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.

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.