I've mentioned Twitterfone a few times here, most recently in Twitterfone - Giving Voice to Twitter. This morning I got email from my good friend, Pat Phelan, one of Twitterfones' founders. He included the press release down below.

For those of you who use Twitter, this is a big leap forward. It's something many of us were talking about within hours of Twitterfone first being released. So check check out the new Twitterfone.

Just the other day I also wrote about something cool another pair of friends are working on call Phweet.

The advances in both truly speak to the next generation of the user interface. I've talked a bit about the GUI and how outmoded the mouse is with point-and-click being a really antiquated interface for humans. If we think about how rapidly our network technologies have advanced, the human interface has lagged woefully behind in progress.

What these innovators are doing is leading the way into some new applications. I hope they all find whopping success with their efforts. Early indicators are that they'll do that. But beyond success with these short term efforts, I hope they recognized for another value. These folks are the real thought leaders in changing the human interface with computerized network resources. They're truly setting the stage for the next generation tools we'll use to work with our computers, cars, homes and offices...and all the network systems we use every day.

Kudos all around.

Twitterfone becomes more social, outlines expansion plans

Twitterfone, the service that allows you to call/phone in your message to twitter has announced new add-ons to their popular service.

The new additions to Twitterfone now allow people to listen to the last 10 messages from their friends all via their phone and directly respond to these messages or send a private message their followers.

Speaking about the new changes, Twitterfone CEO Pat Phelan said:

"The main feature request from users was the ability to not just speak to Twitter but also to listen to their friends' Twitter messages via their phone. So I'm very pleased that Twitterfone now enables two and multi-way conversations on Twitter using any phone while you're on the move."

Twitterfone doesn't need to be installed on a phone, does not need to be downloaded from the iTunes Appstore and can be used on any mobile phone on the planet. You don't even need a screen! It's the most accessible interface for the Twitter service.

On future expansions Phelan added:

"We've received a huge amount of feedback from our hyper-enthused users and we hope to provide them with what they want and we'll be seeking some outside funding to do this. Twitterfone has become something much more than the proof of concept we initially launched.

We're really excited about the relationship we have with our users and how we're building a better product together.

* About *
Twitterfone Inc is privately owned Twitterfone is a US corporation with operations in the USA and Ireland. Its shareholders come from a mix of technological and telecoms background. Pat Phelan of MAXroam, Florian Seroussi of Global Roaming, David Marcus of Echovox (Zong) and Sean O Sullivan/Ivan MacDonald of Dial2Do.

* Using Twitterfone v2*
How the new Twitterfone magic happens:

You dial the TwitterFone number, press 1 and now you'll hear your friends last 10 tweets from your home page. Simple.

Replies and Private messages? No problem:

While listening to a tweet from a user, you can send an @ to them by just pressing 2 and recording your reply. Likewise you can send them a private d message by pressing 3.

* Twitterfone Statistics: *

• Twitterfone is currently available in 18 countries and will expand to many more in coming months.
• Over 20,000 people have signed up to Twitterfone since it launched in May