Among IP-Telephony service providers, 8×8 Inc. was one of the most active newsmakers at the ITExpo in Miami. On Thursday it formally launched several enterprise services under the “Virtual Office” brand. The products include a Web-based dashboard for setting up and controlling user preferences for a virtual office; a “unified communications” suite of services called Virtual Office Pro; and the obligatory Mobile App, sold through iTunes and extending the Virtual Office phone number of features to iPhones and the iPod Touch.

Unified Communications, iPhone apps and dashboards for enterprise VoIP are slipping into the category of “commodity.” What caught the eye of the digirati was a Facebook app called 8×8 Connect, which was introduced on the second day of the ITExpo. Here’s where Om Malik invites readers of GigaOm to “Call Me via VoIP on Facebook. In the article, Om conducts a test drive of the new service (which can be accessed and launched here). Om notes that the service “could be especially helpful for small business owners and consultants, who could use it as a way to generate interest in the products/services they’re selling.”

Om also mentions that it could be improved by making it “more personal.” His example would be to allow users to upload their own picture, avatar or brand so that it can be displayed with the user’s phone number (I’d call this part of the movement toward better Caller ID). He also sees advantages to being able to embed the “Call Me” button on a company or individual’s “fan pages.”

My trial went a little differently. I followed the link from GigaOm to the “8×8 Connect” page on Facebook. Then things started to go awry. Being the unintentional demo breaker that I am, I accidentally mis-typed my email address and (probably because my proper name is much more than “Om Malik”) my “8×8 Connect” record and registration form is associated with another Dan Miller, who had been there before me and entered a different mailing address and a bogus phone number. Needless to say, I lost confidence in going any further and removed the app from my Facebook account. After doing so, I went back into the app to see if I could “fix” my mistake, but the record of my evil twin seems to be persistent.

I applaud 8×8’s effort to add click-to-call to social networking and hope this registration “bug” is just that – a fixable bug. However, one of the major challenges faced by solutions providers in the era of Recombinant Communications is to continue to introduce a steady stream of innovative services, but they need to do a better job of testing such services. Alternatively, they could just “do a Google” by calling every new offering a “beta.”

Categories: Articles

Tags: IP telephony, VoIP, Facebook, Recombinant Communications, click-to-call