Wengo Releases Flash Softphone For Web Pages

bolsh writes "Wengo, a French company specializing in VoIP and instant messaging, and patron of the OpenWengo project (previously featured in Free Software magazine and here on Slashdot), has just released WengoVisio — a Flash softphone that you can download and embed in your Web page, to allow readers to call you when you're available through their browser, without downloading any software. (Disclaimer: I work for Wengo, on the OpenWengo project.) It's functionally cut down from the full Wengophone, but it's enough to be able to make a phone call in a Web page for the first time."

Comments

sounds cool

[adrianmonk]

Sounds cool, but why did you name it after a Microsoft Office component?!

Links don't work!

[bogaboga]

One clicks the "Get it now" link on http://www.wengovisio.com/ and is met with: -

"Offer 141 doesn't exist!"

Now that sucks big time! Not good PR if you are promoting your stuff.

Weird name & interoperability Q

[metamatic]

"Visio" suggests something visual, i.e. a phone with video chat. But there doesn't seem to be any video involved.

Also, can Wengo interoperate with Gizmo and/or iChat? If not, why not?

Re:Weird name & interoperability Q

[pavon]

The Wengo Visio product does include video chat.

WengoPhone is an SIP based application that can be used with whatever SIP provider you want, as well as being able to interoperate with AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber (including Google Chat). Who you can talk to then depends on which SIP networks your SIP provider allows calls to. If you use Wengo as your provider, they only allow calls to other Wengo users. It is one of the more frustrating things about SIP - from a technical point-of-view there is little preventing networks from interoperating, but so many are walled off to varying degrees for business reasons.

As for Wengo Visio, it's sole purpose it to let people without VOIP software/accounts to talk to you, so interoperability only affects what software you have to run. From the sparse amount of information on the website, it appears to require a wengo account and WengoPhone software, but it is SIP based and therefore might be able to be setup to connect to any SIP account / software.

just a deeply disturbing concept...

[ZahnRosen]

Random harassing phone call from any slob on the internet? No thanks!

Re:What's the purpose?

[BoboB-69]

I can see one or two rare situations where this would be of use, but generally, uses are there for this type of technology? This is an incredibly useful tool. It makes it easy for any company to easily allow its customers to contact the company directly via telephones. All while leveraging the exisiting telephony infrastructure. There are wide-ranging uses for this type of connectivity for corporate use. Many users do not want to download helper applications and being able to just click on a web page to make a phone call is extremely helpful for them. IRC and other techno-weenie tools may be useful for the slashdot crowd, but nothing beats a no-brainer point and click in a web page for the vast majority of website users.

Advertisers will love this

[Timesprout]

"Click here to speak to one of our representatives now"

Should attract a lot of impulse buyers.

Re:Advertisers will love this

[metamatic]

I'm less convinced. I often encounter web sites that provide information and then ask me to call a phone number and talk to someone to actually take action. Well, screw that--if I wanted to talk to someone, I wouldn't be using the web in the first place, I'd have reached for the phone at the start.

Re:Advertisers will love this

[bobcat7677]

Convienience on the web is live text chat. It has WAY less pitfalls then VOIP. Text Chat doesn't suffer from QOS problems. Text Chat will probably not drop the connection if there is high latency or a momentary loss of connectivity. The system can be anything with a keyboard. Agents can potentially handle multiple chat sessions at once.

Meanwhile VOIP requires a relatively modern computer, sound card, speakers, microphone, larger software footprint. Call quality can be horrible or downright unusable for a variety of reasons from microphone (or lack thereof) to speakers to latency to audio on "mute" to localized accents of people in east vs west or whereever. An agent is only going to be able to handle one VOIP caller at a time, ever.


Fancy and flashy makes headlines and gives pointy hairs something to BS about and force their subordinates to impliment, simple and reliable makes cusomers happy and companies efficient. The high pressure marketers will argue that they make more sales if they actually get to talk to the customer as the agent can keep them as a captive audience more or less if they are any good at controlling the conversation. But I still have to go back to the above comparison. If the customer can't connect or can't communicate with the agent, then you are pretty much guaranteed to lose the sale as the customer's short attention span will be maxed out and they will move on to the next best option (IE: one of your competitors).

Re:What's the purpose?

[daeg]

Do you really think those same non-tech savvy customers can configure microphones (or even have them)?

Honestly, I don't see a real use for this. If a company wants to leverage their telephony infrastructure, they can post their phone number in an easy to find location. If they want to cut down on costs, they can simply post a direct number and not a toll-free number (which cost extra).

Real phones have the advantage of not disconnecting if a user closes their browser window, their laptop suddenly goes into standby, Windows decides its time to reboot for updates, or Spyware decides to show 20 popup windows.

Cool idea, I just don't see much application for this.

What are your experiences? Wengo links.

[Futurepower(R)]

Wengo is advertising itself as a Skype replacement. The free WengoPhone is Open Source and SIP (telephone standards) compatible.

Does anyone have experience with Wengo? Skype is excellent, of course, but not open source and not compatible with standards.

Wengo Links:

Wengo French
Wengo English

WengoPhone

OpenWengo

Wengo consulting. Sell your technical knowledge over the phone.

"Who is Wengo? People like you all over the world
and the team: 35 people in France keeping you in touch."
Wengo started in 2005. "Wengo is a subsidiary of the group neufcegetel."

Confusion: It is difficult to find their telephone service rates pages. The one linked is for the countries beginning with B.

Debian Wengo: Package: wengophone (2.0.0~rc5-svn8108-2) "SIP-based software telephone with video and chat features."

Observations: Their web site is confused. The site is incorrectly translated to English in some places.

Why I like OpenWengo

[at_slashdot]

1. uses a free protocol.
2. it's free software (yes, free as in speech or freedom)

Skype is neither free nor uses a free protocol, Gizmo Project is not free (at some point it had a big disclaimer when you installed it, something along the line of: "we don't guarantee that it doesn't contain a virus or that doesn't contain adware" -- No, thank you.

Re:What's the purpose?

[prichardson]

All Macs that come with built-in monitors also come with built-in microphones. This has been the case for quite a few years. They just work and have sound quality that's good enough for audio chats.

Wengo a Skype replacement? (Open Source, SIP)

[Futurepower(R)]

The Wengo people need to hire someone who can help them communicate in writing. There are translation errors and other mistakes on their web site, too.

However, here is the question that is important for most Slashdot readers: Is WengoPhone a good replacement for Skype?. WengoPhone is open source and SIP compatible.

Did anyone else read it as...

[fahrbot-bot]

"Wengo Releases Flesh Softporn For Web Pages"?

I guess I need to have my eyes. Of course, the way people are addicted to Web Tech these days, I may be on to something - so to speak.

Re:What's the purpose?

[TheRaven64]

The best customer support I have had recently was from a retail place that provided something like an IRC client on their support page. You go to the site, connect to the chat, and they resolve the problem.

That was fine for me, I type quickly, and I'm at home with text (and I liked the ability to keep an exact record of the conversation). A lot of people, however, prefer to use voice for that kind of thing. Imagine putting a link on your support site saying 'click here to talk to a customer support representative,' and having it just work. You can route it to any SIP phone, or to a POTS line, and the customer doesn't have to know any of the technical details. If I were setting up support for a company these days, I would want to offer both solutions; text for those that don't have a microphone, voice for those that do.

My hosting company uses iChat for support; I can bing-bong them with quick queries, or have a full video or audio chat if that's more useful. Having the CEO and CTO on your Jabber roster, and the ability to bitch at them directly when things break, provides a certain level of confidence in a company that you rarely find these days.

Re:What's the purpose?

[LiquidFire_HK]

Er.. how do you configure a microphone? Provided sound works (and you would need that in order to talk to anyone), I just plug mine in and it works. Even in Linux. As a matter of fact, the connector is the same color as the jack, so I don't even have to figure out where I should be plugging it in. As for the other arguments, I agree. It is trivial, however, to make the web page show a dialog via JS if you attempt to leave/close the page.

Re:This is similar to Camfrog

[UncleTogie]

If they can sign, can't they type? I guess I don't understand why that or pen and paper are not realistic. I mean I think the idea for automatic translation of sign language is a really great (and frankly cool) idea, I just don't see how it'd be worth the increased cost over a pen and paper or typing in almost all situations. Suuuuuuuuure.... Somehow, being able to sign gives you YEARS of keyboarding experience to quickly [in poor health/ill/rabid/blurred vision] type out your problem. Usin' that logic, since you're able to peck out a message on /., you've got the piano keyboard skills to play Für Elise with no training, right?

This is why my family and I haven't bothered to learn ASL or other variants. VERY few people sign, but darn near EVERYONE talks. We've invested our time more in learning to lip-read. It's not perfect, but does MUCH more to enhance communication than the blank looks you get when trying to sign to all but a few.

HERE is something we could use: A system to read lips FOR us, to a text screen. Before I'm inundated with the "utterly lazy" tag, let me explain. I'm around 70% deaf, and my main problem with reading lips, other than everyone's slightly different accent/pronunciation, is that you've generally got to be in pretty good mental shape to DO so. It's like translating; you have to take the "lipshapes" and make 'em into "words" in your head. If I'm sick, inebriated, delirious, or my vision's blurring in and out, it's almost impossible. Give me some screen text to focus on for a few secs and I'll be able to make out what's being said... Some here might suggest just handing a laptop/PDA/keyboard back and forth, but trust a guy that's worked with a LOT of doctors: most would be lucky to break 5 words a minute.

Just the deaf hippie's two cents.