Radio Handi

New Features Coming Soon

We've been busy working on a major upgrade to our service, and will be unveiling our new site soon. We're planning a lot of additions and refinements to the service this year, among them:

• Speech recognition : just call any access number, say the name of the group you want to join, and presto, you're in. No more access codes to remember.
• Web based streaming : listen to any conference call from your web browser, no plug-ins, external software or phone line needed.
• Improved invite and call scheduling features : we're working on a number of ways to make organizing a call or group IM session even easier.
• New flat rate plans for international users : we're expanding our international footprint to over 30 countries and hundreds of cities. With our flat-rate plan for businesses, you'll pay a simple monthly fee with local access worldwide.
• All new web design : we're overhauling our web design to make the site easier to use and navigate.

So stay tuned, more news about the upgrades are coming soon.

Hail Mary

This weekend the Queen Mary 2 sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. It is the largest ship ever to visit San Francisco. I took this picture from Land's End.

A very impressive sight.

Phreak Out! - Tue Oct 10th @ The Phone Booth

Radio Handi is hosting a happy hour for phone geeks. Tuesday Oct 10th at the Phone Booth, 25th and S Van Ness in San Francisco.

This is a phreak potluck. We're asking everyone to bring an interesting fixed line phone (rotary phones especially), and one person to bring a small KSU or PBX that can power rotary phone ringers. We also need lots of RJ11 extension cords. We'll be setting up a temporary PBX with table to table and table to bar dialing.

So stop by and throw back and pint or two....

NEW - Easy to Remember Shortcodes For Communities

Today we changed the way we assign Touch Tone(tm) dial codes to newly created communities. Now when you create a community, the system helps you pick an easy to remember handle (6-20 chars long) and then translates this to an easy to remember shortcode (ex. TENNIS = 836647). So if someone can remember your community's nickname, they can easily dial into your voice board or conference room. Plus, watch for a big upgrade to the web design in a week or so...

Broadcast and Internet Radio by Phone

You can now use Radio Handi to listen to participating broadcast and Internet radio stations by phone. If you are a broadcaster, we ship you a preconfigured audio appliance that beams live audio into our network. Listeners can call in to listen to your feed by calling any of our worldwide access numbers, and then dialing your callsign.

Live Phone to MP3 Broadcasts - If You Have A Phone, You Have A Radio Station

We are testing a new feature that turns any public conversation on our system into a live MP3 audio feed.  If you have a phone, you have an Internet radio station, great for doing live on-the-spot broadcasts.

Promote Parties & Events With Radio Handi

Radio Handi is a great event promotion and direct marketing tool. With its built-in email and SMS (text message) broadcast service, getting the word out about your next party or event is a snap.

Promote Your Radio Handi Groups

You can use Radio Handi to communicate with your existing groups. It's as easy as pasting a link into your website or MySpace profile. We're developing a gallery of links, buttons and widgets that tell your website visitors when your voice chats are active, and enable people to join your group by clicking a link. Follow the Spread the Word! link on your group's Radio Handi web page for more information.

Start a Conference Call via Email

With traditional teleconferencing systems, setting up a conference is generally quite a pain. We've just made it as easy as CCing an email address. To create a conference and voice message board on the fly, just send an email invite to your friends or colleagues, and then BCC invite@radiohandi.com. We'll create a temporary conference and email everyone dial-in directions. Simple. No fees. No registration. Just copy us on an email and you're off to the races.

Group SMS & Voice Chat : A How-To (Updated)

Radio Handi enables you to organize group chats via SMS and via live conference calls. With it, you can blast an SMS invite out to everyone in your group, organize SMS group chats, and also use text messaging to invite your group into a live voice conference. You can also create ad hoc SMS group chats on the fly from any mobile phone.

Sublists : A How-To

This week we added the ability to create mini-groups within your Radio Handi communities. You can use sublists to blast an email or text message to a subset of your community. For example, you can create a mini-list for an upcoming party, then check off the people you want to invite from your main group.