One tried and true technology is seeing some new activity this summer, with two distinct efforts underway to voice-enable websites from Twilio and Angel.com. Both companies are trying to streamline the experience and make it easier to build voice add-ons.
Angel announced earlier this month the beta of Voice.com, a marketplace and platform for developing, deploying and marketing SaaS-based voice solutions. There are plenty of voice apps available for both Facebook and Twitter, including call-in hotlines for all sorts of activities that can be added to a Web site to spice up its content. The site claims that the apps are so easy anyone can build these enhancements to their social media sites within a couple of mouse clicks. The apps are available free of charge.
Twilio also has a series of enhancements to its programming interface to make building voice enhanced apps easier. They claim they have more than 40,000 developers working with its API. Today they are launching their Client tool that is a way to make any app into a communications device and independent of any telephone. So a developer can connect a browser into Twilio directly, and have an audio pipe directly into their app that doesn’t necessarily go through the public switched phone network. Or set up a call-in number where someone can dial and be connected to a browser. This can streamline communications, provided that your computer supports audio and is setup properly.
The company is charging .25 of a cent per minute for this service. The Client tool, which is available now as a Javascript SDK, will also eventually be available in separate versions for iOS and Android devices. The client documentation is available here.
Twilio also announced last week that they have partnered with on-demand business intelligence provider GoodData to offer an integrated analytics app for tracking performance of voice and SMS enabled workflows. Twilio users can now use GoodData’s Twilio Analytics App to view interactive dashboards displaying their voice and SMS usage without struggling with databases, Excel, or other complex tools. This makes it easier to gain insights into marketing campaign performance, customer communication interactions and peak performance time frames.
Users of the service can create custom dashboards and reports with a simple, powerful drag-and-drop interface. Businesses can trend their Twilio usage over time, slice and dice Twilio data by phone number, call duration, success rates, and more. GoodData offers 90 day free evaluations and upgrades to examine data past that point.
