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Rebtel Borrows Iotum’s Idea; Now Offers Facebook Conferencing App

Posted: January 18th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: VoIP News | 6 Comments »

If you are a Facebook fanboy like myself, you know about Iotum’s Free Conference Call application.

The first to offer such a solution on Facebook, the Iotum team hasn’t rested on their laurels as over the last few months they have continued to build additional functionality into the application, such as the ability to record your conference call sessions. With that came the birth of the “Con-Cast” a hybrid that is one part conference call, one part Podcast. I have used the application on my many occasions and have always been impressed.

Yesterday, I received a note that Rebtel, the mobile VoIP service provider has launched their own free conference calling application for Facebook. According to the release, it seems that the Rebtel application is a “me-too” or for lack of a better term, Free Conference Call 1.0. I have never quite understood the me-too mentality. After all, if their is already a great solution out there, why do they exact same thing, especially with the awesome user base Iotum has built for their application.

I would be surprised if the Rebtel application got much traction as it is today. If you want people to migrate, to move from one solution to another, you have to offer something new and different. This just another instance of a company trying to ride wave. My advice? Stick with the original Free Conference Call application.

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6 Comments on “Rebtel Borrows Iotum’s Idea; Now Offers Facebook Conferencing App”

  1. 1 Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments said at 2:07 pm on January 18th, 2008:

    Rebtel themselves recently called “Copycat!” when Jajah Direct launched:

    We want to tip our hat to our friends at Jajah for the introduction of Jajah Direct. Those folks have done a brilliant job at making something that Rebtel has been doing from the start sound brand new and innovative.

    What I’m talking about is free or low-cost international calls without the need for Internet access. Or said another way: Rebtel service as it’s been from day No.1.

    And while we’ve always thought our service was innovative, it’s super nice when you get validation from a competitor that you really did break new ground and that all the other ways of making a VoIP calls are “old school.”

    http://forum.rebtel.com/wordpress/2007/11/29/tried-and-true-is-new-at-jajah/

    And Tringme today announced a “me-too” of Ribbit.

  2. 2 Alec Saunders said at 2:11 pm on January 18th, 2008:

    Thanks for the kind words Garrett. It’s always good to have competition you know!

  3. 3 Garrett Smith said at 3:38 pm on January 18th, 2008:

    @ Markus

    That is pretty interesting. I wonder if they, like JAJAH, will try to “out-market” the Iotum team.

  4. 4 Garrett Smith said at 3:39 pm on January 18th, 2008:

    @Alec:

    No problems. I love the app.

    I guess more competitors means there is a marketplace for the service…which is always a good thing.

  5. 5 Chai340 said at 3:59 pm on January 23rd, 2008:

    Well, considering the rates some companies charge for conference call there is definitely a marketplace.

    However, just a comment on Rebtel. The obvious reason to use Rebtel would be that the service works in 40 countries, not only in the US.

    Read more on http://chai340.vox.com

  6. 6 Garrett Smith said at 8:34 pm on January 23rd, 2008:

    @Chai430:

    Rebtel is great for international calls, but I am not sure that the conferencing available through their Facebook application is available in all 40 of those countries.

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