Digitrad Launches Yes.tel, Digital Business Card Service

Digitrad, a company specializing in unified communications, launched Yes.tel today in the U.S. Yes.tel provides instant access to a person’s contact information from any PC or mobile device.

Using one user-friendly platform to manage a multitude of digital identities, consumers can seamlessly access and update their personal information consolidated into one domain from their laptop, desktop or their mobile phone.

A subscriber based service, costing $19.99 annually, Yes.tel allows registrants to select a user .tel name of their choice, which includes a local phone number with a unified voicemail, an integrated email re-direction system, anti-spam and antivirus services.

Yes.tel user records are consolidated and stored within an information-encrypted Domain Name Server (DNS), allowing a certain level of access to the public. Once a user registers a domain and distributes it to friends, family and colleagues, other users will be able to look-up the domain and have full access to all of the information associated with that domain, which will be immediately re-directed to the device and saved.

Disclosure: Digitrad is a sponsor of the Traveling Geeks blogging tour to London.

Digitrad Simplifies the Way People Communicate

Digitrad is a sponsor of the upcoming Traveling Geeks trip to London. The concept is easy. They simplify the way people communicate by using their name as a single point of contact. All you need to do is to type a name within your web browser.

No matter how many different digital IDs you have. No matter how many different social networks you use. No matter if you change address, country, phone number or job.

Digitrad's goal is to help people to find the best way to reach you. Their new service, Yes.tel, provides you with a unique .tel name, a first top level domain name dedicated to communications. I plan to play with it over the next few weeks.

Pulver Wants Ideas for SocComm II

On June 23-24, 2009 in New York, Jeff Pulver is producing SocComm II: The Social Communications Summit. For a summary on last year's event, check out his blog.

The topics at SocComm spanned across: Media / Internet / Communications / Entertainment, something he calls the "MICE" space. He's looking for passionate pitches if you have any.....topics, panels and practical talks.

Toktumi Signs Deal with Staples

Toktumi signs its first distribution deal with Staples. Toktumi is all about making it easy for small businesses to have easy and inexpensive access to big business phone services.

It's essentially a PC-based service that offers an enterprise-grade, hosted office phone system for small businesses that can be set up in five minutes and supports the use of any regular corded, cordless, or speaker phone via Toktumi’s Phone Adapter. The Phone Adapter is now available at Staples.com.

Toktumi includes a direct phone number for each line, is easy to set up, requiring no technical support. Its phone service works wherever an employee connects their PC to the Internet, even over Wi-Fi. There is no need to install a wired LAN or special phones.

Toktumi's VoIP Service Launches Public Beta Today

Client Toktumi, a free VoIP solution for small businesses that offers an enterprise-grade hosted PBX, is launching their public beta today. You can set it up in five minutes and try it out before committing to paid calling privileges.

Each Toktumi line includes a phone number, inbound and outbound calling, call transfer, an auto-attendant that can forward to internal or external numbers, conferencing for up to 20 people, visual voicemail, call waiting as well as many other features.

Toktumi also includes Search Dialing, which taps address books and online search engines to allow users to call any number by entering a name or keyword describing the person, company, product or service for which they are looking.

Toktumi can be used as a softphone, although the company offers an adapter that allows customers to connect regular telephones to their PCs. Business owners may opt to start with a free version, which gives them a phone number, voicemail, and free calling and conferencing with other Toktumi users worldwide.

The complete, paid version is $12.95 per month for each line, and enables calls to most regular phones worldwide for only two cents per minute plus allows customers to select their phone numbers or port their current number to Toktumi.

Toktumi’s features and functionality are hosted in enterprise-grade data centers, ensuring reliability, and allowing calls to be answered or forwarded to other phones when the customer’s PC is offline. InformationWeek talks about it here.

Toktumi's Peter Sisson Speaks at eComm'08

Client Toktumi's CEO Peter Sisson plans to speak at the new Emerging Communications Conference (eComm08) on March 13 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to discuss the potential impact of search dialing and PC-phone integration on telecommunications business models. His presentation, entitled: "Search Dialing, Now You're Talking, will address the convergence of search and voice features on phones.

Toktumi can either be used as a softphone directly from a PC, or connected to virtually any regular phone by adding an inexpensive adapter. A free version is available which provides a phone number, voicemail, and free calling and conferencing with other Toktumi users worldwide.

Full service is $12.95 per month per line, enabling calls to most regular phones worldwide for only two cents per minute, and allows customers to select their phone numbers or port current numbers to Toktumi.

Toktumi on Blog Talk Radio: PC & Phone Collide

Tuesday, March 11th, client Toktumi's CEO Peter Sisson talks to Blog Talk Radio's Mike McGrath at 12 pm noon pacific time, on the inevitable convergence of the PC and the phone.

You can tune in directly from their site or simply go to the Blog Talk Radio widget on the lower right hand side of this blog to hear the podcast.

A World Without Wires & Traditional Phones

GigaOm mentioned client Toktumi in an article she writes about the utopia of all things wireless in your home. Hear hear Stacey.

She says, "I could see a world without wires, a life with fewer cables running into the house and no phone jacks on the wall." If you look under my desk and behind it, its still hard to imagine a world without wires. Behind my flat screen HDTV, its even worse. Yet, I still try to imagine for without the imagination and the hope, we'll forever be bound to cables and wires.

She writes about the simplicity of options like femtocells, T-Mobile’s UMA efforts, voice over Wi-Fi, the and once she can port my old number, switching to a service like Toktumi for her second phone.

Kudos to the Toktumi Team for a Great DEMO

There have been some great kudos for client Toktumi from this past week's DEMO with more to come in the next week or so.

CNET (Webware): "Skype for grownups. Not just another consumer VoIP start-up. The whole service is designed around setting up a workgroup of phones with business-friendly features."

Financial Times (FT.com): "Among the standouts {at DEMO} were…startups with practical and interesting products and services with the potential to disrupt. My favourite was Toktumi."

Internet.com (Voip Planet): "As easy as it gets… {and offers} an ingenious dialing feature that really points the way of the future of telephony. They call it search dialing."

PC World: "It's a hosted PBX service that requires no equipment other than your PC and a small adapter...The way Toktumi puts the PC at the center of the office phone system is unique."

InfoWorld: "One of the most innovative applications to appear at DEMO 08." "Threatens in a very serious way to disintermediate the giants of the telecommunications industry."

And there's been real customer interest from folks (a lot of small businesses) who signed up after the beta went live on Tuesday, meaning: real revenues on their very first day out! Kudos to the Toktumi team for a successful launch. Onward and upward as I love to say!!

Renee Blodgett, Peter Sisson (CEO), Ann Revell-Pechar and Ben La Marca

Blog Love for Toktumi

I'm here in Palm Springs with client Toktumi setting up the booth for yet another annual DEMO Conference. Rehearsal is in an hour and we're doing that last minute refinement of the script and the pitch.

Think: Skype marries a hosted PBX that works with landline phones and meets the functionality and features of big company phone systems. Download to dial tone takes 5 minutes and is a great solution for people who work from home or small businesses who want the power of a serious phone system for a fraction of the cost.

Network World's Keith Shaw does a podcast with founder Peter Sisson, who discusses how SMBs who use Toktumi's VoIP service can now get enterprise-class voice services. Also, PC World's Mark Sullivan. More from the show floor as things unfold.

Peter at the booth: