Friend and colleague Luca Filigheddu is the CEO at Abbeynet. I love Abbeynet's tagline "Humanizing Net Communciations". Abbeynet, and Luca have proven to be real thought leaders in several areas of voice communications and the evolution to next generation voice services.

A few days ago, Luca unveiled Sitofono, the definitive click-to-call.

I've already discussed what we usually mean with the expression "click-to-call" in the VoIP space. In that occasion, I said:

In my opinion, click to call services will be everywhere over the internet within 3-5 years. They will make the difference between a normal, old web site and a truly 2.0 "speaking" website. But, since this is a very simple product, vendors must find innovative ways to sell it, in order to make it a VoIP value-added service by which 1) they can really make money and 2) they can offer a real value to their customers.

Now, the time has arrived for me to introduce Sitofono to my readers, the definitive click-to-call solution powered by Abbeynet.

With that simple blog post, Luca also introduced a logo I'm sure we'll be seeing more of. You'll see it here.


You may notice that version is hyperlinked. Being a blogger himself, Luca reached out to other bloggers in the VoIP and unified communications in hopes that we'd help spread the word and use Sitofono ourselves.

For me, this was a no brainer. I've had a click-to-call button or two on the sidebar of my personal blog for as long as I can remember. I long had a FreeWorld Dialup click that allowed web phone calls to my office. That's temporarily disabled now because of some lab work I've been doing behind the scenes. But there have been buttons there for Skype, SightSpeed and Gizmo for some time.

Today I've added Sitofono to my personal blog , which brings a new dimension to my personal click-to-call. Sitofono is seriously differentiated from the others.

The SightSpeed button works great as click-to-call, and all you need is a browser, but I have to be at a computer with SightSpeed running for you to reach me today. That isn't always the case.

The Skype button assumes that you have Skype installed. Many of you do not. Many of you I would encourage not to install Skype because of enterprise security concerns.

Gizmo also requires that you have software installed.

Sitofono works with any browser and requires nothing really. It will install an ActiveX control, but nothing more. If you have a headset or mic and speakers, Sitofono will set up a VoIP call directly from your computer. If you prefer, you can call for fre from a telephone. You'll be prompted for the number you'd like to make the call from and your phone will ring to connect you to me.

The big difference on my end is that I've pointed Sitofono at my Grand Central number. In it's current iteration, Grand Central allows me to direct calls at up to six telephone numbers and ring them all simultaneously. I can also switch calls between one phone and another easily.

Note: Yes, Ken is adapting and beginning to appreciate Grand Central after putting some effort into it.

I really like Sitofono because it doesn't require you to install software. I like coupling it with Grand Central because it lets me not just take your call on a phone, but on a number of phones that I control. Call it mashup. Call it convergence. Call it what you like.

I call it good stuff.

I've already sent a note off to our web design wizard here to see about adding that Sitofono link and log to the left sidebar.

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