Archives for December 2006

Do your relatives ever call you from work, and then perhaps connect you with another relative while your talking so that you end up having a family conference call? One of my brothers has been doing that on and off for the last fifteen years or so. He’s used this method of family conference call between my parents, himself and one or more of our siblings to help us solidify plans for the holidays or an upcoming trip. We’ve even used it when someone in the family has become seriously ill.

I’ve always envied the fact that he could do that so easily. However, now thanks to Foonz (pronounced “phones”) I don’t have to envy him anymore because I can make group calls myself.

Foonz is a new service that lets the average individual make a group call from any phone. Not only that, but it’s free to use as only your normal phone minutes will apply. So for example if you are making a local group call it’s going to be totally free, and if you are calling a group of people living in another city or Country then only the normal long distance charges that your phone company would charge you would apply.

It’s easy to start a group call at anytime with no need to pre plan. People get invited to your group call via a text message to their cell phone, IM or email. Plus along with having no additional fees, you’ll also find that there is no advertising and Foonz won’t sell your information to others either. Sounds good?

So how exactly does it work? Well, first you need to
sign up for free at the foonz web site. Once you’re signed up you can great a contact list on the Foonz website, setting up groups of contacts. The groups would be people that you would want to talk with at the same time on a call. For example I might set up a Foonz contact group that consists of my sister and three brothers.

Once you’ve set up your contact list and groups you can telephone Foonz to start a group call. You’ll get the number for Foonz when you register with the company. When you are connected to Foonz, Foonz will tell you how to begin a group call. When you initiate the call Foonz sends out the messages to everyone in the group via text message to their cell phone, IM or email.

The members of your contact list that are invited to the group call will receive a phone number from Foonz, and when the group members call that number they are automatically joined up with you and any other group members who have connected. If someone that you’ve invited can’t join the call you’ll be able to leave a message for them.

I can see a number of people being interested in using this service. Parents and family members calling a student that’s studying away from home or abroad. Students calling each other to talk online and perhaps even study together on the phone, or just friends and relative chatting on a regular basis. Perhaps you don’t call distant relatives very often because of the expense, but just think, if you could call several at once in a group call you’d probably call them more often wouldn’t you? There’s just so many possibilities.

Check out the Foonz site for yourself to learn more if you are interested in this service. I think I’m going to try it out. Hey- a group of blogger friends could talk regularly too. That would be useful!