UberConference

A free audio conferencing service with a visual interface, ÜberConference solves the most common problems faced in teleconferencing including making a conference easy to join, knowing who is participating, knowing who is speaking, and making advanced features easy to use. Website, Twitter, Facebook

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The Joys of Audio-Only Conference Calls

By: David Raether

I have eight (8) children, now mostly grown.  Two live in New York City -- Brooklyn, to be exact -- one lives in Washington, D.C., one lives and works on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota, one goes to college in Minnesota and another is in South Africa, and my two youngest live in Germany.  I live in Berkeley, CA.  The nine of us regularly do Skype Group Calls, and there is nothing I love more than seeing all eight of them in a group call.  Take my word for it, they are all incredibly beautiful-looking children.  

That pretty much covers my need for video calling.  The rest of you? I don’t really want to look at you when we talk on the phone.  Nothing personal… oh, okay, it is something personal.  It’s not that I don’t like you.  It’s just that, well, I’d prefer imagining how you look.  

And here’s how I picture you: you’re looking great.  Your hair is perfect and you’re dressed in a casual yet elegant manner that bespeaks the quality of you as a person.  

In addition, if I’m going to talk to you on the phone, I kinda don’t want to spend anytime making sure I look good.  I just want to sound good.  I want you to imagine me the way I’m imagining you.  I want to sound smart and competent and brilliant and insightful and piercing in my analysis, or -- depending on the situation -- maybe a little sexy.  Even if I’m wearing that ratty University of New Mexico Football sweatshirt with holes in the armpits that I got at a thrift store eight years ago, and my hair is a mess, and I haven’t showered since Tuesday.  You don’t need to see that.  No one needs to see that.  Frankly, it’s upsetting enough to me that I look like this, and I certainly don’t want to inflict it on you.

A couple of months ago, I did a video call with my writing partner on a film project.  We had never met, but had corresponded and done a lot of work together via email and Google Docs, and I felt completely comfortable with him as a partner.  Then we did the Skype video call.  His hair was a mess and his nose was bright red from a cold… and he was lying in bed!  To be honest, that killed it for me.  It felt as if I were lying in bed with him.  And he was sick!  I did not want to be lying in bed with a sick guy talking about the second act break.  I didn’t.  

“Can we continue this call tomorrow?” I asked.

“Why?” he said.

“You’re sick and in bed,” I said.  “And I kinda feel like I’m in bed with you right now and I might catch what you have..”  And so we ended what had been up to that point a productive call.

Look, I don’t want to come across as Mr. Fussbudget Himself, Felix Unger, and certainly the technology exists to make video conference calling simple and convenient.

But don’t you sometimes wish you were just doing an audio-only conference call?  That way, all of us could be sitting in our PJs at home, and we could all be imagining that everyone else looks as good as they sound.  These are smart and brilliant and handsome people I’m working with, you can think to yourself, without reality -- messy hair and ratty t-shirts and dingy living rooms -- ruining it for everyone.

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Easy Document Sharing Meets Easy Conferencing

At UberConference, we know teamwork requires effective collaboration. One of our favorite collaborative tools is Dropbox. Thanks to Dropbox’s simple document storing and sharing, millions of professionals collaborate easily and efficiently. We at UberConference share a focus on simplicity and ease of use and often look to Dropbox for inspiration in our ongoing efforts to make things simple.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that Dropbox’s document sharing is available on UberConference. You can now share any document stored in a Dropbox account with all the participants on your UberConference call.

While on an UberConference, any participant on the call can share a Dropbox document by clicking the “Share Files” button on the visual dashboard. Once they have chosen a file to share, it appears in the conferencing window where everyone has access to it.

So give it a try, it’s available in your account right now, and as always, we welcome your feedback. 

[uberconference-blog]

Why UberConference and Google Hangout’s Integration is a big deal for you.

By Craig Walker

A couple of weeks ago, we announced with Google that our teleconferencing product, UberConference, was now integrated with Google Hangouts.  The response we got from that announcement was almost overwhelming.  Our biggest day of new customer signups-ever.

Which is great for us, and we couldn’t be happier or prouder.  But let’s step back a moment and answer the question: why is this a big deal for you?

Well, first of all, UberConference and Google Hangouts are just about perfect matches for one another.  Google Hangouts is a wonderful tool for video conferencing- it’s easy to use, and it works great, provided everyone is sitting in front of a computer that has a video camera, and your internet connection is solid.

But that’s not often the case with real life business calls.  Many times you have callers who are on the road, riding in the back of a cab to the airport, stuck in a hotel room with a bad internet connection or don’t have a webcam immediately available.  Or, frankly, don’t really want to be seen and are in no mood to get dressed at 5 a.m. in Los Angeles for an 8 a.m. conference call with New York.

Enter UberConference.  When you use UberConference with Google Hangouts, you can take the conference call out of the confines of the office and out into the real world where you, your coworkers and your customers are living and working and doing business. Plus, UberConference allows you to join a Google Hangout without a webcam.  Or at least without turning on your webcam.

Then there’s the size of your conference calls.  Google Hangouts is limited to 15 participants.  By integrating with UberConference, that conference call can now add in another 100 participants.  

The UberConference integration with Google Hangouts, however, was only part of the announcement.  At the same time Google also announced its Google Chromebox for meetings.

For small to medium-sized businesses, what’s not to love about this product?  Up until now, if your company did regular video conferencing, you were spending at least $10,000 on hardware for a video conferencing system.

What’s your investment cost with Google Chromebox for meetings?  About $1,500.  The Chromebox hardware package, which includes UberConference, is just under $1,000.  Buy yourself an HD TV for another $500, and you’re set.  You’ve got a complete video conferencing system for a fraction of the cost of existing systems.

And this is just the beginning of innovative, low-cost products we’re going to be rolling out for you.  Stay tuned.

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I Hate PINS. I Really, Really Do

By David Raether

You know how every so often you get roped into dealing with something that you really don’t want to be involved with?  I’m not talking something life-threatening like the Ebola Virus or listening to your uncle from Wisconsin lecture you about religion while you’re stuck in a car with him going to a funeral.

No, I’m talking about the modest little peeves of modern life, the ones that really get under your skin.  

For instance, you’re sitting in the cafeteria at work, and a nice conversation is going on about the Academy Awards or the California drought or something interesting like that and then some wisenheimer in the group says this: “Hey, did you see that Justin Bieber got arrested?”

Oh, boy, here we go.  Next thing you know all ten of you are talking about Justin Bieber.  Including you.  You’re stuck.  Everyone has their views and all of a sudden you find yourself  saying you blame his father because you were reading on TMZ.com that he was there in the nightclub that night and also was involved in setting up blocking off the street so that Justin and his friend could have their idiotic drag race and then somebody says, ‘well, that’s not what I heard’ and then you have defend your sources on this topic and bam!  Fifteen minutes have gone by and it’s time to return to your desk.  As you sit down you realize that the fifteen minutes you spent talking about Justin Bieber makes your teeth hurt.

And don’t think you’re alone.  Look what happened to esteemed broadcast journalist Andrea Mitchell during a discussion the other day on the NSA.  There was breaking Justin Bieber news.  Look at the pain on her face.  It’s heartbreaking, and it’s happened to you, too.

This is roughly where I rank teleconference PINs: right up there with a group discussion of Justin Bieber.  They’re both just hellishly painful, unnecessarily pointless, and yet, somehow completely inescapable.

You’re part of a design team that has several remote participants (including you) and it’s time for the weekly teleconference.  You dial into the teleconference system and they give you a PIN number you have to use to participate.  The computer-generated voice rattles off twelve completely random digits.  You’re writing them down:

8-9-5-8-1-3... oh, man, your pen stopped working.

Try it again.

8-9-5-8-1-3-8-9… the woman at the desk next to you just got a delivery of a dozen roses from her new boyfriend and she is squealing with happiness.

All right, let’s give this one more try.

Okay, you write: 8-9-5-8-1-3-8-9-4-9-7-5

Whew.  Got it.  That only took six hours.

Time to key it into your phone.  8-9-5-8-1-... wait, is that a 3 or a 5 I wrote down?  Call back and get the PIN all over again.  Yes, it was a 3.

And on it goes.  

That’s why UberConference doesn’t use PINs.  You go to the website, log in, find your conference and click.  Voila.  Everyone’s there, you can see who’s there, and you’re ready to go.  It’s beautiful.  This is gonna go great, you think to yourself.

And then the person running the conference call says: “Hey, everybody, welcome to the call.  Before we get started, did you see that Justin Bieber was arrested?”

ARRRGGHH.

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3 Ways to Make Your Conferences Work

By Craig Walker

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ” -- Aristotle, “The Politics”

When you sit down and think about it, many of the greatest accomplishments of the human race are collaborative efforts.  The cathedrals of medieval France.  MGM musicals like “Singing in the Rain” or “Royal Wedding”.  Democracy.  The Renaissance.  A Double Double Cheeseburger with Fries from In ‘N Out Burger.

These are things that could only have been created by a group effort, human beings working together.

Why?  Because we are, as Aristotle observed more than 2,300 years ago, social animals.  We live a common life together.

So if we live a common life together and are, at heart, social animals, why do so many teleconferences not work?  What, exactly, causes them to be disappointing failures?  I think I can confidently state that it is not because we are either beasts nor gods.  

What causes many teleconferences to fail is a combination of insufficient technology and basic human politeness.  There are what I call “the pain points of teleconferencing.”   And they are solvable problems.

1. Set an agenda.  Stick to it.

Unless the teleconference is between NFL owners, nobody gets to talk about the Super Bowl.  

Before your next teleconference, send out an agenda to everyone.  These are items we will be discussing, and this is the order in which we’ll be discussing them.  People are busy, and while your teleconference may in fact be the most important part of their work day, it is not the only part of their work day.  Nothing kills a teleconference quicker than desultory talk about the weather, the latest flu outbreak or last night’s episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.”  We all have other things to do today besides chit chat right now.  Stay on point, stick to the agenda, finish the call.  

2. People are going to arrive late.  Deal with it.

It’s just going to happen: people are going to show up late.  They’ll have a million good reasons.  We don’t need to hear them.  We also don’t need to recap what’s been discussed already.

Think of it this way: somebody shows up late to Mass.  The priest doesn’t stop the proceedings, introduce everyone, and then recap what’s happened so far.  No.  If you show up late, you check where in the liturgy (agenda) we are, listen in and catch up on your own.  

There’s no reason a teleconference can’t operate that way either.

3. Use technology that works.

Teleconferencing technology should do the following:

-- allow automatic sharing of documents during the call

-- visual identification of who is speaking and participating

-- late entrants can join without interrupting -- or stopping -- the call

If your teleconferencing system can’t do these things, your calls are going to be less effective, more painful for the callers, and, ultimately, less collaborative.  

We’re human beings.  We’re social animals.  We’re working on a problem together.  Any technology you are using that disrupts collaborative work is anti-social and goes counter to who we are in our essence.

[uberconference-blog]

The place you Hangout is now taking calls

UberConference adds on to the Google Hangouts interface in a brand new way to make communicating easier than ever. UberConference calls are now fully integrated with Hangouts, making the service accessible from iPhone, Android, and Windows devices. Our award-winning service now seamlessly integrates with Hangout’s video features, making web video conferences easy to join via telephone while on the go.

See a demo of the integration below:

With capabilities to include up to 100 people in your call, Hangouts are simple and more efficient. Feel free to try out the new Pro features now using code uc_hangout for 1 month of Pro. (Code expires 2/30/14).

[uberconference-blog]

Three Features of UberConference Designed for Lawyers

Since we are showcasing our product at LegalTech in New York this week (Booth #2507), we decided to put together a list of our top legal features.

Teleconferencing is one of the single most important aspects of your profession. When we were designing and building the UberConference teleconferencing system, we included a series of features that are specifically useful and valuable for attorneys. These features address issues that often uniquely apply to legal teleconferences.

1. You know who is on the call. UberConference allows you to see who, exactly, is on this call. We’re not a video conferencing system, but each participant is identified on the screen while the call is going on. These are private, important issues you’re dealing with. You need to know who is on the call, and whether they belong there. All too often confidential calls are interrupted by an audible ‘beep’ followed by, “Who’s there?” only to be met with silence. UberConference provides full transparency and ensures every caller on the line is allowed to listen and participate.

2. You know exactly how long the call lasted. You’ve set up a 30-minute teleconference on your calendar for a Monday. Guess what? It ended up lasting three hours. That’s fine. Fair enough. It needed to go that long. With UberConference call tracking, you have a record of how long the call actually lasted no matter which phone you used to dial into the call. Lots of firms have ways to track hours on conference calls, but those solutions are limited to your desk phone or require you to enter a useless PIN number for each call. Only UberConference does this automatically every time. That information is invaluable, especially if the client’s calendar only shows a 30-minute call on their schedule from that day. UberConference provides the proof you need to justify your billing, no questions asked.

3. You can “lock” the call. Once you’ve started an UberConference, we show you every person who has dialed into your call. There is never the possibility of somebody lurking on the line and just listening to your privileged conversion. With UberConference, we let you lock in (and more importantly -- lock out) participants. This locking feature keeps callers from slipping into a call who do not belong there. Once you have the right people on the call, just hit the lock icon (or press ** from your phone) and nobody else can join your conversation.

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UberConference Brings Productivity and Collaboration to the Next Level With Google Drive

Sharing becomes a truly conversational experience as UberConference kicks off a new collaborative tool for Google Drive. Now, in your conference browser, users can edit any document while discussing changes over a call. Anyone who has access to the Google Doc can edit or access the document online.

Now your team can all be on a call and edit, add, and review notes in real time. No refresh windows, no second browsers. Get ready for a new wave of collaboration.

[uberconference-blog]

UberConference wins 2014 Most Promising Start-Up

The Cloud Awards have officially announced UberConference as the winner of Most Promising Start-Up 2014. 

Cloud Awards organizer Larry Johnson said: “The standard of entries in this year’s cloud computing awards was not just high. It was in the stratosphere, with astronomical competition. We are extremely pleased to endorse UberConference as a cloud services provider disrupting business models and leveraging cloud technologies.”

Congratulations to all other winners and nominees. We are extremely proud to win Most Promising Start-Up and on behalf of UberConference, we are excited to innovate in the year ahead.

[uberconference-blog]

A Conference Call in Real Life

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You Can Hold Your Own Way

The sixties had flower power, the nineties had punk rockers, and now conference calling has found its melody. In our eternal quest to provide the greatest hold music of all time, we have found the only song to make your wait complete. We’ve had a lot of fans of our hold music and now, we think we have managed to add the ultimate hold music to UberConference.  Here is how we got our inspiration:

Best music I've ever heard while on hold - thanks @uberconference https://t.co/7HAuNRhqrJ

— Derek Baynton (@derekbaynton)

January 17, 2014

Nothing makes me hate @uberconference more than that awful countrified hold music. It's like our office theme song now.

— Dylan Tweney (@dylan20)

January 17, 2014

@fmanjoo @uberconference It is a custom song. Funny the first time you hear it. But the 40th...

— Dylan Tweney (@dylan20)

January 17, 2014

To hear the new music, click here.

Click through song settings to see your new hold music option. UberConference Pro users have the power to upload any music any way you wish. And just like any good DJ, we take requests.

Well played, @uberconference: @dylan20 @fmanjoo We hear you. We made this just for you: http://t.co/yoTwE86Wwr

— Dylan Tweney (@dylan20) January 17, 2014

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2014: UberConference Continues to Disrupt Conference Calls

The New Year brings out a time for nostalgia and innovation. As pioneers on the timeline of history, we continually look backward to create the ‘new’ going forward. Creativity (and some clever failures) have led from the railroad to the jetway, the cave dwelling to the cottage, and the telegraph to the telephone.

Ondi Timoner and the team at A Total Disruption published an article in the Huffington Post about our own disruptive path at UberConference in a high-level interview with CEO Craig Walker. As Ondi cites in the article, “It's time we hop forward a few decades forward and do business better by embracing the disruptive innovation in this arena.”

We only get one opportunity to make the world a better place in one small way. Our hope this year is that UberConference continues to facilitate better team conversations and forge stronger bonds in your own area. Every minute spent speaking together as colleagues is valuable. Especially as the modern workplace scatters us across the globe, we hope we’re able to help you connect with your team more effectively. Happy New Year!

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UberConference is in the Cloud Award Finals!

UberConference is shortlisted for the second year in the row at The Cloud Awards! This year UberConference is being considered for Most Promising Start-Up and Web Services Excellence.

Identifying and celebrating excellence in the field of cloud computing, the cloud computing awards program encourages entries from across the entire globe – the US, Canada, Australasia and EMEA regions. UberConference is proud to be considered a global leader in the telecommunications industry and start-up community.

Winners will be chosen and announced on January 28, 2014. We would like to extend the best of luck to all nominated!

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Experience the Brand New UberConference for Android

UberConference is proud to deliver a brand new app for Android with the launch of Version 2.0! We’ve added new features to make your meetings more productive than ever. Best of all, our Android app has no PINs if you’re hosting the call, and in our Pro upgrade, there are no PINs for anyone in your conference. Clear and simple. Start a call from your mobile device with no hassle.

The Android interface has an all-new design. Open the app, and you’re already in your Conference Room. Your phone contacts are synced to make starting and scheduling calls simple.

Our trial-mode has no sign-up and basic service is always free. Simplify your mobile experience now with the Android app for UberConference.

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Dial-in from anywhere without a PIN - Conference Calls Redesigned

We’re excited to announce a totally redesigned UberConference! Our new interface makes conference calls even easier. Best of all, absolutely no PINs are required for Pro users and their guests.

No PINs: For Pro accounts, now there’s no PIN required for anyone in your meeting. For Basic (free) accounts, the meeting organizer dialing-in from their own phone still doesn’t need a PIN.

Better security: As always, our visual interface lets you be sure who is and isn’t on your call. No need to worry if someone is still there from your last call or ask “who just joined?” Now you can “lock” and unlock calls whenever you want to prevent others from joining. Simply click the lock icon, or press ## on your phone to lock and unlock.

Free New interface: It’s even easier to schedule and host instant calls. Your online conference room is now totally redesigned with many usability improvements.

Free call recordings: With this update, even Basic account holders are able to record and share meeting recordings.

Mobile apps: Experience our new fully featured Android app (iPhone coming soon). Now easily schedule future conferences in addition to instant conferences while you’re on the go.

[uberconference-blog]

UberConference featured in new Google Apps Marketplace

UberConference is now available directly from the Google Apps Admin console which is part of the improvements that were included with the Google Apps Marketplace launch today.

In the updated Google Apps Marketplace experience, Google Apps admins can now find and install third-party apps right from their Google Apps Admin console without a separate authentication process.  They can also easily manage permissions from the console.

UberConference is proud to be in the first batch of apps available directly via the Admin console.

This continues a tradition of firsts for UberConference: 1st Chrome Installable apps, 1st HD audio conference service and 1st calling service powered by the new HTML-5 standard WebRTC!  

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UberConference CEO Craig Walker talks innovation at OpenCo 2013

UberConference was proud to be a host for the second annual OpenCo festival in San Francisco.  OpenCo, an innovation themed open house hosted in four major cities, allows community members to get a peek into how local companies are breaking new ground.  Craig got a great reception as he shared how our corporate culture fosters creativity.

"OpenCo is a great opportunity to showcase how culture, collaboration and hard work play together in building a successful, thriving environment of creative thought and innovation,” said Craig Walker.