Monday August 10, 2009 ShoutNow.com launches its revamped service at the Atlanta-based ShotPut Ventures Demo Day. ShoutNow enables quick and simple broadcasting of your voice to contacts on Twitter, Facebook or their phones. Consumers use it to cancel practice, announce a ‘Baby on - More...

If you have made chocolate chip cookies from scratch, you can appreciate how many ingredients it takes to make them successfully. Just one forgotten ingredient, or too little or too much of something and the delicious treat will fail to delight.

Twilio has perfected the recipe for the open telephony API platform and investors, developers and customers alike have taken notice.  An announcement broke yesterday in TechCrunch that Twilio closed their first round of funding (amount unknown) led by Founders Fund and Mitchell Kapor. The cash infusion will be used for sales and marketing and infrastructure services. In addition to TechCrunch, posts appeared on GigaOm and TelephonyOnline and included details about Twilio’s new customers including Cheetos, Earth911, Tumblr and Sony Music. Read the rest of this entry »

Startup Riot 2009

We can try and be calm and collected and pretend that we’re sooo cool. But what the hell, we are EXCITED!! ShoutNow has been accepted as a presenter at Startup Riot in Atlanta. Dan will have 3 minutes & 4 slides to present our concept, service and the investment opportunity to a room of 400 of the best and most connected angel investors, VCs, press and bloggers. Contain ourselves? Why bother. Woohoooo!!

Ok, deep breath.

This is a good time to let you, our faithful followers, know that we are going to be seeking a small round of angel funding. This will allow us to develop the next set of features that will allow you to use ShoutNow in even more fun and awesome ways. I don’t want to give too much away, but just imagine if you could send Shouts to your Facebook contacts without needing to look up their phone numbers. Sound fun? We hope so.

Look for Dan at the Startup Riot on Wednesday, February 18th. Check out their website here for more information. They will be recording all presentations and we will be sure to get it posted as soon as it’s available. Check back soon!

Keep Shouting!
Molly Read the rest of this entry »

Voice Messaging for Groups: Top Services Compared

December 29, 2008 - 8:43 pm PDT - by Jennifer Van Grove

Even though it’s not a new concept, sending voice message blasts to a group of people
appears to be a service on the rise. We’ve decided to break down four sites with
distinct offerings in the hopes that you can easily find your preferred option for sending
rapid voice messages to groups.

From freemium to premium, and simple to robust, you’ve definitely got options should
you opt in favor of voice message broadcasting.

We’re really curious how many people are actually using these services and for what
purposes. We’d love to hear your thoughts about each service, your personal experiences,
what you love or hate about group messaging, and whether or not you’d want to receive
one of these messages. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

ShoutNow

ShoutNow is the newest, and simplest, addition to the space. The service, which
was launched over the course of Indianapolis Startup Weekend in December, uses
a pay-per-message model to let users send voice messages to a group of recipients.
All you have to do is visit the website, enter your phone number, record your message,
enter the phone numbers of recipients, pay your tab, and you’re done.

At 99 cents for a 1 minute message to up to 10 contacts, ShoutNow offers a relatively
cheap, but professional alternative to other freemium plans that include advertisements.
The site doesn’t appear to offer much in the way of additional features, like creating
groups of contacts, but we can assume that is just a side effect to being brand new.

Read the rest of this entry »

Coverage following the Indianapolis Startup Weekend

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
5 Startups Created - Appeared in the Indianapolis Star
by Tom Spalding

The latest gathering of entrepreneurs held at IUPUI has produced five new businesses that promise to put an interactive touch on everyday needs.

Indy Startup Weekend, described as an intense, fast-paced 54-hour brainstorming session, produced companies that will focus on voice messaging, animated versions of childrens’ books and meal-sharing for friends.

“The companies and projects that come out of the weekends are fantastic,” said Clayton Stobbs, interim CEO of Startup Weekend, which started Friday and finished Sunday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi Friends! Welcome to ShoutNow, we are glad to have you here and we hope you come back often. It is Sunday afternoon and things here at the Indianapolis Startup Weekend (ISW) are getting crazy. ISW is a weekend where like-minded techies and entrepreneurs get together and work like hell to form a - More...