx “Reach Me” settings and, when my contacts call my local San Diego VoxOx number, they ring straight through to me, all the way on the other end of the world. The cost to them for dialing a local San Diego number is the same as it always is. My cost for having VoxOx forward the call to me in Thailand is 1.2 cents per minute. You can’t beat that!

I hope this little anecdote sheds some light on how travelers can use VoxOx. I’ve heard too many stories about people being forced to spend more than $1 per minute to call home while traveling. Getting a $500 or $1000 phone bill after coming back from a vacation or business trip just doesn’t need to happen! If you’re like me, you won’t be worrying about the expense of communications while traveling anymore, you’ll be worrying about your family wanting to check you into the loony farm when you come home! I’d better go now, I certainly don’t want to be writing my next blog entry: “Live from the Loony Bin…”

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

follow Bryan Hertz twitter.com/bryanhertz

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

When I was traveling to Hong Kong, China, Thailand, and Singapore about 10 years ago, it was always an adventure finding a dialup connection to use in hotels. Today there’s usually wi-fi, although it is often grossly expensive and unreliable.

Back to 2009 — the first thing I did when I checked in was to buy a $50 wireless voucher card. That got me 30 hours of what turned out to be a horrific internet connection. Most of the time I had to wait an hour for my emails to send and then I’d turn the connection off to stop bleeding off the time I’d purchased. Naturally, while email was chugging along in the background at a snail’s pace, I had to try VoxOx to make a call. I have to admit I was expecting the call quality over this terrible connection to be awful, but, when the call dialed, connected, and I was on the phone with full 2-way communications, I was surprised at how good it actually sounded. For me it was slightly crackly, but for the party on the other end, it was “perfect, crystal clear”!

And of course, while using VoxOx to place this call (with my Bluetooth headset connected to my laptop, I should add), I was online and visible to all of my IM contacts. The instant messages started flying — ahhh, just like being at home…

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

follow Bryan Hertz twitter.com/bryanhertz

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

• Nielsen Mobile reports that text messaging (sending and receiving) is up 450 percent, in the past two years.
• IT Facts says that there will likely be 100 million mobile VoIP (voice over IP) users by 2011.
• 87 percent of all teens engage in some form of electronic communication! Those teens are tomorrow’s interns and salespeople and managers and CEOs…

…And product managers! I wanted to get an idea of how a professional who’s also a Millennial deals with communication overload, so I asked VoxOx Product Manager Bryan Mathews (who’s in his mid-twenties) to take a “snapshot” of his day so we could all see just how crazy it can get.

• Phone: 20-30 calls
• IM: more than 12 conversations (more than 100 total messages)
• Social network notifications: 30-60
• Email: more than 200
• Texts (SMS): 20-50

He tells me it’s hard to manage all his networks (he belongs to more than 12).

He says,

“I really only focus on the two or three that have the most contacts for me. Some of my friends are on every network out there, while others belong to just one and they refuse to join any others. So finding my contacts can get frustrating when jumping from one service to another.”

Of course, VoxOx is all about easing this sense of overload, so Bryan M.’s definitely in the right place!

So what kind of volume do you see every day with your different personal communications channels? Do you ever feel like you’re neglecting a contact if you don’t respond immediately? Tell me about it here.

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

follow Bryan Hertz twitter.com/bryanhertz

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox