Lounis Goudjil, founder and CEO of Manifone, dropped me a line in email this morning. Their new service, Mani-Sky, just launched. Mani-Sky is a simple tool that lets you associate a telephone number with a Skype contact – something like Skype-In, except that because I obtain the number, it’s a local call for me.
As you know, I’m a big fan of local-dial calling services. Anything which cuts the long distance carrier out of the loop, like our own Calliflower Premium conference calling, is fine by me. Mani-Sky promises to do just that.
So Lounis had my attention.
Using Mani-Sky is simple. Sign up for an account, pop in the names of your Skype buddies, they assign phone numbers. When you call that number, Mani-Sky recognizes your caller-ID, and routes the call to your Skype buddy. Easy-peasy!
Quality is good, and, as others have written, the service was dead simple to use. Plus, the price at $10 for six months unlimited usage is hard to beat.
For Canadians, where Skype-In is not available, this may be a great solution. If you’re looking for an easy way to make Skype calls from a mobile device this might also be the answer. And certainly, if you make frequent overseas calls to a small group of people, Mani-Sky could be the perfect solution for you.
For me, I’ll likely continue to use other services. The reason? Mani-Sky’s local-dial number for Ottawa was in… Montreal.
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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Check out the updated, smartphone-enabled Mani-Sky web app: lets you call Skype friends without 3G or Wifi. It uses your minutes (voice channel) and provides crystal-clear sound quality!