Webware

I get a lot of invitations for conference calls. And sometimes--sue me--I'm late to dial in, or I just plain forget. Awkwardness follows. A new telephone conference system, Gaboogie, can prevent this gaffe, by proactively calling all participants when a conference is scheduled to start.

I tried the service and like the concept, but I ran into a few snags.

This Web console is a great tool for managing a teleconference.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Good news first: It works as advertised. You schedule a call for a particular time, enter in the names and numbers of the participants, and then Gaboogie calls everyone at the appointed time and puts them in the conference. The conference organizer also gets a very useful online console that lets him or her see who's on the call, change the volume of individual lines, dump people off the call, invite new people, and turn on a recorder. After a call, you can download the recording.

Despite the ease of call management, which I really liked, the three-day-old Gaboogie has both technical problems and a slight work flow problem, which is this: With other conference call systems, you don't need to know the phone number of the person you're inviting in. You send them the dial-in code, and they call in when they are ready. With Gaboogie, you need to know a person's number to invite them in. That might be a slight social problem (maybe the other person doesn't want to give you his or her number), and it is for sure a work flow problem: you've got to run around finding phone numbers you may not have. I talked to Gaboogie's founders, Erik Lagerway and Dan Gibbons, and they said they may consider dropping the phone number requirement at some point. But for now, if you want to invite people, you have to know their digits.

There are technical improvements needed as well: Gaboogie is supposed to e-mail people in advance to tell them they've been scheduled for a call; today that feature wasn't working. Also, the system can't currently handle calling people who are on switchboard extensions, but Gibbons did tell me that he's going to fix that. Finally, there's a lag (a delay between people speaking and other people hearing what they say) on calls that's somewhat worse than a bad cell phone connection, and it makes conversations awkward.

Future features will include Webcasting of conference calls (for listeners only; active participants will have to dial in) and integration with VoIP systems like Skype. Gaboogie's wacko name isn't due to change, though.

The service costs between 5 and 12 cents per caller minute, but you can get 100 minutes free when you sign up (without entering in your credit card--nice).

This is a very clever new conference system. I'd give its a creators a few weeks to iron out kinks and then I think it will be worth using.

See also LiveOffice and Foonz (review) and check out further coverage of Gaboogie on GigaOM.

Here's a handy tool for close groups of friends and for families: Foonz, a free conference call service.

On the Foonz Web site, you set up your calling groups. For each name, enter a cell phone number or an IM address (or both). Place your contacts in groups (e.g., "Beer buddies," and so on) and when you want to talk to everybody in a group at once, you call the Foonz service and select one of your groups from voice prompts.

Foonz then sends SMS or IM messages containing dial-in numbers to your contacts. People calling from known cell phones get popped right into your conference. People from phones new to Foonz get an access code that they need to enter.

Anybody who has used a big-business conference bridge will get the concept. This is like that, but with additional features. For example, when the call is over, you can leave a message for the people you invited but who didn't make it. When they dial in, they'll get your message (like, "We've decided to meet at Moe's at 9 o'clock tonight"). And instead of awful elevator music on hold while a call is being set up, callers are put in the "arcade," a waiting room that plays your choice of music genre.

Considering that Foonz is free, it's hard to find fault with the service. My only real gripe is that you can't initiate a conference from the Web. You have to dial in to the service to do that. It'd be better if you had the option to invite yourself to a conference via the site. And not that it matters to users, but I found it odd that the conference call I just had with the Foonz CEO and a PR person was not run over Foonz.

Coming later to Foonz: integration with Web-based social networks, in the form of a presence indicator you can put on MySpace or Facebook pages. See also Meebo's group text chat and Stickam's Webcam rooms.