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Nimbuzz: Voice, Social Networking and Instant Messaging in One

Charles Hamilton — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:00:22 +0000

There are many apps available that try to bring together various communication protocols. I’m always interested in programs that manage multiple services, since for me, Adium on the Mac and its PC relative, Pidgin, are indispensable for dealing with my eight (!) IM accounts.

After my recent post about the betas I use, I was introduced to Nimbuzz, an IM program that is now offering voice services in competition with Skype and Gizmo5 (which was recently purchased by Google).

The origins of Nimbuzz are in Europe. It claims a 20 percent market share in several European countries, and it’s popular in the Middle East. The company says that it has 12 million users, and is adding 40,000 users per day — not bad for a service that’s less than two years old. Nimbuzz is less well known in North America, but that may soon change.

Nimbuzz Mobile

Nimbuzz focuses much of its effort on developing mobile clients for a wide variety of mobile phones, including the iPhone/iPod touch, Android systems, and BlackBerry (a native BlackBerry app is new today). Nimbuzz clients are available in several languages.

The Nimbuzz Mobile client supports the IM services one would expect (Windows Live/MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ); social networking chat (Facebook, MySpace); plus some services not often seen in North America, but which are popular elsewhere (the VZ Networks, Gadu-Gadu, Hyves, Giovani).

The client also allows you to make VoIP calls using any SIP account (like Gizmo5), Skype, or its own NimbuzzOut service. Nimbuzz claims that its international calling rates are cheaper than Skype’s.

I found the Nimbuzz mobile client for iPhone/iPod touch to be attractive and easy to use. Both the IM and voice functions work well. I have some minor grumbles, which I’m told will be remedied in upcoming versions.

In order to make voice calls, the phone number to be dialed must be entered into your device’s address book in full international format — like +1 (555) 555-1212. However, one can’t edit this data directly from Nimbuzz.
The client supports only one account per service, so if you have, say, two Google Talk accounts, you must pick one.
Nimbuzz does not yet support GTalk for Google Apps accounts.
I was recently required to change my GTalk password due to “suspicious activity,” but Nimbuzz for iPhone doesn’t seem to have a way to change service passwords. I had to delete the GTalk account in the client, then re-create it.

Nimbuzz for Mac

The developers at Nimbuzz say that they are “big Apple fans,” and it shows. The Nimbuzz Mac client comes close to the elegance of Adium. I hope the program will maintain its Mac-friendly design as it matures. The Windows version looks good, too, although I haven’t tested it.

The desktop client has most of the features and limitations of the mobile version, although it doesn’t yet support voice calling or Skype chat. It also doesn’t share data with the mobile version, which would be nice, so as to avoid having to input account data more than once. And I would have liked to have seen integration with the Mac Address Book app.

Nimbuzz also offers a web version, which isn’t as full-featured as some other web-based IM services, such as Meebo.

Nimbuzz doesn’t work with Twitter, although I think that’s a good thing. Twitter isn’t a messaging service, it’s a microblogging service, and I have found that Twitter functions in IM clients don’t work very well.

I’m very encouraged by the development of Nimbuzz so far. The company tells me that, instead of adding features willy-nilly, they have chosen to “do it right.”I can certainly agree with that in principle, although given the speed with which other apps are being created and updated, let’s hope that Nimbuzz can keep pace.

Have you tried the new Nimbuzz BlackBerry client? Let us know what you think of it below.

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Google Voice Expands

Charles Hamilton — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:29:26 +0000

With all the hoopla about Google Wave, another set of invitations coming out of Google seems to have been overlooked. After months of waiting, certain Twitterers are reporting that they’ve finally received invites to Google Voice, which I wrote about back in June. I’ve had GV myself since it was GrandCentral, but I got another invitation last night. The folks selling Voice invites on eBay may lose their customers soon! If you haven’t received an invite yet, you can request one here.

The concept behind Google Voice is simple: You’re given one phone number that can be configured to ring in multiple places — office, home, on your cell phone or even on an account on the VoIP service Gizmo5. We’ve looked at a number of virtual phone systems, including 3jam and Grasshopper, and while they have many nice features, it’s hard to beat Google Voice’s price — free except for international calls.

Have you received your Google Voice invitation?

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Report: Google’s Voice Possibilities

Google Voice to Offer Phone and Messaging Services

Charles Hamilton — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:00:34 +0000

Google Voice wants to be your phone manager, SMS and voicemail provider. The service is rumored to be almost ready for public access.

Google Voice germinated after Google acquired GrandCentral almost two years ago. The service was relaunched earlier this year as a private beta for GrandCentral users. I’ve been using it for a while, and am generally impressed. Google Voice offers a number of features that should make it popular with web workers.

Incoming Calls and SMS

You are given one phone number that can be configured to ring multiple places — office, home, cell phone or even an account on the VoIP service Gizmo5. (In the past, users were assigned a new telephone number. Apparently, it will soon be possible to port existing numbers to Google Voice.) Sound quality is quite good, although there can be a delay in transmission, which causes awkward pauses. It’s rather like a better version of talking via satellite.
If you are not available, voicemails are recorded. They can be transcribed and sent to you by email or SMS. The accuracy of the transcriptions varies, but ranges from fair to excellent.

You can choose to screen some or all callers, and have them speak their name before the call is forwarded to you. You can set up groups, and allow some callers to bypass screening.
You can “listen in” on callers as they leave messages, or record calls.
You can import your contacts through CSV files.

Outgoing Calls and SMS

You can make outgoing calls through the Google Voice web site. Outgoing calls are free in the continental U.S. International calling rates are quite reasonable, and are competitive with many VoIP services.
With the Google Voice Add-on for Firefox, you don’t even need to go to the Google Voice web site to make calls. You can just click the add-on and enter a number. And the add-on recognizes phone numbers on web pages and makes them clickable links, too.
You can also send SMS messages through the Google Voice web site and the Firefox add-on. When you do so, you are assigned a number in area code 406 that allows recipients to reply.

There are a number of other useful features, including conference calling. The complete list is at Google Voice help.

Are you already using Google Voice? Will you sign up once it becomes available?

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Gizmo5 Offering Free Conference Calls

Om Malik — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:39:18 +0000

Gizmo5, a service of VoIP service provider, SIPphone is offering free conference calling to its customers. I have been a big Gizmo user for a long time, but my usage has gone down mostly because their voice quality isn’t up to par. In fact, for all my VoIP calling, I had almost exclusively switched to using Skype. Over the weekend, however, I was reintroduced to the service when Gizmo5 emailed a free conference call offer. I wanted to talk to a few buddies and normally, I would call them on my cellular phone and then join the calls to create a conference call. However, I decided to try out the new offer.

I went to their website and got a conference room number. Those who wanted to join call in 1-605-475-8515 and punch the room number and join the conversation. It worked surprisingly smoothly and phone conversation with a couple of my buddies went without a hitch. Each conference room can handle between 2-to-10 people. Gizmo5 subscribers can call into the conference room and that doesn’t count a dime.

The whole thing went without a hitch, though given Gizmo5′s quality-record, I am going to try it out a couple of times before making a final decision. However, I can see the potential. I can use this service to interview folks and tape the conversation for easy archiving. If you are looking for an easy conference call option, you should try it out.

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Get GrandCentral On Your Softphone

Jason Harris — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:00:02 +0000

For mobile workers, it’s hard to beat the freedom and flexibility Internet telephony provides us. One of our favorite web services, GrandCentral, gives you the ability to have one phone number that can ring an assortment of phones including your mobile, landline, office phone, and any other place you’d like to be reached.

Additionally, there are those who embrace the utility of a soft phone. A soft phone is an application that runs on your computer and allows you to send or receive phone calls, normally through a microphone headset. Skype is probably the most well known soft phone, but a competitor of theirs called Gizmo5 (formerly known as Gizmo Project) can be combined with GrandCentral to give you soft phone capabilities.

This Gizmo/GrandCentral combination is made possible because of the two services’ use of SIP, a standard protocol for VoIP communication. Using Gizmo and GrandCentral together will give you absolutely free calling inbound and outbound to your callers, absent of using any cell minutes or using a landline.

Follow this hands-on guide to enable Gizmo5 to be added as a phone in your GrandCentral set up.

First and foremost, you must have a GrandCentral account set up and ready. Secondly, download Gizmo5 from their website and create an account. Gizmo5 is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Nokia Internet tablets.

Now that you have your two accounts on GrandCentral and Gizmo5 set up, it’s time to integrate them. Log in to your GrandCentral account and click on the “Settings” tab. In the Phones group, you can see where you have your various phones that GrandCentral forwards your calls to, according to your preferences. It is here that we will put in our Gizmo5 ‘phone number’ for GrandCentral to use.

To find that Gizmo5 phone number, launch Gizmo 5 and under the Account menu, click on “My Profile”. In this window, shown on the right, you’ll see your SIP phone number. Write down this number, minus the 1 at the beginning and excluding everything after the @ sign.

Now, go back to GrandCentral and click “Add/Edit Number”. In the dropdown, choose Gizmo, type in the SIP number found in Gizmo5, and assign a name of your choosing to the entry. Lastly, click “Save” to commit the change.

Now, whenever you have Gizmo5 running on your computer, you have the ability to recieve phone calls without using your cell minutes or tying up a landline. All voice packets are carried over the Internet from GrandCentral to wherever your logged into Gizmo5 from.

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