One of the hallmarks of agile development processes is the ability to crank out new features under very short timelines. The practical impact is that as a software development organization, you can quickly respond to user feedback with updates designed to address their needs.
Our friends at Facebook use these processes, and push out new releases to their platform on a pretty consistent weekly schedule — usually Tuesdays at midnight. At iotum, we're a little less structured than that, but every two to three weeks early in the week rather than later, we release new features to the web. Today's release includes:
- An interactive demo call. When you jump on the call the narrator invites you to take actions such as raising and lowering your hand in response to things that are happening on the screen. Behind the scenes our conference bridge is communicating with our web application and making stuff happen on screen for you. I'm pretty proud of this — it's pure Voice 2.0, which is the marriage of voice and the web. Go check it out… it's cool, and there's a prize buried in the call if you listen to the whole thing.
- PIN Numbers. Yup. We've added PIN numbers to our PIN-less conference calling system. While a lot of users found the way we used mobile phone number and caller-ID as an identifier (rather than a PIN) useful, enough tripped over it that we've added a traditional PIN number to each call as well. Now you have your choice, PIN or PIN-less.
- A new "Add More Participants" button if you're the conference organizer. After you've finished organizing the call, you easily add more participants.
- A new instructions page, including dial-in options for international users. In recent weeks we've had an influx of users from Europe and the Middle East. You may not be aware of this, but you can dial into FREE Conferece Call from Skype, or Gizmo, or Jajah. You don't have to use a landline or a mobile phone.
As always, let us know what you think. The reason we use agile development methodologies is to be able to respond to your requests.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Have you checked out Free Conference Callling at Rondee?
Of course, you're my competition!