Give a shout out for ShoutNow!

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Permalink Reply by Molly Butters on December 20, 2008 at 1:30pm

Case in point: I just sent a Shout to the ShoutNow team to let them know about this discussion thread. Some of us are on the road traveling to visit family out of state in Illinois and California. Some live in Kansas City. Some carry iPhones and some carry flip phones. Either way, voice always works.

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on December 20, 2008 at 3:13pm

Very cool! I used the service this morning and wrote a blog post about ShoutNow.

I am deeply concerned that voice spammers could use the system - is ShoutNow scrubbing against the federal and Indiana Do Not Call list? I noticed there were no Terms of Use nor was there any complaint or unsubscribe method on the site. I'd hate to see them shut down and getting some stiff penalties for not being compliant!

They should get a hold of David Castor of Alerding Castor to, at minimum, write up an agreement that the user of the system will not utilize any numbers that have opted out through state and federal Do Not Call lists. David and I were going to actually attend the weekend, but he had plans and I had to get some work done that was backed up.

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Permalink Reply by Patric Welch on December 21, 2008 at 12:05pm

Doug, I totally agree with the possibility that this could be used for voice spammers but let me present to you another example. I am currently on the Do Not Call list. Does that mean that my sister shouldn't be able to use ShoutNow to announce to the family a change in Christmas plans? I would be upset if the message from my sister was blocked because of the DNC list.

Where do you draw the line on when the DNC list needs to be used?

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on December 21, 2008 at 10:13pm

That's a question for an attorney like David and not me, Patric! I think it's where a bullet-proof Terms of Use is needed!

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Permalink Reply by Patric Welch on December 22, 2008 at 7:53am

Sorry, Doug. I was a little behind in my devil's advocate quota this month :)

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Permalink Reply by Joel Smith on December 20, 2008 at 8:59pm

Doug,

Thank you so much for checking us out and huge thanks for giving your feedback. Luckily, we're all on the same page, because we are currently rectifying your two main concerns.

At this moment, our developers are working on developing the functionality of scrubbing the outgoing contacts against the national DNC list. This feature is one of our highest priorities. Also, we have drafted an acceptable use policy that is being looked over by our lawyer and will be posted to the website as soon as we get the green light!

Again, thank you so much! Be sure to follow us for updates on Twitter @shoutnow . :)

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on December 21, 2008 at 11:45am

That's awesome Joel! Great to hear! To be fully permission-based, I'd also add an opt-out mechanism directly into the message ("If you no longer want to receive messages from this sender, click 2") and have that add an unsub based on source number and destination number.

Once again, great job! You guys did a fantastic job at keeping it both simple and marketing it well!

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Permalink Reply by Lou Begnel on December 21, 2008 at 12:11pm

Be sure to utilize our fine folks at Baker and Daniels who have graciously donated some free consultation hours. As the local organizer and sponsor fulfillment chair, I feel legally obligated to say this :)

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Permalink Reply by David Mark on December 21, 2008 at 12:30am

Is this the same thing as Pinger? Go to Pinger.com and check it out. I'll check this out in the meantime.

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Permalink Reply by Lou Begnel on December 21, 2008 at 12:27pm

The major differentiating factor between Shoutnow and Pinger is the simplicity of using the service. You can use Shoutnow no matter which phone you have, not just an iPhone. Shoutnow is doing a great job marketing their product as a social tool, like a vocal version of Twitter. Time will tell which service will prevail, but just like Paypal, users tend to gravitate towards the company or product they trust. I like that I know where to find them if I have any questions or want to know about more features e.g. Joel did a great job responding to Doug's question above.

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Permalink Reply by David Mark on December 21, 2008 at 8:21pm

Thanks Lou! I'm just now learning about ShoutNow thanks to SI and I'm very interested. I've been using Pinger for a few months now and I've had success with it, but ShoutNow looks great and I'm going to use this very soon. FYI: I don't think Pinger is merely for the iPhone. I have a Treo. As long as you can receive texts and voicemail, you're good.

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Permalink Reply by Lorraine Ball on December 21, 2008 at 11:21am

We used it to invite 90+ people to an impromtu afterhours event. Right after the call our phones lit up in the office with responses, and we had a great turn out. could not have done it that late with email.

We are going to do a larger trial as a reminder for the Rainmaker Main event next week.

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