Archive for November, 2009

Caller ID 2.0 powered by LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | located in Features | 1 Comment »

Phones are by nature social so when we decided to turn your browser into a phone we couldn’t resist bringing together the callers social feeds with the phone call - and inventing Caller ID 2.0. When a call comes in, Ribbit Mobile will reach into the social web and bring you the recent LinkedIn updates, Facebook updates, Tweets, and Flickr photos of the person calling you. Ribbit Mobile lets you know not just who is calling but what the caller has been up to on the web.

In the settings, members enter Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr credentials (securely with OAuth, of course) and Ribbit Mobile takes care of the rest by looking into the members accounts and finding matches as calls are made. If more than one match is found, Ribbit Mobile will ask you to select the right person.

Are there other social feeds you’d like us to include in our Caller ID 2.0 feature? Post your suggestions in the comments below, or add them to the ideawall. We’d love to expand this feature out and appreciate any feedback you have.

Because Some Days I’d Rather Talk than Type

Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | located in Features | No Comments »

As a writer, I spend hours every day typing. Tap, tap, tap – my hamster wheel is a keyboard. But alas, the muse doesn’t always arrive when I need her, and sometimes I get great ideas when I’m in my car, or standing in line, or taking a walk.

When I heard about Ribbit Mobile’s voice memo function, I was thrilled. Not only does it record my thoughts and ideas  - it also turns them into text and emails them to me! So I can get an email started, or begin a blog post, or record my latest brilliant concept for a novel.

Because sometimes – it really is so much nicer to talk than type.

Here’s how to create a voice memo:

• Dial into your Ribbit voicemail from any phone (I have mine on speed dial on my iPhone, which makes it a cinch.)
• Press “9” to get into the menu.
• Press “5” - the voice memo option.
• Start talking.
• Hang up when you’re done – then sit back and wait for the transcription!

Here are a few ways people around Ribbit use voice memos:

• To dictate a shopping list while in the car
• To get an email started away from the desk
• To create a to-do list for the day
• To send themselves reminders

Have you used voice memos? Let us know. We’d love to hear how it works for you.

Thank you. We’re working hard.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | located in Beta, Features, Success Stories | No Comments »

We launched two weeks ago, and I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for the kind words, and for your interest in Ribbit Mobile.  We’ve been hard at work on this service since I first joined the company back in 2007, and it’s great to see such a positive response.

The beta launch was covered by covered by 60+ media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Forbes.  And we’ve had requests from Australia, South Africa, and Canada asking us when we’re going to expand.

Here’s a customer story I really liked, thought I’d share it with you. It is from Nithin Rao, a long time Ribbit Mobile beta user who is throughly enjoying the voice to text transcription feature as it helps him keep the projects moving forward, even while 36,000 feet in the air:

While the beta has started well we have identified what needs more work.  We’re working hard to fix the Plaxo and CSV import issues.  And while the browser based calling voice quality has been good, we have a project underway to make it even better.  You’re going to love the results.

We continue to send invites out, and appreciate your patience as we work through the waiting list. We know it is never fun to wait.

Do let us know your ideas to improve the service.  You can post your ideas to the idea wall or contact us at support@ribbit.com.  If you want to reach me directly give me a call on my mobile. Thanks, we look forward to the advances ahead.

Dan, Ribbit
VP Product Management
650-776-7176 (mobile)

Nominate Ribbit Mobile for a Crunchies award!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | located in Contest | 1 Comment »

Been using Ribbit Mobile to manage your calls and feeling the all the goodness the service has to offer?

Saving minutes (or more) a day by NOT having to dial into your voicemail? Loving the find me, follow me feature? Saving money by using the Flash phone on the desktop instead of your mobile phone?

—-

Well then. Tell the world how much you love Ribbit.

We have thrown our hat in the proverbial Crunchies Award ring, and would love your show of support by nominating Ribbit in the Best Mobile Application category. On the Crunchies site, make sure ‘Ribbit’ is listed in the field and then click ‘nominate’. Easy breezy and would mean so much to us.

Who knows, if we win this thing, we just might go crazy and extend the ‘free’ part of the service.

Visual Voicemail on the iPhone Rocks – But You STILL need Ribbit Mobile!

Friday, November 6th, 2009 | located in Features | 1 Comment »

Here’s a question that recently arrived in our email inbox: “I have visual voicemail on my iPhone, so I can already listen to my messages in whatever order I want. Why do I need Ribbit Mobile?”

Good question! First of all, we think visual voicemail on the iPhone is great. It enables you to selectively choose which messages to listen to, thus eliminating the need to dial into a voicemail box and listen sequentially to each message.

But. It still doesn’t solve a lot of the problems associated with voicemail, and it doesn’t come with all the other features that Ribbit Mobile offers.

Here’s why you still need Ribbit Mobile if you have an iPhone:

• Ribbit Mobile converts your voicemail messages to text so you can read them like email. No more trying to scribble down message notes – Ribbit does the work for you, so you can read them at your convenience.
• Ribbit Mobile gives you with an online message inbox (see image below). It offers unlimited storage, and provides full control over your messages – so you can save your messages as long as you want to. On your iPhone, your messages will be deleted after 21 days.
• Ribbit Mobile gives you a backup phone online. For those days when you accidentally leave your phone at home, or lose it, or don’t have mobile service – you’re covered. Just log in to your online account to stay connected.

Do you have an iPhone and use Ribbit Mobile? Tell us about it!

Mobile developers meet Ribbit’s open API!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | located in Conferences/Events, Developers | No Comments »

If you are in the Bay Area, we are hosting a free event tomorrow (Thursday, November 5th) to give developers a sneak peek into what we have been doing with the Ribbit Platform, and give you an opportunity to get your hands on the REST API, currently in beta. We lovingly call these things ‘Spawn‘.

Building a killer mobile app? Want to find cool ways to bring comms (voice, SMS, etc) into your service? Join us (now about 10 seats left)! We kick things off at 9am and spend the morning digging into the platform, what it means to ‘communications enable’ your application, how pricing works and highlighting some creative ways developers have used the Ribbit APIs. Then we roll up our sleeves and spend the afternoon coding, with sessions for each of the SDKs available.Geekery at its best.

Can’t make it tomorrow? No worries. We will be taping the sessions and posting tid bits from the conference on the developer blog by early next week, so be sure to check that out often. We will also be live tweeting updates tomorrow, so take a peek at that stream and give us a holler if you have any questions!

And for those of you in the UK who want Ribbit Mobile…

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | located in Beta | 2 Comments »

…it is coming soon. Woot!

We have been in a private trial with BT employees for several months, and everything seems to be going smashingly well, so we plan to extend that to the fine folks outside of BT.

If you would like to give Ribbit Mobile a try, you can request a trial invite. Ribbit will begin provisioning accounts in the first quarter of 2010 and will do so on a first-come, first-served basis. So sign up and watch your inbox folks!

Ribbit Announces Free Communication Suite For Mobile Professionals

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | located in Beta, Features | 6 Comments »

Big news for us today! Ribbit Mobile, our cloud-based service that provides a new way to manage calls, messages and phones is now available to the general public in an expanded beta release. Ribbit Mobile’s core set of features transforms the way people communicate by letting them decide how, when and where they want to stay in touch.

Features Include:

Ribbit Mobile lets users communicate in ways never before possible by enabling them to merge multiple phones, route mobile calls to other phones and even answer their mobile calls on the Internet. Ribbit Mobile users can stay connected on their own terms—wherever they are—so they never miss another important call.

Unlike other Internet voice services, Ribbit Mobile doesn’t require a new phone number, a new phone or a software download—and the service can be made active on any mobile phone in less than five minutes.  Ribbit Mobile converts voicemail to text and sends it to users via SMS and email, eliminating the need to dial into voicemail and listen to messages. It provides an online message inbox where messages can be managed and stored forever (see below).

Ribbit Mobile also offers users a back-up phone online for those times when a users’ device is lost, stolen, broken or mobile service is unavailable.  The Web-based version of the mobile device enables Ribbit users to continue to make and take “mobile” phone calls via an Internet connection, regardless of their location or device accessibility.

Open Platform Drives Telephony Innovation
Ribbit Mobile is built on the Ribbit Platform – a robust, extensible platform with open APIs that lets developers add features to Ribbit Mobile. As more developers create applications, the service will become increasingly powerful and innovative.

We are also announcing the “Developer Rewards” program, which will compensate developers based on how much their applications are used, even if their applications are offered for free to end users. Unlike traditional app stores, Ribbit developers are rewarded on creating the most useful and popular applications that drive platform and network usage. We’ll have more on this program in the coming days.

It’s Free!
During the introductory beta period, we are offering the “Professional” package free for everyone on a trial basis. Reserve your account now and watch your inbox. It is on a first-come, first-served basis and we will be releasing a batch of beta invites every day.

Quotes:

• Ribbit CEO Ted Griggs - “With voice and data networks merging, consumers, businesses, software developers and even traditional telecommunications carriers are exploring new ways to communicate and evaluating how to successfully manage multiple communication streams. The challenge is that up until now the ways in which we most commonly communicate—voice, text, email, IM—exist in largely separate online and offline worlds.  Ribbit Mobile is changing all of that.”
• Jerry McClain, a Mortgage Loan Officer and a Ribbit Mobile user: “Ribbit Mobile gives me a competitive advantage and helps me close deals faster. I receive over 30 voicemail messages a day, and Ribbit Mobile gives me instant visibility into which ones are important so I can focus on what matters most.”
• Jeff Weintraub, a contractor specializing in remodeling, and a Ribbit Mobile user: “Every contractor knows that clients often change their minds during a project, and keeping the details straight can be a big job. Ribbit Mobile lets me keep an unlimited voicemail archive of all of my client communications so that I can easily reference old messages that provide instructions or requests. I don’t lose important voicemails after 21 days like I did with my phone carrier—and if a client ever says ‘I didn’t ask for that,’ I can find the related voicemail and we can review it together.”

Additional Links:

• How It Works
• Ribbit Support