Lots of new users and great comments!

Well, we're over 150 users signed up for the the new live conferencing tool... exciting!

Pete at Mashable gave us a review with remarkably quick turnaround... he seemed to really like the concept of voice conferencing on blogs (and while mashable.com is a great blog itself, it is a blog focused on social nets... so Pete has two good perspectives here), he didn't like Java at all. He's a big fan of flash and spanked us for not using it.

I responded in a brief comment pointing out that when we began development on this VOIP tool, Flash was not really an option... it couldn't handle some tasks we needed to handle in a softphone. But, in their recent flash upgrade, I understand these issues have been addressed. So, we're taking Pete's comments to heart and are looking at a Flash version.

I also pointed out that when I labeled us a widget, I probably invited comparisons to other lightweight, sexy flash widgets out there. In fact, we are actually a full-blown VOIP softphone and are more comparable to Skype, Gtalk, Paltalk and others... those phones require you to download a client and don't have nearly as powerful of conferencing capabilities as we do...

Among the other good comments have been:

1) Need better instructions for how to use this thing (uhh... we agree. we're working on it. sorry!).

2) The widget should be made smaller so it can fit in a blog sidebar... a creative blogger at Singabloodypore figured out that you can just edit the width variable in the Javascript line and make it as skinny as you want! This means you can't see the number of active listeners, but we're working on a skinny version that will preserve all the info and STILL fit in a sidebar.

3) And folks want to be able to record their conference calls and create podcasts... as Talkr, we applaud that heartily and are working on that too and will have a clever solution ready ASAP. We think that could be a revolutionary application of this technology!

Time for lunch... and to check the new sign-ups! Later.

VoIP Now: Talkr Voice Conferencing

VoIP Now: Talkr Voice Conferencing

Good article on VOIPnow that gets it, vis a vis podcasting. The live conferences will be exciting in and of themselves, but soon you'll be able to record and publish the calls as podcasts. That was a major reason for our acquisition of Talkr... getting an effective platform for the distribution of audio!

Quick comment... the author correctly notes that we should all be concerned about spammers entering our conference calls. We've reduced barriers for participation to almost zero... so of course, unscrupulous people will be taking advantage of that fact. This interference could be rough for bloggers and perhaps even worse when we roll out the version for social nets (what's worse than spammers? telemarketers!).

But, even our first version lets bloggers password protect their conferences (and create multiple conferences)... so if they want to have segregated, protected chats.its easy to do so. Maybe voice passwords are handed out upon registration, or a subscription to an RSS feed, something like that. Please give us your thoughts on how this would work the best.

In addition, we've got a whole bevy of moderating tools in the works... killing users that misbehave, etc. These will be crucial for really large chats. For example, when we webcast the 1996 Democratic National Convention, we had hundreds of people in multiple chats with Senators, cabinet members, etc. and we couldn't have done that without moderating tools.

We'll keep you posted on those developments, too.

News from the Launch!

Some Cool Applications of the Talkr Widget... and a few mea culpas

For yesterday's launch, we intentionally avoided press coverage to have a chance to react to any issues that arose. Nevertheless, within the first hour after our limited beta opened, over 30 bloggers had signed up... THANKS!

And there has already been some great feedback... bloggers are very curious about this technology. Here are some ideas and clarifications that might benefit all:

1) OK... first, we should have mentioned more prominently that you might need to update your Java. We need JRE 1.5 or better. And, if you want to talk, rather than just listen, you need a microphone. We could have been more clear about both these things. I'm sure more of my slips will be called to my attention later...

2) And I should have really emphasized at the outset that this voice conferencing service will be free to the bloggers and free to their audiences... our goal is to make it audio-ad-supported! And revenue will be shared with the bloggers once it starts flowing. More on this below...

3) Bloggers can embed the new Talkr widget on their blogs and their audience members (with a simple click, no downloads of a client or anything) can join in a live, multiparty voice conference call.

The blogger can be in the voice conference leading the discussion, or simply leave it open for his/her audience to talk among themselves on the blog's topics, 24/7.

4) In addition, a group of blogs focused on a similar topic (say "liberal US politics" or "Web 2.0") can all embed the same widget which points to a single "shared" voice conference on that shared topic... all these blogs could point to a single voice chat, and each blog's audience can interact with the other blogs' audiences. This can "aggregate audience" across blogs willing to cooperate to build traffic.

5) These conference calls can also be password protected if a blogger want to limit access to "subscribers" or something... and the pasword can be changed regularly to enforce good behavior, for example.

6) We'll soon be releasing the tools that will allow a blogger to record their conference calls... for example, a blogger can record his/her chat featuring three "guest experts" discussing the state of Web 2.0 with a few audience members. Then the blogger can attach this mp3 to a podcast (an interactive, multiparty podcast, at that) on the topic.

---------------------------

So... we are giving bloggers an easy, free way to get into live conversations with their audience, as well as other bloggers interested in the same topic.

To what end? Hopefully... money...

As we said when announcing the Talkr acquisition, we plan on attracting audio ads to the traditional text-to-speech Talkr which is why we've eliminated the old subscription model for end users.

We'll also be trying to introduce audio ads to the live voice conferencing as well... for example, every audience member will soon hear a very short audio ad as they enter a voice conference. They currently hear a "Welcome to LiveOnTheNet" placeholder...

And we'll also be placing audio ads in the podcasts of the live chats as well...

When we get the revenue flowing, we'll be sharing that with the bloggers that create and drive the voice conference calls. There's a lot to be figured out there, but that's the kind of "high class problem" that the bloggers and we would like to have, I imagine.

New Live Talkr beta

Hi ! I'm Roger Schneider, the CEO of LiveOnTheNet.com and I want to welcome you to our new Talkr blog.

Our company recently acquired the popular text-to-speech service (TTS), Talkr.com, and are thrilled to integrate this excellent technology into our base of products.

We are excited about the text-to-speech service and are expanding and refining the Talkr TTS product as we speak -- adding new features, upgrading servers, lots of stuff. Thousands of bloggers use Talkr TTS and the number grows every day. And we have plans to really increase that growth.

In addition, we are releasing our new beta of a highly innovative voice conferencing platform ! It features a revolutionary voice widget that requires no software client or downloads.

This free, technology-enabled service lets people easily find, join, create, manage and promote voice conversations - among many participants - over the Internet.
It allows users to interact with other people on the topics they care about - they can invite others to join them to talk about issues of mutual interest, or they can join other ongoing conversations.

Users can open their conversations up to large or small groups of their fellow enthusiasts through open or password-protected conferences.

In short, it will let people talk online like they've never talked before... and this exciting new product is the new Talkr. Learn about and even try the beta at new.talkr.com !

And we'd love to hear your questions, comments, remarks, bug reports -- anything you want to tell us -- throught this blog or any of the avenues we've created to hear from you. You can even get us on your own Talkr ! We'd love to hear from you.