Facebook Gets New VoIP App

A new Facebook application called Phone-Me-Now allows Facebook members to place free calls from their friends' Facebook profile pages, without revealing either party's caller ID.

The company, Ifbyphone, was offering the first 1,000 accounts 100 free minutes per month to regular U.S. phone numbers, though we doubt there are any of those left.

Standard Ifbyphone subscriptions start at $14.95 per month.
After registering for a free Phone-Me-Now account in your Facebook profile, your Facebook friends can contact you from the friend's area of their Profile. You select the person you want to contact, provide your own number and Ifbyphone rings both telephones, blocks the caller IDs and conferences the two callers together.

This means you can have personal conversations with other members while still keeping your own number (and theirs) private.

"Even In this age of online social networking, there are times when only a real-time personal phone call can convey the right message between two people," said Irv Shapiro, Ifbyphone CEO. "Phone-Me-Now makes it easy to connect privately with a friend by phone, without automatically divulging personal contact details the way caller ID does, and without leaving Facebook to make the call."

The Phone-Me-Now application widget is basically a phone mashup other Ifbyphone mashups allow inbound, outbound and click-to-call telephone applications with integrated interactive voice response dialogs.

Phone-Me-Now is an extension of Ifbyphone's "voice of the Web" services which are designed for medium-sized businesses and enterprise-level Web presence deployment.

The widget is available under Applications at Facebook.com by searching under "Phone-Me-Now". Here is the link http://apps.facebook.com/phonemenow/.

VoIPNews.com.au