TringMe seeking DID Vendors

Posted on May 5, 2008 
Filed Under DID | Leave a Comment

TringMe is actively seeking DID vendors who can provide worldwide numbers at an extremely competitive rate.

TringMe has over 300K+ users and has been growing rapidly over the last few weeks. The company was launched 6 months ago and we project that that we will continue to grow at an aggressive pace in the upcoming months as well. The choosen DID vendor will get benefitted from TringMe’s ever-growing, diverse user base thereby creating a win-win situation for TringMe’s users and the DID vendor.

We are in the process of evaluating DID vendors who can work with TringMe and provide TringMe’s customers with a phone number. The interested company needs to have demonstrated reliability, extremely competitive rates and excellent customer service.

If you think you fit the bill and would like to work with TringMe, drop us an email at bizdev@tringme.com. Please quote your website, rates and the coverage you have. To speed up the process, create an account for us and send us the details to try it out alongwith sample/free allocated DID.

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TringMe directly available to all AOL/AIM users

Posted on April 30, 2008 
Filed Under AIM, AOL | Leave a Comment

TringMe now enables millions of AIM users to use AIM Call Out directly from TringMe. This gives AOL/AIM users a lot of convenient options to make calls. AIM users can use TringPhone - TringMe’s fully web-based SIP phone to make calls directly from the browser. With TringMe’s MobileVoIP solution, AOL/AIM users can use a mobile device (e.g. Symbian devices) to make VoIP calls from a mobile device. If they desire to use Gtalk to make VoIP calls over this service, that’s supported too. In general, AOL/AIM users can use any of TringMe’s supported originating devices to make calls (say Gtalk).

In short, AOL/AIM users can quickly benefit from the complementing services offered by TringMe.

It’s very easy to use AIM callout service from TringMe. Just login to your TringMe account, enter your AIM or AOL screen-name (AOLScreenName@aol.com or AIMScreenName@aim.com) and SIP password in the TringPhone settings. Do specify “AOL” in the Domain or Proxy setting as well. That’s all you need to do in order to use TringPhone for making calls through your AIM call-out account.

This is yet another addition to the services and capabilities offered by TringMe. Alongwith the above mentioned addition, we continue to offer our own VoIP capabilities and competitive rates to make worldwide calls.

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Roll-out your own click-to-call service

Posted on April 15, 2008 
Filed Under Demo, click-to-call | 1 Comment

Convenience of Click-to-call service has created so much buzz in the media that a lot of individual users and companies who have a web-presence (Blogs, Social Networking profiles, Customer support etc) are interested in using such a service. For e.g. An online directory service or a local search engine or even an individual user wants to have click-to-call callback based service available via their websites. For those who are unaware, a web-based click-to-call service based on callback technology allows users to click a button embedded on a Website, an e-mail, an online directory, or a social networking profile and then immediately speak with an user or a customer service representative on another end. It works by requiring user to type in their number, type in the destination number and then click on the ‘call’ button to be connected.

However, building a reliable click-to-call callback requires substantial amount of knowledge in VoIP, good backend infrastructure and maintenance. Good news is that now it is easy to build such a service in a matter of few minutes with just a few lines of code (php, perl, AJAX etc) using TringMe APIs.

Since the release of our APIs, we got several requests from developers who were interested in knowing how they could build their own click-to-call services. You can have the button/widget running without getting into the complex world of VoIP or any expensive setup. The complete source code to implement such a service is now available for download, completely free of cost and free of royalties!!!

To use the code as it is, put the script on your web server. Replace the variables with your own API keys & phone number and you are done. You can add more spices to it as you like – for example, AJAX, forms etc.

Complete code below:

<?php
include_once (”tringmeapi.php”);

$publickey = “yourpublicapikey”;
$privatekey = “yourprivateapikey”;

$parameters=array();
$parameters[’op’]=’c2c’;
$parameters[’apikey’]=$publickey;
$parameters[’callsrc’]=’18585551111′;
$parameters[’calldest’]=’18585552222′;

$response = TringMeAPI($parameters, $privatekey);

?>

Download TringMe API & Source Code

Click-to-call also allows you to offer VoIP services under your brand. We offer bulk rate and extended APIs to all who like to implement such services.

To know more about TringMe APIs and how to build many more innovative services, visit our developer’s page here.

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TringMe announces API availability and opens up source-code of its Flash telephony widgets

Posted on April 7, 2008 
Filed Under Announcement, Launch, milestone | 6 Comments

TringMe opens up its platform APIs for developers to empower them to create rich web-based voice applications. TringMe’s open API will allow developers of Adobe Flex, AIR, Symbian S60 or even a pure web platform like PHP, AJAX to create web based, mobile or standalone voice enabled applications easily. For example, Social networking, Dating sites can easily integrate voice as a means of communication in innovative ways, VoIP providers can quickly deploy and offer their services using TringMe’s easy to use Adobe-Flash based web-phone or mobile devices enabled via cheap to use Mobile-VoIP, Game developers, virtual world creators can enable making phone calls from virtual world to real world and vice-versa. The platform is written from scratch to cater to the emerging needs of the internet, mobile devices and their diverse usage - in real world or virtual.

TringMe prides in abstracting the inner details of call signaling and call processing by exposing easy to use, standards based APIs for developers to essentially innovate at the applications level - be it be web based apps, apps for mobile devices or desktop based apps. Our modular structure allows us to offer APIs to be used by any kind of application and not tie us to Adobe Flex, AIR, PHP, AJAX or any such technology or platform. We are offering interface which is cross-platform and scalable on any language. Whether it’s just voice enabling a website, a social networking site (facebook, orkut, myspace etc.), integrating voice into CRM, Sales Management tool or a full-featured desktop AIR application, TringMe’s APIs will scale to your requirements.

Using the simple to use REST based APIs, developers can add telephony capabilities to their apps in a matter of couple of hours. TringMe’s APIs will allow developers to configure and utilize any number of call origination and call termination options as supported by TringSwitch (PSTN, Mobile Phones, VoIP apps, SIP URIs, IM - Gtalk, SMS-initiated calls, Web applications, Browser, Desktop widgets etc).

Developers can also create their own Adobe Flash, Flex or AIR application based on TringMe’s standards based APIs in a matter of couple of hours. Given the powerful functionality of Adobe Flash and the ease of use of TringMe’s APIs, developers will be able to produce compelling voice enabled apps using Adobe’s - Flash, Flex or AIR - technologies. For example, developers can create a fully-functional desktop phone on top of TringMe APIs using Adobe AIR technology.

Unlike some other voice API platforms/technologies/companies, TringMe does not charge for it’s platform APIs. It is completely FREE to build voice enabled applications using TringMe APIs.

To commit itself to the developer community, TringMe also opens up the source code of it’s Flash based widgets. We really want the developers to get a headstart in writing quality applications that integrate voice as a fundamental part of the internet. For e.g. if someone is interested in offering a web-based click-to-call solution based on callback technology (i.e type in your number, type in the destination number and click “call”), as offered by companies like Jajah, Jaxtr, etc. they can implement the meat of the offering in a matter of couple of hours with TringMe APIs.

TringMe’s Mobile-VoIP offering can be leveraged by developers as well. Essentially, it opens up a way by which mobile applications can interface with TringMe. Mobile VoIP customization capability is currently available to limited set of partners and will be available to all developers soon.

So let the voice enabled apps, built on a platform that’s specially optimized for telephony, begin to flow. In other words, let TringMe worry about enabling a reliable voice connection on the internet+mobile and you figure out ways to incorporate this feature in areas where it truly matters - areas like real world scenarios wherein voice can play a dominant effect - and means to creatively monetize the integration thereafter.

TringMe’s API details can be accessed at http://tringme.com/developer.php

We have exposed some more functionality through out partner-only-APIs and will make them available to everyone at a later time. If you need access to functionality besides what’s currently exposed by our platform APIs, do let us know.

We are very much interested in understanding how you intend to use TringMe’s platform. If you have something cool, we will feature it on our website. We are also putting together a place where you can show off your apps via TringMe’s website .. so stay tuned.

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100,000 Registered Users & Going Strong

Posted on April 3, 2008 
Filed Under Announcement, milestone | 2 Comments

We are extremely pleased to announce TringMe crosses over a 100,000 users since it’s launch in Oct 2007. We are absolutely thrilled to be gaining momentum at such speed, as our service is now being used in several countries.

The word of mouth distribution, contributions from the bloggers worldwide and adoption rate of our platform is proof that people are looking for simpler to stay voice connected with each other. We are adding more features, features that we think will help innovate in this area and look forward to future successes.

Our users continue to be key to our success and we sincerely take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for using TringMe. TringMe’s vision is to bring Voice 2.0 to a spectrum which ranges from high-end mobile phones, web, IMs to a common man’s low cost handset, provide capabilities to applications on the web to incorporate this functionality via it’s platform and essentially make voice a fundamental part of the web. It’s been a great ride so far and we hope to cover a lot more road in the future .. Thanks again

2 Comments

TringMe introduces VoIP accessibility from low-end mass market mobile devices

Posted on March 11, 2008 
Filed Under Announcement, Disclosure, Launch, SMS, click-to-call, milestone | 39 Comments

VoIP has been a boon for long distance internet telephony for quite a while now even-though it’s mainly accessible from PCs. A key problem which hasn’t been well-attended so far is a way for a common man who doesn’t have a PC to use VoIP (popularly known as “internet telephony”) to make really cheap worldwide calls. Mobile-VoIP can be an answer to this problem since mobile penetration rate is increasing by many folds every year. In India alone, there are over 200 million mobile users compared to 5 million broadband users. However existing Mobile-VoIP solutions (including one previously introduced by TringMe) really cater to Smartphones and rely on GPRS or 2.5/3G (data network) connections, a combination that isn’t in the reach of a common man.  Statistics show that :

  1. In developing countries like India, more than 80% mobile users do not have data connection on their mobile. And for the remaining ones who have it, data connection is poor to have any effective real time communication like VoIP. We strongly believe that to make Mobile-VoIP a common-place technology, it needs to cater to the lowest-end mobile devices, devices which can just make voice-calls and do SMS. (source: TRAI)
  2. Smartphones only constituted 10% of the total mobiles sold last year (source: Symbian market share data).

So almost 90% of mobile users (which translates to millions of users) – a fairly big share of market – are devoid of using Mobile-VoIP via their existing mobile devices. To address this market, TringMe, after successfully demonstrating Mobile VoIP from a Smartphone, is now launching a new patent pending service which allows a low-end mobile phone to make VoIP based calls without installing anything. All one needs to do is send an SMS to TringMe and it will connect you to any phone number worldwide. It’s very convenient – no PC’s, no smartphone, no 3G/data connectivity and no configuration - just send a SMS containing the phone number and you are connected. Couple this convenience with TringMe’s extremely competitive low-price worldwide calling rates for a win-win combination. Infact, with this the call can terminate not only on phone but on any of the devices that TringMe terminates on. For e.g if a user has configured his TringMe profile to terminate inbound calls on IM (e.g. Gtalk), then sending an SMS with user’s tringme address will establish the call from the caller to user GTalk client.

With this feature, scheduling calls is as easy is sending an SMS with relevant details in the body. TringMe’s infrastructure takes care of establishing the call at the scheduled time.

We are very excited to demonstrate this technology thereby creating a market opportunity to deliver TringMe’s key offerings on a common man’s low-end mobile device as well.

TringMe continues to be in the forefront of the web-based telephony space with its well-rounded portfolio. It currently provides click-to-call widgets, fully web-based SIP phone, enterprise and consumer centric web-based toll-free service, Mobile-VoIP, ability to make and receive web based calls on phones, IMs and Web. TringMe’s platform – TringSwitch – is an enterprise grade scalable platform developed from scratch to provide optimum performance for web-based telephony. We are also planning to collaborate with global players including providers, retailers etc to take this service to next level. Write to us if you like to join hands.

VoIP calls from low-end mobile devices
It’s very easy to use this service. The alpha pilot is currently only available in India. You can send an SMS to 91- 9980153695 to try out this service. Please follow the instructions below:

Register
1 - Register with TringMe if you haven’t already – http://tringme.com

2- Register the mobile with TringMe from which one wants to make the low cost worldwide call. User can register their mobile with their TringMe account by sending an SMS as follows:

tringme reg <tringme username> <tringme password>

For example, “tringme reg myname@myemail.com abcdef”

A confirmation message will be received about success of the registration.

Making Calls 
Once registered, user can make worldwide calls, not only to the phones but to Gtalk, SIP URI etc by merely sending an SMS as follows:

tringme <phonenumber>

for example, to call a US number 1-(858)-555-1212, one only need to send a SMS “tringme 18585551212”

Users can also call millions of worldwide SIP users just by using SIP URI as follows:

tringme <SIP URI>

To make a call to a registered TringMe user, send an SMS as follows:

tringme <user’s email address>

This will establish a call from the originator’s mobile device to the calle’s currently configured termination device. For example, if user has chose to receive call on Gtalk, sending above SMS will connect your phone to his or her Gtalk.

Scheduling a Call
You can even schedule a call for later time, say for a business meeting or conference. TringMe understand time in plain english and you can specify absolute date and time or in relative terms. You can schedule it in one of several ways:

tringme 18585551212 next week  11:30AM
tringme 18585551212 March 17, 2008 11:30AM
tringme 18585551212 tomorrow 11:30AM

The time specified will be as per the timezone setting which you have configured in your TringMe profile.

To unscheduled a call, just send “tringme unsched <call id>” in the SMS body.

Other
One can unregister the mobile currently registered with TringMe by sending message “tringme unreg“.
To check the account balance, send message “tringme bal”.  Also, “tringme help” message will get you help on existing commands.

As mentioned above, the alpha pilot is currently only available in India. We are presently working on adding more messaging gateways and enabling this service in other countries as well. During beta, you may rarely experience minor delay in SMS processing during peak hours and we will appreciate your patience.

We really look forward to hearing your comments and feedback.

39 Comments

Call Worldwide using Google Talk (Gtalk)

Posted on February 6, 2008 
Filed Under Announcement, Launch, click-to-call, milestone | 11 Comments

TringMe now allows making calls from Google Talk (Gtalk). As you know, natively, Gtalk doesn’t support making phone calls. This is yet another feature which underlines TringMe’s core philosophy of not requiring any software installation for purposes of using TringMe. If you already have Gtalk installed, then with this capability, making a worldwide call to any phone or SIP URI from Gtalk is as simple as sending a message using Gtalk. Calls made from Gtalk can be terminated on all devices that TringMe currently supports.

TringMe continues to innovate in providing connectivity between heterogeneous end-points based on calle and caller’s convenience including IMs, Web, Landline and Mobile Phones.

Although this feature is currently under test and is scheduled to be commercially released by February end, it’s available for you to try it. Please note that you will need to sign up at TringMe with a gmail ID so that we can associate a TringMe account when you make a call from Gtalk (signup with TringMe using same email id as Gtalk). As you may already know, worldwide calling rates offered by TringMe are very competitive and almost half than Skype or other VoIP providers.

To make a call, all you need to do is send a message to tringme@gmail.com from Gtalk. Please note that you would have added tringme to the list of friends in Gtalk already.

In all cases, you will get an inbound call from TringMe and once you answer, the call to the intended party will be initiated. This also opens a new way for developers to integrate core TringMe functionalities using Google or Jabber APIs.

TringMe also demonstrated MobileVoIP at an even in India last month – some details are here 

Enjoy the new way of making calls. Let us know how you liked this new service. We look forward to your suggestions and feedback.

11 Comments

TringMe at HeadStart 2008

Posted on January 22, 2008 
Filed Under Announcement, Demo | 11 Comments

HeadStart held in Bangalore, India was one event which we were anxiously awaiting since TringMe was one of the five companies that was selected to demo at HeadStart’s Mobility and Communication segment.

Even though, TringMe’s platform has been in use since the launch of TringMe, it was only a day before HeadStart that we had formally announced the availability of the platform christened “TringSwitch” to the world. Although we were confident about our ability to demonstrate TringSwitch with multiple termination options, it was imperative that the live demo go as well as we planned it to be.

We started the demo and in the allocated time, demonstrated several combinations of phone calls - Web-to-IM (Gtalk), Web-to-Mobile, Mobile-to-Mobile over Mobile VoIP, Mobile-to-IM(Gtalk) over Mobile VoIP as well. Due to the time limitation, we have to conclude speech recognition demo half way after showing the initial screen.

In fact to make it more interesting and interactive, for our Web-to-Mobile we called one of the audience member and a panel member. After the demo, several attendees and media came by and congratulated us on the demo-gone-well. A lot of them were very excited to see the Mobile to Gtalk connection since the other way (IM to phone) isn’t a new idea. Audience was quite excited and encouraged us all through by applauding at successful demonstrations. At the expense of being bold, we believe that the demo went quite well.

We would sincerely like to thank HeadStart for giving us a platform and all the organizers - Prof. Suresh(IIM), Kesava, Aditya, Manasi, Puneeth, Kalol & others - who helped us in every which way. It was a well-planned and well-executed event and we are glad to be having been a part of it.

11 Comments

Are you paying double for your phone calls?

Posted on December 3, 2007 
Filed Under Disclosure, click-to-call | 17 Comments

Some of you might have used a web based click-to-call service - essentially a callback service which calls you back and then connects you to calle?

Have you noticed that you are really being charged for two calls to use such a services. Let me walk you through a call’s sequence for such a service

On top of the two calls charge, if the origination or termination points are mobile devices, you and the other party pay for cellular airtime as well (if applicable).

With TringMe, there will only one leg of call in a call connection - the leg between TringMe and the calle - if the calle uses a phone. If calle is using Gtalk or similar service, then the call is completely free of charge. In any case, caller connects to the service using IP connectivity. TringMe doesn’t force you to use a PC only but you can use it from your mobile device using Mobile VOIP.

With our recently launched TringPhone, one can make web-based worldwide calls using any VoIP provider. This service is built on TringMe platform and utilizes the same benefits.

With atmost a single call charge, the convenience of using TringMe from mobile device with the freedom of using it from where you want makes it a strong offering.

17 Comments

TringMe Introduces Flash Enabled Web-Based SIP Phone - TringPhone

Posted on December 3, 2007 
Filed Under Announcement, Launch | 17 Comments

TringMe announces first completely user configurable and ligh-weighted flash-based SIP phone branded as TringPhone. The service is the first of it’s kind and it separates it from any other services claiming to be web-based SIP phone service for the following reasons :

  1. TringMe’s offering can work with any SIP/VOIP provider by merely providing the standard SIP parameters.
  2. TringMe’s offering requires absolutely no client side software installation and has a very familiar dial pad look-and-feel.

The core value proposition of this offering is the convenience of using web-based telephony with the freedom to use any VOIP/SIP provider. We strongly believe that this will open up new ways for people to stay connected from any part of the world in a cost-efficient manner.

TringPhone opens up the possibility of using any PC with a flash-capable browser as a VOIP client for making worldwide calls. In essence , it gives the user a choice of using the best VOIP provider (based on cost, service etc) without being forced to use a desktop or proprietary client side software. TringPhone also isolates users from seemingly advanced SIP client settings (e.g. NAT traversal (STUN), Firewall) which a user maybe required to set when using a desktop SIP client. Switching between VOIP providers is as simple as changing the configuration all from within a browser.

We believe that this may create new dynamics and can fuel intense competition amongst VoIP providers to eventually benefit users. To test waters, we have been talking to few VoIP providers about their interest and they have shown interest in getting into click-to-call or web-based telephony market. However, either technological barriers or cost has constraint them so far. As it is evident, there are tons of VoIP providers, only few are able to offer web-based telephony (tringme) and web-activated-telephony (Jajah, Jaxtr etc.). With TringMe’s technology open and available to all providers, the technological barrier is surpassed and hence should enable any VoIP provider or reseller to offer web based telephony services with competing prices. Users should be able to choose cheapest or most convenient provider and get a complete web-based VoIP offering.

TringPhone also provides pre-configurable option which will enable VOIP providers to offer fully pre-configured SIP phone widget (i.e. configured to the VOIP provider’s parameters) on their website. Although SIP has been around for a while to be used as a basis for Internet telephony, using it requires users to download the right SIP phone client, configure the VOIP provider settings correctly and troubleshoot issues on the client end which may be tricky in some instances, especially to a non-tech savvy user. With TringMe’s solution, VOIP providers can provide a completely pre-configured and ready to use SIP phone widget right-away to its users eliminating any configuration needs from the user.

TringMe demonstrated this capability to a few VOIP providers and they were very excited about this offering and the impact it can make on their business. Given the convenience offered to the user, VOIP providers are excited as this may have an overall increase in the usage of VOIP minutes much like the cellular world wherein the availability (& not necessarily the need) of a cellular device increased the voice mins ARPU.

If you are an enterprise or a VOIP provider and are interested in the above solution, leave us a comment or contact us at bizdev@tringme.com

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