Social Newsroom

Facebook Users Get Free Global Conference Calling

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – January 17, 2008 – Rebtel, the people’s global communications company, today introduced Group Talk – a new Facebook application that lets users set up free conference calls that can included both Facebook and non-Facebook users in 40 countries around the world.
“Do something fun, celebrate a friend’s birthday together, plan an event, or use Group Talk to schedule a free one-on-one call with someone special living abroad,” said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel’s co-founder and CEO.

Setting up a Group Talk call can be done in less than a minute.  The person who sets up the call enters their Facebook friends’ names, clicks Add, and can then make the call private – just for the people invited – or public, which makes the call open to any of their friends who want to join.

To include people who are not Facebook users the person setting up the call enters participants’ names, mobile phone numbers or landline numbers and their email addresses, and clicks Add.

Everyone invited to a Group Talk call automatically receive a local dial-in number in the city or country where they live via SMS (text message) or email.  For the first person who joins a conference call, Group Talk offers to call all of the other invited participants to let them know the Group Talk session is starting.

Facebook users are able to see Group Talk conference calls that have been set up by their friends, by members of the Facebook groups that they’ve joined, or by the organizers of events they’ve been invited to attend, and can get a phone number to join any of those Group Talk calls with a single click of the mouse.

And because Group Talk is built by Rebtel, conference call participants’ personal phone numbers are always kept private.

The Group Talk application is free to all Facebook users and is available starting today.

Try the application, go to http://apps.facebook.com/conferencecalls/

By: Ola Sundqvist, January 17th, 2008 Tags: facebook, free conference calling, group talk, rebtel

Low-Priced International Calling Method to Launch on Facebook

LONDON, UK- STOCKHOLM, Sweden, 14th of August 2007 – Facebook, the social networking site with an estimated 33 million users is to become home to a revolutionary new international calling method. With its unique mix of globally-connected socially-mobile students and young professionals Facebook would seem the perfect location for the innovative new communications tool.

Rebtel, which is the brainchild of Swedish entrepreneur and former Microsoft employee Hjalmar Winbladh, uses the latest in VoIP technology to sidestep expensive international charges – allowing users to make calls to anywhere in the world for the price of a local call direct from their mobile phone. Based on a deceptively simple system, Rebtel works by creating local landline numbers in both the country of origin and destination and then rerouting the international part of the call over the web.

Now thanks to the planned collaboration Facebook users are to get in on the action. The new application to be named ‘Reb Me’ will allow Facebook users to create local numbers for global friends across their Facebook network direct from the Facebook site. The application allows users to add a ‘Reb Me’ box onto their profile so friends can instantly create a local number for them.

Soon Facebook users or ‘Facebookers’ as they’ve come to be dubbed can expect to save on average 88p a minute on the cost of overseas calls. Added up over the course of a year spent talking with friends on a gap year, friends studying abroad or work friends newly relocated and such savings soon become irresistible. If the average Facebooker was to spend just 30 minutes a month calling overseas they can expect to make yearly savings of over £300.

With most Facebook users having an internationally diverse collection of friends Reb Me provides an affordable simple and convenient method for keeping in touch. Rebtel founder Hjalmar Winbladh explains, “Facebook is the world’s fastest growing online community, its home to a new generation of globalised young people whose friends and social networks are spread across the planet. There is no reason in the world why these people should be loosing this amount of money to mobile operators. Like Facebook we just want to make communicating as easy, cheap and as freely available as possible. Our message is very simple: why pay 100 times over the odds when you don’t need to?

By: Ola Sundqvist, August 14th, 2007 Tags: facebook, hjalmar winbladh, rebtel

Rebtel Rolls Out Facebook Application

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – August 14, 2007 – Rebtel Inc. a leading provider of VoIP telephony, today launched an application for Facebook users to make calls anywhere in the world for the price of a local call directly from their mobile phone.

Reb Me allows Facebook users to create local numbers for global friends across their Facebook network direct from the Facebook site. The application allows users to add a ‘Reb me!’ box onto their profile so friends can instantly create a local number for them. New users receive 10 minutes of credit with which to try the Rebtel service, and another five minutes each time a friend they’ve invited adds the application and makes a call.
“Facebook is the world’s fastest growing online community, home to a new generation of globalized young people with friends and social networks spread across the planet.  There is no reason in the world why they should be wasting their money on exorbitant rates for international calling,”  said Hjalmar Winbladh, founder and CEO.  “Reb Me was designed specifically for Facebook and is lean and clean.  Like Facebook, Rebtel’s mission is to make communicating simple, affordable, and convenient as possible.”

How Reb Me and Rebtel Works
Access Reb Me at the following URL:  http://apps.facebook.com/myrebtel/
Once their mobile phone number is registered, Facebookers enter the international destination number to any country in the world.  This number can also be a landline. Rebtel will convert the international number to a local number that the user can store on their phone.  When calling countries within the 37-member Rebtel community—such as Australia and the United States—the call is free when at least one user is registered with Rebtel and asks the other to call back.   This is a simple step and is voice-guided.

“Many consumers in the U.S. never use all their monthly minutes and most cell phones need to be ‘unlocked’ in order to call internationally.  Rebtel makes every call a local call,” added Winbladh. “If the average Facebooker in the U.S. was to spend just 30 minutes a month calling overseas using Rebtel, they can expect to make annual savings of more than $750.”

The easy to use Rebtel service works on every mobile device, including iPhone, Blackberry, and every cellular network, therefore, consumers can make the most of their existing local calling plans from carriers such Telmex in Mexico or any of the major US carriers such as AT&T/Cingular, T-Mobile, MetroPCS, Sprint, or Verizon.

By: Ola Sundqvist, August 14th, 2007 Tags: facebook, hjalmar winbladh, lets talk, reb me, rebtel