One of our customers was expecting a baby. As so many of us have done he got a list of phone numbers so that he can call after the baby is born.

However, rather than making 15-20 calls he simply sent a chat call from his Phone.com account. How does that work: he recorded the message he wanted: “Hi all .. we have a baby girl… 8p weight, 19 inch, mom and baby are great … more later” (ok - you get the idea…).

Next he entered the phone numbers of all the relatives/friends and pressed “send”.

One call. Rings all on the list and broadcasts (or blasts) the good news.

That’s it. one more great feature from Phone.com!

Most people use Phone.com Virtual Number because it is a simple way to add useful and cool features to any phone number. Some of us use them for the basic ability to setup call forwarding to other number, others like to receive voicemails from all their numbers at one voicemail box.

Many people use a Virtual Number when they leave the country for forwarding calls outside the US. This is a feature the incumbent phone companies simply can not or will not provide and if they do it, it might take days to activate.
Virtual Number is also a cool way to greet your different friends with personal messages, and you can protect your free time by forwarding work related calls after-hours directly to Voicemail.

But here is a new way to enjoy the benefits of a virtual phone number: something that I picked up from users who came up with this idea, which is all about privacy.

In today’s “on net world” it is hard to have any privacy at all. For example, once you register to attend an event your information is out there, your e-mail inbox starts filling up with spam and your phone may start ringing off the hook.

E-mail users have discovered that they can use aliases and then discard them or activate filters and spam filers and survive, but in the telephony world it is not so. The only tool available till now was the ‘Do Not Call Me’ list which only blocks unsolicited calls, if you registered for an event the national ‘do not call’ list will do nothing for you.

Here comes the Virtual Number usefulness! You can provide people with your virtual number instead of your real cell phone or home phone number. You can limit calls to specific hours of the day or send calls straight to a special voicemail inbox by using the Phone.com smart call handling rules in the same way you use an email spam filter.
You can decide to disconnect specific callers, direct others to voicemail or have important calls ring all your phones anywhere you are (even at your hotel in Tokyo).
In fact it is even an effective way to help an old boy / girl friend to move on by showing him/her the disconnect tone (or worse – set a “special” greeting and then disconnect them).

In other words, Phone.com - Virtual Number is many things but for busy people who value privacy and time, I am happy to announce the new cure, well at least the new Phone Spam Filter.

wish you a Happy 4th of July and a lovely holiday weekend!

With a Phone.com account you get a phone number that is your phone number no matter where you are and no matter what phone you want to use to dial out of. So when you are in your office near your “real” every day phone you appear calling from your 222-333-4444 number but even if you are at that nice beach using your friends cell phone to make that important call to your client you can still appear to your client as if you are calling from 222-333-4444.

Visit www.phone.com and sign up to any of the plans. They all offer this capability. To learn more feel free to contact the Phone.com customer service team and they will be happy to help you.

Or - just interact with the Phone.com team on the customer forums, Facebook or Twitter. It is easy to find us.

You can transfer your existing phone number to Phone.com at no cost (one time $25 saving).

So whether you already own a Phone.com Virtual Office account or a new customer - take advantage of this special promotion and enjoy all the benefits of Phone.com Virtual Office.

Yes, less than one percent of US firms translate to 61% of revenues however the sales costs of achieving these sales are extremely high.
As Mike points out:

“…the point is that direct sales organizations cannot serve the vast majority of businesses on the planet.”

The web is what is changing this. Quoting Mike:

“Far fewer businesses have been created, at least in high technology, by serving the small- and medium-size business segment as they were hard to reach. But that’s all changing rapidly.”

Though the post addresses the IT industry and primarily business software firms, we can expand to other businesses as well.

There are about 20 million businesses in the US with no employees (only the owner). The opportunity to sell to them is huge but reaching them (unless you are one of those big businesses with a large direct sales force or channel) is only possible if using the internet. Opportunities that were not available a decade ago and that are only growing as the internet and other online tools evolve.

Phone.com is a good example of a business that could not have operated with the low cost model we have in the “old world”. Phone.com does not have a physical sales force and is targeting entrepreneurs and the SOHO (Small Office – Home Office) or VSB (Very Small Business) markets from our website and through online marketing affiliates.
The ability to keep our overhead low allows us to improve our service and pass on costs savings to our customers.

Or perhaps just your childhood area code (or parents number) but your parents moving near you and leaving the phone number area code?

Well, no need to keep the old phone line (or cell phone line) and pay high prices for the pleasure of keeping a number. Just transfer it to Phone.com and with our Phone.com Virtual Number service you can keep the number for just $4.88 per month and you can forward the number to any of your current phone lines or simply send it to a designated voicemail plus you get 250 minutes to use and many other features.

Warrillow & Co. published interesting data in their latest newsletter. They found that around 29% of small business start that way.

From their analysis we can also learn that it does not happen overnight. But it may not be that long of a wait. for most of these businesses 1-3 years is what it takes.

So go for it and don’t give up. Your dream business might be on its way.

OK. The last couple of days were very Twitter eye opening for me.
Here is a link to a story Amy Hoak wrote for MarketWatch that came out Tuesday.

For anyone who is not on Twitter or could not see what and why all the fuss here are 5 reasons why it can be useful:

1. It’s a real-time opinion aggregator
2. It’s a networking tool
3. It’s a way to connect with people offline
4. It’s a customer-service channel
5. It’s a place to track down savings and value

Phone.com is using Twitter and will be using it much more. Mainly we would like to use it to help our customer service.

As Amy writes:

“Instead of writing a strongly worded letter to a customer-service department, politely complain on Twitter. Chances are, the company is listening… If you’re a small business, it might not hurt to give Twitter a try too… even a small boutique owner might broadcast on Twitter when a new shipment comes in or when a sale is launching. The information would help customers and “give them that inner circle feeling” of being kept in the loop about the store.”

So, to all our customer, follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/phonedotcom and let us know your thoughts / suggestions or post questions. We will do our best to tweet back ASAP!