Hi, Molly here. It’s been a couple weeks since our last post and I thought now that we’ve been in Beta for a month, this would be a good chance to update you on how things are going here at ShoutNow.

2008 was a big year for ShoutNow. That was supposed to be a joke- I hope some of you laughed. It was a short year considering we formed on December 5th and launched our beta site on December 15th. Nevertheless it will go down in history as the year ShoutNow debuted on a web browser near you.

So far our Beta has been great. We have sent over 3000 shouts. We have a few repeat customers, including Rainmakers, a statewide networking group based in Indianapolis, who have found ShoutNow useful in reminding their members of events.  Lorraine Ball an organizer of many of the Rainmaker events and founder of RoundPeg an Indianapolis based Marketing and PR firm has had this to say about using ShoutNow during the beta:

<<We have used Shout Now several times since launch a month ago. Each time with great results.  The first time was for a last minute party  - 75 calls made, and 15 people who missed the email invite showed up. The second was a reminder for a business event - 1,500 calls and more than 150 attended the event.  Many would have come anyway, but this additional call definitely boosted attendance for a networking event on December 30th. And finally my favorite story.  A client attended a weekend trade show, and came home with about 100 leads.  While he is going to mail follow up packages, and send an email, we tested Shout now.  Within 5 minutes of the “Shout” he got a call from one of the prospects, quoted a project and closed the deal. >>

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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.

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Today was the official Friends and Family launch of ShoutNow.com. We successfully delivered several hundred shouts (and some of those were delivered multiple times!) over the course of the day. We had one minor hiccup but that has been resolved. Afterall, we couldn’t have a beta launch - More...