Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Ouch…mEgo Gets Kicked Out Of DEMO Conference
That’s a bit rough on the company, since many of the presenting startups at DEMO are already launched and have tons of press out there about them. In this case, mEgo may have simply been the sacrificial lamb in DEMO’s desire to prove a point.
The worst part about the whole ordeal is that mEgo has been told they won’t get the $18,000 back that they paid to participate in DEMO. mEgo says that while DEMO has the right to kick them out of the conference, they don’t have the right to keep the $18k under the contract.
Frankly, this is probably good news for mEgo, who’ll now get far more attention than they would have if they had actually gotten on stage. But it’s also a warning to other startups: Don’t screw with DEMO - they hit back.
Just an aside - mEgo was one of my personal favorites at TechCrunch40. Make sure to check out the service.
Labels: $, Conference, Demo, Gets, Gmail, Google, Kicked, Of, Ouch…mEgo, Out
Monday, August 27, 2007
Lypp’s Free-n-Easy Conference Calling Coming In September
Lypp.com (site is not yet live) is a new group calling service set to launch a private beta in September. There are a lot of conference calling services out there already, not least among them being the full blown meeting applications (GoToMeeting, WebEx). However, Lypp wants to make initiating a conference call dead simple (download free) over IM, SMS, and email. The service will be free at the time of launch (each user will get 500 minutes of free calling, no per-min charges, no monthly fees).
IM will be the first mode for initiating conference calls. Users will associate an IM ID with their service and add Lypp as a friend. You’ll then be able to initiate a call by sending a command to that IM buddy, such as call [number, number, number]. Lypp will call your phone and those of your friends, connecting you all in a conference call. Most likely the calls are initiated and tied together over a VOIP bridge. Typing in my friends numbers instead of just selecting contacts on a downloaded application seems like it could get annoying, though.
They’re keeping it simple for launch, but have plans for an API, advanced in-call controls, recording, and possible location based. The API will integrate with calendaring, address books, and other complementary applications.
Labels: $, Calling, Coming, Conference, Facebook, in, Lypp’s Free-n-Easy, September
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