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VOXOX Blog

Back from the Big Show: a CES Recap

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Jan 12, 2010

Mini flying helicopters, giant video game screens, multi-colored lights, thumping music and tens of thousands of people. Some sort of amusement park or arcade attraction? Nah, just another year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the biggest technology and gadget confab in the world.


A small contingent from Voxox attended the four-day event in Las Vegas last week, meeting with press, analysts and other parties to show off the second version of our Voxox Personal Assistant, a productivity tool that helps you better manage your voice communications. Think Google Voice, but richer and more robust. The enhanced version adds remote access functionality, which is key because it takes Voxox off the desktop and allows you to access your personal assistant from any mobile phone.


The show was big success. And now that we've recovered (on sleep at least; my wallet is still way too light after hitting the craps tables), I wanted to share some of our experiences, including select press coverage and random photos I took with my iPhone.

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Topics: Voxox, Events

Voxox Personal Assistant Version 2 Just Launched at CES!

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Jan 07, 2010

We all like to be in control, right? If you’ve been reading our blog here, you’ve seen that it’s kind of a running theme for us. We want our users to stop feeling inundated by their various phones, email accounts, instant messaging accounts, etc., and start feeling in control of all of their gadgets. Sort of like bringing the communication mountain to you, instead of trekking up that communication mountain like Tenzing Norgay cursing Sir Edmund Hillary while….Ok…sorry, this metaphor got away from me. I digress.


With the newest beta release of Voxox we have a way for you, our users, to really manage your phone calls, emails…everything, and we even give you a nice little electronic person to do it for you -- it’s called the Voxox Personal Assistant, and it can do a million things (ok, maybe not a million...but a lot) to help you get everything in order. For example, it lets you design and customize the calling experience for each contact. This means that you tell your assistant to send your boss to your work line, where he hears a ring tone you set for him, with a highly professional voicemail that he’ll hear when you purposely don’t take his/her call. Your best friend on the other hand hears a different ring tone, a highly inappropriate voicemail greeting, and can be linked directly to your cell (if you want) or all of your phones at once. Two totally different calling experiences, one number. To borrow a phrase from the tech world, that’s the real “meat and potatoes” of the feature. (Actually, I don’t think that’s a tech term at all).



Below are a few things in the Voxox Personal Assistant that will let you be the boss of your communications instead of the other way around. 

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Topics: Company Announcements, Voxox, Events

CES Bound!

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Jan 06, 2010

If your a gadget geek at all, you know what the acronym CES stands for: Consumer Electronics Show. Held every year in Las Vegas, the show is perhaps the biggest gadget-fest in the world. It's huge, attracting as many as 150,000 people. All the major consumer technology players, from Google to Microsoft to Sony, will be there showing off their latest wares.

Guess who else will be there? The Voxox team. That's right, a small contingent of us will be at the mega-event, showing off an important new Voxox capability that enables consumers to better manage their communications. We'll be making an announcement tomorrow morning. Sorry, I can't say anything more until then, but stay tuned to this blog and also follow our updates on Twitter (@voxox).
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Topics: Voxox, Events

Keep on Voxing in the New Year!

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Dec 30, 2009

As the holidays snowball into the New Year, we all look back at the year, and the decade that was, and what lies ahead. Now, this last decade (the “Aughts”? “Double Zero’s?) was a doozie: terrorism, stock market booms, more war, stock market crashes, mohawks … a bit much for a 10-year span. But it hasn’t been all bad. We also saw an explosion in the world of personal communication, with innovative new ways to keep ourselves in the loop ... but none of them do it quite like Voxox. So here are a few ways to use your Voxox for 2010 and beyond.



Let everyone know about your New Years plans with Voxox social networking, but without having to repeat yourself … at least manually. Just enter your status into the status bar (in the global setting) on Voxox once, and you’re all good. All the networks you have programmed into your Voxox will be updated, saving you time to get ready.



You know how Australia is always the first country to celebrate the New Year? (This would probably be true even if they weren’t 20 hours ahead). Wouldn’t it be cool to call your buddy in Sydney, in a different decade than the one you’re in? How about wishing happy New Year to your friends anywhere else around the globe as it happens? Use SMS callback while you’re out, or one of our money-saving calling plans if you’re at home, to call your friends and family wherever they are for practically pennies per minute.

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Topics: Voxox

Voxox Video: "Personalizing Voxox in 3 Easy Steps"

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Dec 07, 2009

Ever wonder how you can customize Voxox to make it more personal and user friendly, including something as simple as adding your profile picture? You've come to the right blog post. Check out this short screencast on how you can infuse a little more of your personality into Voxox.



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Topics: Voxox

Traveling This Holiday Season? Voxox Just Upped Its Travel Game

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Dec 02, 2009

Hi gang! Today we announced some feature enhancements geared at international travelers, just in time for the holidays! Check out our recent traveler-related developments below…


• Have you heard of SMS CallBack? It’s a feature that really differentiates Voxox from services like Skype and Google Voice because it doesn’t tie you to the desktop to make calls! With SMS CallBack, you can call internationally for pennies per minute from pretty much any mobile phone around the globe – no Internet connection required. In fact, The New York Times’ Frugal Traveler tested the service in August and called the feature his favorite new way to call home while traveling. Once you’re set up, all you need is a local SMS-enabled cell phone and you can place calls from any supported location. What’s new today is that we’ve now made a bunch of usability improvements, including upgrading our web portal and making the Voxox SMS CallBack number an easy to remember “vanity” phone line - (323) 335-5555. 

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Topics: Communication, Voxox

Leveraging LinkedIn APIs to Improve Social Networking Aggregation

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Nov 23, 2009



LinkedIn Launched its New LinkedIn Platform Today

LinkedIn made an important and long-awaited move today when it announced the launch of its LinkedIn Platform and access to its LinkedIn APIs.



The platform will enable developers to easily create web applications and tools that leverage LinkedIn’s unique community of more than 50 million business professionals. Such platforms were key in the evolving success of Facebook, Twitter and other networks.



For Voxox, this means we can soon integrate LinkedIn into our core social networking capabilities. If you didn’t know, Voxox enables consumes to unify all of their communication channels – voice, video, text, chat, email, fax, etc. -- into a single interface. As part of this, we empower users to update all of their social networks with the single click of a mouse.

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Topics: Voxox

We've launched a CLEC! (The "So What?" for Voxox Users)

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Nov 12, 2009

TelCentris, the company that created Voxox, today announced that it’s rolling out a national CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier). A CLEC is a phone company that has regulatory approval from the state Public Utilities Commission where it operates that enables it to compete against traditional carriers, such as AT&T.

So what does this mean for Voxox users?

TelCentris' CLEC status will provide significant advantages over similar services like Skype and Google Voice. For example, with an operating CLEC, TelCentris can issue its own phone numbers to users (you get a free one upon signup), instead of having to rent them from other providers as many of our competitors do. This provides cost advantages we can pass on to users (Voxox already has the lowest domestic calling plan in the industry). Another benefit is that because we control our own infrastructure (network + CLEC), we are more in control of quality and reliability and providing a better overall customer experience. Our national CLEC roll-out is not complete yet, but we will keep you posted on its status.

Today's announcement is just one example of how TelCentris is thinking strategically about how it can better serve customers over the long run.
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Topics: Voxox

Vote Early, Vote Often -- Voxox for Best Social Media Gadget

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Nov 11, 2009

Voxox, as you know, does many things well. One of the things it does really well is enable you to aggregate and integrate your social networks and instant messaging clients. With Voxox, you can easily see what your friends and colleagues are doing across different networks, from Twitter to Facebook to AOL, as well as update your entire "status-phere" with the push of a button. Do you agree? Then please vote for Voxox as Best Social Media Gadget in Mashable's 2009 Open Web Awards. Just click on the banner above, and then click on the 'submit and tweet' button. You can vote everyday until Nov. 15th.


Thank you!

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Topics: Voxox

5 Tools to Help You Manage Social Networking

Posted by Tristan Barnum on Nov 09, 2009

NOTE: Updated on 11-11-09 to include Ping.fm.


I heard a great catch phrase at the recent Blog World & New Media Exp in Las Vegas: “status-phere.”


Put forth by PR and social media strategist/author Brian Solis (@briansolis) during one of the keynote panels, it instantly struck a chord.


Status-phere. To me, it’s defines the work aspect of social media.


To engage, contribute, share and generally participate within social media and social networking, you must typically update some type of status, whether it’s up to 140 characters on Twitter (and on LinkedIn for that matter), or a general status update on Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, MSN or the myriad of other networks out there.



So how to contend with the all-consuming “status-phere”? How to participate effectively in social media and its many benefits without making it a part- or full-time job (not to mention putting up with a confusing array of browser windows and desktop clients)?



One way is to focus on the specific networks you find valuable. Another is to leverage an increasing number of tools that can help manage the task. These include services that can help manage multiple accounts on the same network (usually Twitter), and those that aggregate and help simplify updates to multiple networks.



Here’s a short list below. We’d love to hear your recommendations:




HootSuite's Tabbed Layou


HootSuite – This web-based application is an extremely handy tool for managing multiple Twitter accounts. We use it at TelCentris to manage our consumer (Voxox) and business-to-business accounts, easily toggling back and forth between our different profiles. It allows you to schedule Tweets to any of your accounts, as well as create shortened, trackable URLs.


Ping.fm - I missed this one initially, but Ping.fm is one of the more comprehensive tools for integrating and aggregating your social networking clients, everything from Twitter to Bebo to Delicious. A recent test to update Facebook and LinkedIn simultaneously went swimmingly. Ping.fm also purports to handle instant messaging and SMS as well. One thing I like is the ability to search and post song links.



Trillian Astra – Known more for its ability to chat across multiple IM (instant messaging) networks at the same time, Trillian, which has been around since 2001, also has added functionality to update your Facebook, Twitter and Skype accounts. Although available for the iPhone, Trillian fans are still waiting for a Mac version.



TweetDeck – TweetDeck continues to add new functionality to help you integrate your social networks. TweetDeck was one of the first to add Facebook functionality. They recently added MySpace. If you like managing your social networks in a power dashboard format, TweetDeck is good option.



TweetMiner – Like HootSuite, TweetMiner enables you to manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single interface. I like TweetMiner mostly because of its simplified interface, and the way it allows you to search and post interesting news articles to your followers. You can manage up to five accounts, or upgrade to get increased functionality.




Voxox Enables Users to Update Social/IM Networks


Voxox – You’re probably not surprised to find Voxox on this list. Still in beta, Voxox provides powerful functionality to update multiple social networks from one interface. They include Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, as well as MSN and Yahoo (both of which are turning their email portals into quasi-social networks). Like Trillian, Voxox also enables you to update all major IM networks. It also goes one (or two) steps further by providing free Internet calling and better-than-Google Voice-type features. All from a single, unified interface.



‘Status-phere’ got you bogged down? Try these tools to help you ease your communication overload.



Do you have other tools to recommend? We’d love to hear them.
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Topics: Voxox