I know you’re probably asking “what does this have to do with the iotum Relevance Engine?”. Everything. Although our presence capabilities aren’t in the application as you will see it today, they will become part of it over time. We made a strategic decision to get to market quickly with the conferencing system, and then roll out additional features, like presence, as quickly as possible afterward. Also, later this fall the capabilities we have developed for Facebook will be re-integrated with the Talk-Now application on BlackBerry, allowing users to create instant conference calls from the BlackBerry driven by the iotum Relevance Engine. Users will be able to see at a glance who is available for a conference call, and then immediately bring all available people into that call. We’ve had interest in this feature from organizations ranging from sales groups, to political parties, IT professionals and public relations companies.

When compared with Skype's Conferencing:

• iotum's service is initially only available for participants located in North America (and is ultimately limited at the moment by access to the SMS messaging and use of callerID) whereas Skype Conference calling can be worldwide
• IM+ for Skype offers the ability to conference, from a mobile platform, worldwide (for up to five participants) via Skype but call costs will also depend on wireless access and roaming charges.
• Mobivox, with local access points-of-presence in 29 countries, provides a conferencing capability for up to 10 participants, including Skype contacts, from a mobile device.
• iotum's Free Conference Call does provide the ability to define an agenda.
• Skype Conference calls can be accompanied by chat and desktop sharing sessions.
• Skype Conference calls are limited to ten participants whereas iotum's service can handle three figure numbers although there is no interface for a "host" to manage the call (muting participants, hand raising, adding/removing participants, etc.)
• Both can include in their calls participants who are not members of the respective underlying services.
• Skype is inherently more suitable to launch ad hoc (spontaneous) conference calls; personally I find it much faster and easier to set up a Skype Conference call.
• Skype with its wide audio bandwidth will provide much better voice quality than inherently audio-bandwidth-limited mobile phones. This was born out in a couple of calls this afternoon; one via Skype with all parties using Skype, the other via Free Conference Call where two of the three parties were on a mobile device. But the latter was quite acceptable for normal conversation.
• The costs for each service are going to largely depend on your relevant wireless or landline network access charges to any infrastructure conference bridge.. For instance, from Canada, most mobile calling plans do not include long distance calls to the U.S and can result in charges of up to $0.30 per minute.

However, the bottom line is that iotum's Free Conference Call will handle calls primarily amongst networks of Facebook friends while Skype Conference Calls will largely be amongst networks of Skype Contacts. For you as an individual, these two social networks will only have the overlap that you, as the person responsible for your network of personal friends and business contacts, permit. In the end it's not only about both these social networks and but also about which overall environment you choose to use for each particular purpose.

I think a big issue with all conference call services is to get the consumer public familiar with the basic concept of low cost, multi-party conference calls. Six years ago I was paying $200 for a one hour four party conference call (often involving a conference operator).. Earlier today I set up a five party Skype conference call in about ten seconds; we conferenced for 27 minutes at no cost to any party. But the consumer is still, at best, most familiar with three party calling as a legacy PSTN service and needs a mindset "reset" when it comes to conference calling.

And to reduce those wireless or landline access charges when using Free Conference Call:

• from any Skype client call the Free Conference Call bridge number via your SkypeOut service; you are then asked to enter your mobile number and are subsequently added to the conference call (an optional PIN number requirement is on the list of futures.). This has the potential to add a security issue but only if you know the scheduled time of the call and are somehow able to access information about "private" Free Conference Calls.

Let the mobile telephony plays continue!

Update: Garrett Smith (of Smith on VoIP fame), at his new Facebook Observer blog feels that iotum's Free Conference Call "sets the bar for business Facebook applications".

PhoneBoy comments at Voice over IP weblog. (Yes, we were both, along with Dan and Phil, on the initial test calls.)

Later update: iotum CEO has posted iotum's own perspective on the key Free Conference Call features as well as links to the blogger world reaction.

Tags: iotum, Facebook, Free Conference Call, TalkNow, Blackberry, Skype, Mobivox, IM+ for Skype, SkypeOut, Dan York, Disruptive Telephony, Garrett Smith, Facebook Observer