Getting more Virtual Networking: sending voice mail inside email

press release from www.pinger.com

PINGER LAUNCHES FIRST CARRIER INDEPENDENT INSTANT VOICE MESSAGING SERVICE FOR MOBILE PHONES AT

DEMOFALL CONFERENCE

Pinger Combines the Convenience of E-mail and Text Messaging with the Simplicity and Personality of Voice

SAN JOSE, CA — SEPTEMBER 25, 2006 — Pinger, Inc. today unveiled the first carrier independent instant voice messaging service for mobile phones. Pinger is a new communications tool that lets you send voice messages directly to individuals or groups as instantly and efficiently as email or text messaging. The service works on mobile phones from all major U.S. carriers.

[Click here to view youtube.com video of demo how pinger works. It convinced me to give it a tryout. Scroll to bottom of page to "learn more". Doug C.]

"More than half of U.S. mobile phone users haven't discovered mobile messaging. Sending a Pinger message is easier, more personal and more powerful than sending a text message," said Greg Woock, CEO of Pinger, Inc. "Just say the names of your recipients, leave your voice message and hang up. It's that simple."

The company introduced the service at the DEMOfall 2006 conference, an annual event that showcases some of the most promising consumer and enterprise technologies.

Text messaging has seen explosive growth in the past few years with more than 48 billion messages sent in the U.S. during the second half of 2005 (CTIA). But mobile users in the Pinger beta reported sending fewer text messages and utilizing the voice capabilities of Pinger instead to communicate with friends, family and co-workers.

"Pinger stands out because it is simple and easy to send an instant voice message to anyone," said Chris Shipley, executive producer, DEMO. "Pinger has taken the best attributes of text messaging and e-mail and tied in the ease and power of voice. Pinger messages have the real potential to take the place of text messages in years to come."

Today mobile phone users can sign up and use the service by visiting www.pinger.com. Once registered, Pinger customers can upload their contacts so that sending a voice message to anyone they know is as simple as saying their name. Or they can send a message to a group by just saying the name of the group. Even without becoming a member, anyone can receive, reply to, forward or save a Pinger message on their computer.

Anyone signing up for Pinger before October 1, 2006, can receive the Pinger service free for six months. Pricing for Pinger is still to be determined, but sending a specified number of Pinger messages every month is planned to remain free for users as is the ability to use Pinger to send messages from the Web.

Pinger and MySpace

Following a one-month beta test, Pinger today introduced a new feature that allows MySpace users to post voice comments to their MySpace friends' pages from their mobile phone. You can also be notified of new Pinger messages with a MySpace message. "Pinger has streamlined my messaging already and now I can post a comment to MySpace friends with my voice from my cell phone...Genius!" said Julie Lamb, a Pinger beta tester and avid MySpace user.

More About Pinger

How does Pinger work? It's simple really. Any mobile phone user who has a plan with a major U.S. carrier (Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, Nextel or T-Mobile) can sign up and start sending voice messages from their mobile phone to anyone with an email address. Here are some of the specs on Pinger:

Send messages

• Send to anyone. Send a voice message to anyone with an email address. Doesn't matter if they've even heard of Pinger. If they have an Internet connected PC or laptop with speakers, they'll hear your voice.
• Send to groups. Say the message once, and send to a few, or hundreds, of people at once. Just like email, you can create ad hoc groups while addressing the message or send a message to an existing distribution list.
• Voice recognition to address your messages. To address a Pinger message just say the name of the recipient. No need to dial a number or look at your phone.

Retrieving Messages

• Autoplay. When you call the retrieval number from your mobile phone, or click from an email notification on your PC, the message just plays. No prompts, no waiting, just the sender's voice.
• Reply. Sounds mundane, but reply is one of the Pinger service's most powerful features. Why do you hate voice mail? Because you have to hang up and dial the person back. With Pinger, you press 1 to reply, say your business and hang up. All done!
• Forward. Forward a message to anyone with an email address. The baby's first words. The wedding announcement. The most stupid message you've ever heard? Forward it to everyone you know.
• Save. Archive important messages and keep them forever.

Web Access

• Inbox. Scan your messages like email and listen to the important ones first. A single click plays the message, and a text box opens so you can take notes. Check out items in your sent folder or "undelete" messages in your trash.
• Contacts. You can send a Pinger message to anyone with an email address. Contacts makes it easy to add or synchronize your email contacts from AOL, Entourage, Gmail, Hotmail, MySpace, Outlook, Outlook Express, Palm Desktop, Thunderbird, or Yahoo. See which of your contacts are Pinger members already. Or, enter contacts manually if you prefer.
• Options. To keep the phone interface simple and light, options like passwords, phone numbers and preferences are all managed from the Web. Include both your personal and work email addresses so all of your messages are sent to a single Pinger inbox. Set up quick dials to make addressing even faster. Specify how you want to be notified of new Pinger messages: text message, email or both.

Treo Application

• Treo 600/650/700p users get a small application that beautifies Pinger notifications on your phone and makes message retrieval a single click away. You also get a list of your last 10 Pinger messages, any of which you can listen to with a single button.

About Pinger

Pinger was founded on the vision that using your voice to message should be as fast, simple and convenient as email or SMS. The patent pending Pinger service enables people, for the first time, to send instant voice messages to nearly anyone regardless of carrier or phone type. Founded in late 2005 by former Handspring executives Greg Woock and Joe Sipher, Pinger has a proven management team who believes deeply in building simple products and services that just work. Located in San Jose, California, Pinger is privately held and currently recruiting smart people who like to create great products and have fun. For more information, visit www.pinger.com.

About DEMOfall

Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit www.demo.com.

Pinger is a service mark of Pinger, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.

Contact
Matt Hicks
SutherlandGold Group for Pinger
(415) 722-3603
matt@sutherlandgold.com