FriendCaller Blog

We don’t mean to brag, we don’t mean to boast, but soon we’ll have another awesome post: In about 3 days, we’ll top 1 million downloads on iTunes.

This follows our other major milestones this month: we reached 1 million registered users (some of our users sign up through the web, but most through our FriendCaller iPhone apps), we raised $2 million from a group of angels and investors, including one of the original investors in Skype, and we surpassed $2 million in revenue. Oh, and we’re clipping along at 15,000 new users a day. That’s about the same as the social media mega-hit Foursquare.

Our category of browser-based telephony has been witnessing a flood of interest lately too: Google’s web calling announcement had our ears ringing, as we were mentioned in some of those articles. We’re glad to see Google getting into web calling as they recognize Gmail users value the sound of voice too. And yes, Google Voice within Gmail still requires a plug-in, unlike FriendCaller that does not require downloads but simply uses the Java functionality of your browser. We want everyone to be able to make a free call by sending a link, not just on the Internet, but through your Android, iPhone, iPad, Facebook, Twitter, heck even your iPod. We don’t mind what you use, as long as you can call your friends in the blink of a link.

We’re pretty excited about Skype’s upcoming IPO too. They’ve done a great job showing people how to make a call through their computer. Our mission is to reach out to the vast majority who might have heard about Internet phone calling but does not want to bother with installations, configurations and other hazzle associated with VoIP, we make Internet telephony part of the browsing experience and make it really simple. It is simple yet powerful: It even turns an iPod Touch into a free cell phone – goodbye new hardware and contracts; hello free cell phone.

Unleashing the power of communication through browser-based voice calling, a million times, a million downloads.

Google recently launched calling from within Gmail, but what about Facebook.

FriendCaller CallMe-Links can already get you talking in Gmail, Gchat and now even with your Facebook friends from within Facebook Chat.

Ever been chatting with a friend on Facebook and felt like switching to voice? Sometimes there’s nothing like actually talking to someone, right? Well FriendCaller supports voice calling right within Facebook using CallMe-Links.

With FriendCaller you get your very own unique link you can send to anyone. CallMe-Links look just like a link to a website, only when people click they’ll be calling you. And the user on the other end doesn’t even need to be a FriendCaller user.

You can send CallMe-Links to anyone, anywhere, anyhow.

Here’s the easy steps to create your very own CallMe-Link:

1. Login to your FriendCaller account.
2. Hit the “CallMe-Links” on the menu.
3. Hit “Activate” to get your very own CallMe-Link.
4. Copy the contents of the “Your CallMe-Link” box to your clipboard.

If you want to then have your Facebook chat friend call you, simple go back to your chat window and paste in the link. Once your friend clicks the call will start.

If you’re friends want to join the FriendCaller fun, you can also point them over to our Facebook App.

This is a great example of how CallMe-Links are useful just about anywhere you chat, message, share, email or comment.

Got an interesting way you’ve used a CallMe-Link? Let us know.

After C2Call in recent weeks by the financing round of $ 2 million from well-known US investors and the crossing of the 1 million user mark could generate worldwide buzz, now a local newspaper reported on our company.

C2Call CTO Michael Knecht was interviewed and was able to closely examine the company’s philosophy. Thus, one of the main objectives of FriendCaller, not technical-affine users to enter the Voice over IP technology easy as possible, although VoIP, in addition to very cheap fares, especially abroad, has many other advantages, the market until now is still very small.

A quote from the article: “Whether, we in a few years all use this technology, Michael Knecht believes open: ‘This also depends on the network operators’.” The behaviour of the net operators is really a hot topic , but we hope to continue the VoIP freedom.
Especially our iPhone and Android Apps be acknowledged.
So many thanks to the Westfalenpost for this article, with which many people are reached, which have not yet heard of us.

Well, that was fast.

FriendCaller just hit the 1 million user mark, which is certainly something we’re proud of. What is perhaps even more remarkable is that 500,000 of those new users joined us in the last two months.

A major portion of those new to FriendCaller came through the iTunes store: FriendCaller has maintained its ranking in the top 25 free social networking apps on iTunes since June.

The summer has indeed been getting hotter as 15,000 new users a day are now embracing our browser-based Internet phone service that requires no download. To put that into perspective, that’s the same number of folks signing up to such buzz-worthy services as Foursquare, as VentureBeat recently reported.

We’ve been beyond delighted to see the way FriendCaller has recently taken off. No one is happy to see summer end, but the way the last few months have gone, we’re wishing the season lasted all year.

Today we were able to welcome the 10,000 fan of our Facebook application. First of all many, many thanks for this encouragement.
Wow, 10,000 Likes -  that is really a nice number, right?

And who would have thought it?

In 2009, when we tested our first Facebook Beta we realized that the Facebook platform was not ready for us, the wall was too static and lacking notifications, both parties would have to add the Facebook app and open it in the central app pane view, essentially blocking all other activities, thus making spontaneous calls quite impossible.

Then at the beginning of the year 2010, the Facebook platform introduced more effective ways of notifications and now allow standard requests via users email address. We use email addresses as User-IDs across platforms, so new notifications and email was all we needed to integrate Facebook with our Web Phone and iPhone apps.

You don’t know our Facebook App, yet?

Simply visit the facebook page of our application and click on the left sidebar on “Go to application“. FriendCaller facebook WebPhone will launch itself after you allow the application to interact with you, and the Java.

The facebook webphone is pretty easy to use, howsoever, if at any point you get stucked, see at the right panel in the app, and there you will find a simple guide which explains how to use the facebook application in 4 simple steps. Of course you can also use your existing WebPhone account from FriendCaller.com, or if you don’t have one yet, you can just create a new one within the application itself.

To always have immediate access to your FriendCaller WebPhone on your facebook page, we recommend you bookmark the application better create a bookmark. On the application page there is the button “add bookmark” for this. With a click on the appropriate button you will have the access to your personal CallMe-Links, and with them you can easily talk to your friends for free or just add your contacts with a click on the “webmail import” button. You can also share your personal CallMe-Links to be posted on your faecbook profile and on your friends’ walls. Of course you can directly call from facebook to regular landlines or mobile phones anywhere in the world, thus saving money with our extremely cheap call rates.

Almost 17,000 users have already installed the application, so get this nice app, too.