Here’s an idea from Michael at GroovyGreen.com who commented on my Three Tries to Cancel Vonage post. When he called to cancel his Vonage service, he had this great yarn prepared:

“This is what you do: Call their HELP line, go to the cancellation option and then wait. (Luckily, I waited about 5 minutes.) Next, as soon as the person gets on the line say, “Hello, My name is Michael and I would like to cancel my account because I am moving to another country.” This will immediately cause them to lose most of their script and go to Page 2. The kind woman on the other line then asked me if the move was permanent. I told her that I would be overseas for the next 10 years. She countered by saying that Vonage could be used anywhere, it was one of the advantages, etc. I agreed that the thought had crossed my mind, but unfortunately I was moving to a place where Internet service was not allowed. She asked if she might know the location of this country. I told her Ethiopia. She asked if there were any towns nearby that might have Internet access, I told her no, because I was moving to a monastery and it was 100 miles away from the nearest town. Very remote. She became quiet and then asked if there was anyone living in the U.S. that could use the account while I was gone. As this point, I was like, ‘Jeesh…’, but I went on, “No, there’s nobody here in the U.S. I could transfer this too. That’s part of why I’m leaving the country. My family has passed away, my dog just died, and I just don’t value material possessions as much as I used to.’

She got started on canceling my account….”

I recently mentioned Jangl in Battle of the Js. On first look, I wasn’t overly enthused–the home page promise didn’t mesh with the user interface/support once logged in. But since then I’ve had chance to talk with the folks at Jangl to learn more about their service. They agree the user experience is something they need to improve, and are working hard to get there as we speak.

Jangl’s Tim Johnson was able to walked me through all this, so now I get it. However, he knows you can’t personally explain the concept and use to everyone. Improving the overall package to make the service clear and easy to use is part of Jangl’s planned enhancements over the next month and a half, starting with the announcement last week of a new Jangl widget for Tagged, a social networking site. Today, Jangl announced a new TypePad widget which will give TypePad bloggers and their readers anonymous phone numbers for talking, texting and exchanging voicemail on their mobile phones.

Here’s what I learned about Jangl:

It is all about connecting two people without sharing phone numbers. The two people can be bloggers, social networking junkies, or they can be “off Net” contacts.  Why would you want to keep your phone number private? Well, let’s say you’re selling something on Ebay or Craigslist you don’t want to share a personal phone number. Or you have a personal profile on a social networking site and you want to connect with your fans without sharing a personal number. Or how about you are using an online dating site like Match.com and want to keep your contact number private.

There are two ways people can get an exclusive number for you. As a Jangl user, you can give out your Jangl ID or you can post a Jangl widget on a website or email. If you give your Jangl ID out at a party, for example, the person goes to Jangl.com and follows the instructions to generate a number for you. If someone clicks your Jangl widget online, the widget generates the number. Either way, people can call you on a regular landline or cell phone. You answer the call on whichever phone is attached to your Jangl account. It could be a mobile phone or an office phone, for example. You can choose to answer based on the caller’s introduction, or you can send the call to your existing voicemail system.

Because Jangl relies on the use a regular phone to make the actual calls, not a computer platform, you can receive calls from fellow bloggers visiting your Typepad site while out and about on your mobile phone. YOU don’t have to be sitting at your computer. And once the other party has generated a number for you AND specified their mobile as the phone they’ll be calling from, then they can call you from anywhere as well. That’s a pretty cool way to take your online profile with you.

The only required online part of the process is generating the phone number. Once that’s done, the computer is completely out of the picture. You can maintain a list of Jangl contacts online in your account, but that’s up to you.

Who pays? To get a Jangl ID and create an online widget of your own is free, but because the calls you make and receive are on regular mobile phone or landline networks, you pay the appropriate fees to the service provider.

Hope this helps!

Hi and welcome to my blog about VOIP, voice over IP, Internet phone, broadband telephone, or whatever you feel inclined to call it. This is NOT a blog about women, or even necessarily about women who use VOIP services–I mean how boring is that. I called it The VOIP Girl because well I’m a gal. And I want to write about this voice over ip. That’s about it. What really prompted me to get going however, is the fact that there are few women commentators on this subject. I’m curious to see if my perspective will be any different.

I want to write about how consumers (that’s you and me) are doing using VOIP.  I don’t necessarily care about IPOs, who’s buying who, and all that insider industry stuff. There are tons of blogs out there talking about all that. In fact I would say that is mostly what you’ll find when you look for VOIP commentary in the blogosphere. It’s great stuff, but really I’m interested in how ordinary folks are using Vonage, Skype, Gizmo, etc., and how is the free stuff stacking up against heavy hitter paid services.

Thanks for stopping by.

Leanne Tremblay
VOIPGirl

Hi and welcome to my blog about VOIP, voice over IP, Internet phone, broadband telephone, or whatever you feel inclined to call it. This is NOT a blog about women, or even necessarily about women who use VOIP services–I mean how boring is that. I called it The VOIP Girl because well I’m a gal. And I want to write about this industry. That’s about it. What really prompted me to get going however, is the fact that there are no women commentators on this subject. I’m curious to see if my perspective will be any different.

I want to write about how consumers (that’s you and me) are doing using VOIP.  I don’t necessarily care about IPOs, who’s buying who, and all that insider industry stuff. There are tons of blogs out there talking about all that. In fact I would say that is mostly what you’ll find when you look for VOIP commentary in the blogosphere. It’s great stuff, but really I’m interested in how ordinary folks are using Vonage, Skype, Gizmo, etc., and how is the free stuff stacking up against heavy hitter paid services.

Thanks to Alec Saunders for pointing me to a post by Jajah’s Don Thorson about building really useful stuff (as in new software, services, gadgets, and whatnot). I was excited because it reads sort of like TheVOIPGirl manifesto (if there was one). Makes me wish I’d written it! Beyond its ability to dazzle, new stuff has to 1) solve a problem, 2) be easy to understand, 3) be easy to get, 4) be easy to use, 5) be easy to share.

For #2, he talks about giving new stuff the Mom test, meaning I assume that if Mom gets it, anybody will. While I object to the idea that Moms are the lowest common denominator–some of the most technical, savvy, and successful gals I know are also Moms–I think I know what he means. I’m a Mom and being one is the most important thing in my life. The flip side of this is that technology is not the priority…at all. I don’t have time to mess around with something that doesn’t meet the five basics.

Don also says that mainstream users need to be spoonfed. Okay..maybe true, but what’s wrong with that? Busy people, Moms and power users alike, need simplicity. Alec, a power user if there ever was one, atests to that as well.

All in all, thanks Don for a great post. Companies that stick to these rules have my vote.

Andy takes some time walking us through why many great tech ideas fail. Know thy customer is the mantra here. Walk a day in their shoes.

I’ve worked for many companies in high tech where honestly the idea of actually talking to the customer was just too big or too complicated a prospect. Yes, lipservice was paid to market research, but for some reason it’s way easier to analyze a bunch of pie charts than talk one on one with the people you’re building for. 

I don’t know why this is so hard for companies to get right. Research is expensive which certainly has a lot to do with it, but I’ll say there is other deep rooted psychological trauma going on as well.

I mean, if you start talking with customers, they’ll start wanting stuff. These people are demanding! They want things done better, faster, simpler, more buttons, less buttons. They’re never satisfied. Don’t they understand what you’re trying to do? That the underlying technology of the thing is flat out amazing? So forget it, you just can’t talk to the customer because they’re high maintenance and don’t know what they need anyway. But we the Company do, and that’s what we’ll build.

Pause.

Okay, that got a little chippy. So I’ll conclude by saying that companies with the best of intentions can get lost in their own story. You still need to have the story, a damn good one, but you also need the wherewithall to put a great book in someone’s hands and have them read it.

Today SightSpeed went live with some great updates. If you’re already a SightSpeed user, you don’t have to do anything. All the new features will be there the next time you start the application.

Luca has already posted a great summary of what’s inside the new and improved SightSpeed so I won’t repeat. However, here’s a sample of the new video blogging feature. Rather than post a link to your video message, you can embed the video post right into your blog or web site. Great job!

By the way, to post this in Wordpress, I had to turn off the Rich Text Editor, and then paste in the code.

“Sahweet” as my son would say. For once I had no trouble with the setup of the Nokia N800 internet tablet. I’m hooked up using Wi-fi and was able to make calls right away using Google Talk. I haven’t yet hooked up via bluetooth to my phone, but that’s next. As you can see, the screen is a great size and remarkably crisp and clear. Another neat feature is the full screen finger keypad, which I found somewhat bizarre at first, but I think there’s a bit of a knack to it. A little more practice and I’ll be a pro in no time.

There’s so many great features to explore on this device, like web cam, media player, internet radio, email and text messaging, internet calling with video. I’m trying to be systematic but it’s hard! The design is sleek, fits great in your hand, and the snap out desktop stand doubles as a hand grip. I checked on Amazon and the N800 can be had for around $379.

You’ve seen a few posts already announcing SightSpeed’s Peter Zottolo debut as DirectTV host for Fizz Newzz. Personally, I think that anyone who can move his or her eyebrows independantly of one another (and in complete control) deserves a shot, so way to go SightSpeed Guy. And how about a company (SightSpeed) that actually pays their employees to come up with this stuff!

Ted Wallingford cites his favourite SightSpeed Guy moment. I like the freestyle dance routine for Halloween (c’mon Sightspeed Guy, give us the link for that one!) 

 What’s yours?

You don’t have to listen too closely to hear voip and other tech bloggers talk about how for the consumer market, services and applications have to be “dead simple”. Well here’s something embarrassing…for me. 

I’m not an IT pro, but I’m not a novice pc user either. I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, which I love. I’ve had it since last June. When I started demo-ing voip applications for this blog, especially web click-to-call, and pc phone applications, I was using one of two headset/microphones. I mean my laptop has two clearly marked jacks for audio in/audio out. I futz about with these headsets on a regular basis, plugging in, unplugging, trying different things. My husband and I share them you see. So one time I was trying to find my headset and get it plugged in in time to answer an incoming Skype call.

“You know,” my husband says, “Your Dell probably has a built in mic.” Nope, I’d already checked that out. I looked for one, a label, a little pinhole that might be it. I even looked on through the Dell stuff they sent me. I don’t think it has one. Meanwhile, Skype is bleeping away.

“Well you know,” my husband says, “A laptop that new, it’s probably got a built in mic.”

I answer the call. Yes, my laptop has a built in mic. Okay, I’m a dope.

So even if it’s “dead simple”, even if it’s “built in” for crying out loud, for some of us that just isn’t enough.