Those of us who work closely together and use Facebook have been really active with a daily industry conference call called Squawkbox hosted and moderated by my good friend Alec Saunders from iotum. It's an awesome forum with loads of fun, but also becoming a really important daily event in the industry.

My partner Sheryl and I count Alec and Howard at iotum among our close friends. Recently we had a chance to test this new feature as they were doing some preliminary testing of the inner works. Thanks also to Julien and Noam for spending some time with us on a call the other day.

More comments below the news. Here's the news:

FREE Conference Calls on Facebook goes global Press release

iotum is announcing global availability of its popular FREE Conference Calls application on Facebook under agreements with Internet communications partners Truphone in the U.K., Abbeynet in Italy and MOI Telecom in France.

And here's what you'll see:



Why us this such big news? In the past to participate in the alls you had to dial in with some kind of telephone. Any phone would do. Sheryl and I often join the calls via Skype using SkypeOut so we can participate conveniently from our PC. Now we get more options. Solutions that deliver power and options to users are powerful tools in today's environment.

New options, Sitofono from another friend, Luca Filigheddu, at Abbeynet. This solution sets up a free incoming phone call to your phone. While it works great to a direct dial phone, it's less optimal if you're inside a corporate PBX with an extension or at a hotel. But there's more.

Truphone, from another friend, James Body, at Truphone (ok, we have several friends) lets callers set up a VoIP call via Truphone from your PC. At last, a PC call from right inside the Facebook app with no need to use Skype,

This stuff works great. In fact it's awesome! Thanks to our friends for pulling together to build a fantastic solution. And thanks to the iotum gang for letting Sheryl and I help with testing.

That's right. now you don't need a telephone to participate in Squawkbox or any other FREE Conference call

Technorati Tags: iotum, Sitofono, Abbeynet, Truphone, unified communications, FREE Conference Calls, Facebook