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Ivytalk (Looking for beta users)
Alright, I think I've kept this under my hat long enough. So, as some of you know, or maybe noticed then forgot with the passage of time, I work for a startup company as a founding member (not a Founder per se, but one of the original team). Recently, as in within the last month, we released an open public beta for our first product, Ivytalk. The only reason I haven't mentioned this before is because we wanted to wait until the servers were moved to an actual co-lo instead of being run out of someone's house.
So, you can get a lot more information on the website itself, but Ivytalk is basically a method for distributed messaging across multiple platforms. Our main focus is on businesses because they have very few solutions in this area, and the solutions they do have are either cumbersome or inefficient. But, we also have a nice service for normal people too. Group chat using email/SMS.
Let's set up an example scenario. As pretty much everyone on this forum knows, Rym and Scott go to a lot of conventions during the year. There are lots of forumites who also go to these same conventions. It stands to reason that a lot of these people want to meet up and hang out during the convention. How does this usually get accomplished? From my own experience, it usually comes down to your group having one or two focal people who everyone tries to get in touch with, and they do all the coordinating. At least these days, tools like Twitter make that a little easier to do, but that's still only a form of one-to-many communication.
So, if instead of going that route, Rym decides to set up an Ivytalk group. He can sign up for our service, quickly create a group for a certain convention, and then use an invitation link to invite other forumites to that group. It can be as easy just posting a URL in a forum thread. Anybody on the forum who is going to that convention can click the link, sign up themselves, and then they are automatically put into the group. Once a forumite is in the group, any message that gets sent to the group will be received by every user in that group. So, from that perspective, it is true group chat.
What makes this powerful though is that once you are in a group, you can have the messages sent wherever you like. In a con situation, I would assume that most people would enter in their phone numbers so that they will receive texts. In a business situation, an email might be more appropriate. And there will be many more options down the line.
Anyway, this is sounding too much like a marketing pitch, but that is just the mode we are in.
As I said, we are in public beta right now. The service is 100% free, and always will be for the basic functionality. I'm asking all of the FRCF people to help out with our beta. Right now we have several businesses working with us, but we also need normal consumers to use the service and give us feedback on what we should change and fix. You can even direct all of your comments at me since I do most of the fixes anyway.
And of course, the link: Ivytalk.
Many thanks in advance!
So, you can get a lot more information on the website itself, but Ivytalk is basically a method for distributed messaging across multiple platforms. Our main focus is on businesses because they have very few solutions in this area, and the solutions they do have are either cumbersome or inefficient. But, we also have a nice service for normal people too. Group chat using email/SMS.
Let's set up an example scenario. As pretty much everyone on this forum knows, Rym and Scott go to a lot of conventions during the year. There are lots of forumites who also go to these same conventions. It stands to reason that a lot of these people want to meet up and hang out during the convention. How does this usually get accomplished? From my own experience, it usually comes down to your group having one or two focal people who everyone tries to get in touch with, and they do all the coordinating. At least these days, tools like Twitter make that a little easier to do, but that's still only a form of one-to-many communication.
So, if instead of going that route, Rym decides to set up an Ivytalk group. He can sign up for our service, quickly create a group for a certain convention, and then use an invitation link to invite other forumites to that group. It can be as easy just posting a URL in a forum thread. Anybody on the forum who is going to that convention can click the link, sign up themselves, and then they are automatically put into the group. Once a forumite is in the group, any message that gets sent to the group will be received by every user in that group. So, from that perspective, it is true group chat.
What makes this powerful though is that once you are in a group, you can have the messages sent wherever you like. In a con situation, I would assume that most people would enter in their phone numbers so that they will receive texts. In a business situation, an email might be more appropriate. And there will be many more options down the line.
Anyway, this is sounding too much like a marketing pitch, but that is just the mode we are in.
As I said, we are in public beta right now. The service is 100% free, and always will be for the basic functionality. I'm asking all of the FRCF people to help out with our beta. Right now we have several businesses working with us, but we also need normal consumers to use the service and give us feedback on what we should change and fix. You can even direct all of your comments at me since I do most of the fixes anyway.
And of course, the link: Ivytalk.
Many thanks in advance!
Comments
Hire a graphic designer immediately.
I signed up. Rosaka. No groups yet.
Is the FRC going to a make a group? It should and test it out at Connecticon and use it at PAX.
Nah, I might see what works out. I don't know. Hey, half the point of a public beta is to poke stuff and see what breaks.
Also of note: Doing a Google search for Ivytalk has this thread in the top 5.
http://groop.ly/welcome