Hi, I handled your support question. Sorry for any confusion. Your specific question pertained to 'caller-id spoofing', which is where I believe the confusion occurred. Spoofing of a phone number which you do not own is illegal, which is the case I was referring to. Outbound calling from within the web application is not currently supported.
Well, I didn't ask you to spoof the number I don't own, I asked you to spoof the number I do own. It's the phone number you (would have) sold me! Wouldn't I own it after handing over the money and becoming able to receive calls on it?
Sounds like there was some confusion earlier. We are chatting with 20 people at once right now on Olark, it's easy to get lost. Please email us at support@tellfi.com and we'll figure everything out for you.
We've used existing hosted PBX systems to run our phone systems in the past, and found them bulky and difficult to setup. We're targeting ease of use and quick setup - we aren't advertising that we have new features at our core, but the method of getting to those features and setting them up is a snap.
I'm not trying to be argumentative and I don't want to talk too much about who we use (I wouldn't want to endorse or anything) but it took like 20 minutes to get up and running with them.
Have you worked out how you compare pricingwise to the RingCentrals of the world?
we're working with our telephony providers to keep the pricing as low as possible, and will also be adding a some new features soon to further differentiate.
How do you compete with someone like grasshopper.com ? They seem to have more features, are much cheaper for >500 minutes and I would imagine are just as easy to setup. Although, I haven't used either of you.
Then you look at something like OpenVBX, which would be significantly cheaper ($1/month for number, 1c per minute incoming) if you don't mind setting it up.
We're focused on usability as our primary offering. Setting up phone systems is major pain point for a lot of businesses, esp kinds that can't host their own VBX :)
grasshopper is easy to use and setup as well. set it and forget it. in fact, i actually forgot we were even using grasshopper until i saw this article.
if it is the same or better than grasshopper, you guys will do well in the smb space.
I wonder how many of those new subscriptions came from the AppSumo deal that they were a part of last month - I bet a significant number, which means they aren't full paying customers, because of the reduced rates on the deal.
[B] - Definitely some good resources I've used in the past (being a developer wanting some inspiration) - one more I'd add to the list is http://sixrevisions.com - I like to pop in there every few weeks to see what's new - they typically have articles similar to Smashing in topic
This seems pretty interesting - it's a good opportunity for sites like Flickr and the like to allow 'Facebook Zip' uploads and they'll automatically parse out your photos and store them in your account.
People may feel more open when they are sharing a .zip rather than 'logging in' - I know a lot of people that are still opposed to 'connecting' accounts - this avoids that connection, regardless of OAuth, straight username/password, etc.,
It's not clear to a lot of people 'what exactly' they are sharing when they link accounts, but when you upload a .zip, you are ONLY sharing what's contained in that file - there really is a big difference between uploading and linking =p
I like the idea that it's the same search for both - think about the number of terms that would bring back adult content based on the prefix, but given the entire term, are something entirely innocent.
YC plug, but I really always thought DropBox did a great job - one of the things I most appreciated was the key example - they put it in terms of an item that everyone recognizes and a problem most people (if not all) have probably dealt with. I think the present version is even extended a bit from the original (now includes some computer files info)
I assume the "music" in between readings is supposed to sound like the radio is tuning for a new station? If this is the case, it's a neat idea, but it was a little frustrating because you want to hear the music, but it's not clear - although I'm not sure on any better suggestion (i.e. elevator music, muzak..lol).
brk 23 has a good point about filters, that would definitely make it more usable.
Nice work! Haven't seen any other fun web integration of text-speech like this (I definitely don't count dictionary.com pronouncing words for me as fun!)
