Gizmo Call - easy, slick, a little rough at launch.
So, as reported on GigaOm, Gizmo has now launched a nifty little trick: a flash-based VoIP plugin. They appear to be offering 5min/day of free calling (10min if you sign up). For $4/year, you can add "your" callerID to outgoing calls.. otherwise, your caller ID for web-initiated calls will be a fake SIPPhone 747 area code call.
What's really neat, in my opinion, is that you can now create click-to-call links that aren't hosted by you, the blogger. I can, for instance, make a GizmoCall link to the GrandCentral number I use (as mentioned in a previous post). So, try and give me a call, if you dare:
Unfortunately, as the next thing I always try with a public service is how to connect it to my own private ones, there's less good here. GizmoCall, as with the GizmoProject client, likes to eat non-numeric SIP urls. You should, for instance, be able to call me at my public SIP URL, using a link like this one: http://gizmocall.com/sip:bpvoip17@geekdom.net. However, at this writing, two things go wrong: first, most browsers escape the @, which the GizmoCall interface doesn't un-escape. Secondly, non-numeric SIP addresses seem to get special-but-incorrect treatment in Gizmo. Numeric SIP calls seem to go through just fine with GizmoCall (this one, for instance: Call Me for FREE).
One last nit: the auto-complete interface is a nightmare. They'd've been better to launch without a feature like this than to launch one that makes it nearly impossible to dial different numbers with similar prefixes, such as is there now.
In summary: neat new service. If this stays working, it'll be a very handy thing to have around.. it did, indeed, take me about 20s to get it working on my Mac. A less experienced user would probably succeed in a couple of minutes, though, which really does make it a low barrier to entry.
Bonus discovery as a result of testing for this post: Apparently GrandCentral has internally configured themselves to complete calls to the Gizmo “fake” 747 area code. So, if people call you on your GrandCentral number from SIPPhone-based hardware or software, you can return the call through GrandCentral's voicemail callback or web-initiated calling feature. Probably also means you can list a Gizmo number as one of the calling destinations of your GrandCentral number.
Technorati Tags: grandcentral, gizmocall, voip
Comments
Gizmocall works great with SIP-URIs. Just write:
https://www.gizmocall.com/?call=bpvoip17@geekdom.net
And you are done. No problem. I have already put such a Callme button on my website in tried it out several times.
Posted by: SIP Expert | January 29, 2007 02:22 PM
Thanks for the mention BP. I'm the CEO of SIPphone.
We're trying to make Gizmocall useful to as many people as possible so we do support SIP uris.
You can try this: http://gizmocall.com/sip:test@proxy01.sipphone.com
When I tried your example above it didn't seem to be a valid SIP URI. Maybe there's some other issue. Feel free to send me email and we can resolve it.
Posted by: Michael Robertson | January 30, 2007 09:54 AM
I tried GizmoCall within an hour or two of it going live & I liked it -- with reservations. Like you, I'm a Mac user (Safari browser), and the "installation", such as it is, seemed clumsy.
Although I already had the Adobe 9 loaded before going to GizmoCall, their site didn't recognize it, so I installed theirs; although my calls eventually were completed, with each call the GC site asked if I wanted to re-install the Adobe plug-in. I didn't find the widget (I'll go back and look again), but without a widget to add to my widget screen or an icon to drag to my menu bar, right now the aggravation outweighs the benefits. I like it, I want to REALLY like GizmoCall and use it effortlessly, but if their goal is to make VOIP user-friendly, they aren't at the starting gate yet. P.S. My calls arrived with an 858 area code.
Posted by: JAVA4ALL | January 30, 2007 04:52 PM
Thanks for the blog. I guess I'm gonna try it, just to see how it works
Posted by: voice over ip | July 17, 2007 06:16 PM