Twilio Wants Every App To Have Voice Chat Like Skype

San Francisco startup Twilio just unveiled a service for developers to build point-to-point voice chat into any Web, iOS, or Android application.

It's like every developer in the world now has access to the voice chat functions of Skype or Google Talk.

For the last couple years, Twilio has provided simple tools for developers to add voice calling and SMS to their applications, and charged them a simple and transparent fee for each use.

So far, though, all of those communications have traveled through the regular phone network.

As Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson puts it, Twilio was simply helping developers wire up the phone system in new interesting ways, using it "as a big dumb audio pipe."

The new technology is called Twilio Client, and it enables voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls from within any Web page, iOS app, or Android app.

Calls travel over the Internet, so no connection to the phone system is required, although the apps can still connect to regular phone numbers using Twilio's other services.

Because Twilio doesn't have to interface with the phone system, the service costs developers only 1/4 of a penny per user per minute -- a fraction of the price of Twilio's other services.

Some possible uses:

• An online retailer could set up a "push to talk to customer service" button on its Web site.

• Mobile and Web games could let gamers trash talk while playing -- just like they've been able to do on consoles like the Xbox for years.

• Business apps could layer voice on top of existing features -- for instance, a CRM app could let company reps take calls from customers. All data from incoming calls could be integrated into the CRM system, so reps would know who's calling, the last time they called, and any outstanding issues they might be having.

• Companies could set up internal intercom or conferencing systems -- at a fraction of the cost of a product like Microsoft's Lync.

Twilio uses Amazon Web Services for data storage and compute power -- CEO Lawson used to be a product manager for AWS -- which allows it to scale to massive volumes quickly while charging developers only for the exact capacity that their apps uses. Lawson says they've tested Twilio Client for "billions" of endpoints.

The service sounded clear in a test at Twilio's office, and worked equally well between two Macs as it did between a Mac and iPhone. 

Twilio Client is available for Web sites today (a free JavaScript SDK will get developers on board), and is coming for iOS and Android soon.

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• This 21-Year-Old Just Sold Her Startup For $100 Million
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Why It's So Important For Facebook To Work On Every Phone

Today's announcement of a version of Facebook for low-end feature phones is part of the company's stated plans to reach literally every person in the world in five years.

As Facebook platform manager Carl Sjogreen explained last week, "our focus is making every mobile device, from the lowest-end feature phone to highest-end smartphone, capable of interacting with Facebook in meaningful ways."

The new app, Facebook for Every Phone, brings Facebook to more than 2,500 phones, including lots of phones used in huge countries like Brazil, India, and Indonesia, where full-fledged smartphones are too expensive for most consumers.

On a basic level this is obvious -- like any company, Facebook wants its product to be used as widely as possible.

But Sjogreen also gave an interesting explanation of why being cross-platform is particularly important for social apps.

Take for example the Words With Friends mobile game (which was acquired by Zynga earlier this year). It's only fun if you can play it with other people. Even if I have it on my Android phone, if my best friend can't use it on his phone, then neither of us will play.

It's almost like a reverse-network effect -- without broad cross-platform support, you can lose customers on platforms that you DO support.

Sjogreen was explaining all of this as a reason why Facebook is bullish on HTML5 for its long-term developer strategy. By building a platform that lets social developers write their apps once to run on multiple mobile platforms, Facebook is doing them a big favor. Otherwise, they'd have to write native apps for each platform -- a big and expensive time sink.

(Facebook still won't talk about the other big rumored reason why it's moving to HTML5 -- to create an alternative to the Apple App Store and other single-platform stores, compete with a Facebook-run payments system. But it's probably true, and it's a great move in itself.)

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See Also:

• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: It Isn't Just Facebook, Google Is At War With Everyone
• A Photo Of The Future: Facebook Search
• This Recent College Grad Created Facebook's Video Calling Feature With His Bare Hands

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Nokia Execs Go Missing For Two Months Every Year (NOK, AAPL)

Every year, Apple starts selling an updateded iPhone in July.

You'd imagine executives at the world's biggest cellphone company, Nokia, would be working their butts off during that month, dealing with an annual seismic shift in their space.

You would imagine incorrectly.

According to Adam Greenfield, a design consultant who spent two years with Nokia, July is the month executives at the company always check out – until September.

“In mid-July, Nokia House is a ghost town,” Greenfield tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

“If you need a decision and the key person’s at the summer cottage? Forget it. You’ll resolve that issue in September. It’s something that hampers their agility.”

No kidding. According to the same Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, Apple gets 3X more revenue per employee as Nokia and HTC gets 2X.

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See Also:

• Amazon Blasts Into Music Streaming Market With Cloud Drive
• iPhone 5 Might Not Launch Until Later This Year... Or 2012?
• Apple "Will Unveil The Future Of iOS" At WWDC June 6-10

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itzup. every live event you like.

itzup. every live event you like.

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The Best Smartphone On Every Platform

The most important thing about your next phone isn't what carrier it's on, how big the screen is, or even who makes it.

It's the platform, stupid.

So here are the best phones on every platform.

This post originally appeared at Gizmodo and is republished here with permission. Send an e-mail to Matt Buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com

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