For the last few years, Iotum has been a company obsessed with solving the dilemma of relevance. Today's
patterns of interpersonal communication are so invasive, so fast, and so voluminous, that it has become difficult to
insure one's self of remaining focused on the communication task at hand. We see this difficulty illustrated on
the Web with pop-up windows and spam, and we see it in the realm of telephony, too: a cell phone ringer interrupting an
important business meeting or a funeral service, a 911
call that is mis-handled by a VoIP provider, or perhaps even not being able to get a hold of a telephone contact
who has a bit of crucial data that you need in a hurry. I've even seen the issue of communication relevance play out in my own home. My kids have a room we call the "play room". My daughter will be in the play room watching a Selena DVD and reading an American Girl magazine while my son is a few feet away, sitting in front of his eMac, transfixed by his latest GarageBand masterpiece like some ten-year-old high-tech Beethoven. If I need to walk in there and inform that that dinner is ready, sometimes it takes minutes, not seconds, to get the message communicated effectively.
This basic dilemma is that we don't have good tools for weeding the essential messages (dinner is ready) from the non-essential ones (the TV, the book, and the computer).
Web 2.0 solves at least part of this problem by empowering users, collectively and indivually, to organize communications in a manner that is tied to their individual and corporate social patterns. The social bookmarking service Delicious is a great example. And this is where Iotum's "Relevance Engine" enters the picture. This cunning bit of software applies Web 2.0 design patterns to the notion of telephony. As Iotum puts it, the Relevance Engine is "the world’s first smart platform to intelligently assess the relevance of a phone call, and route it to the most appropriate device on any network."
Tomorrow at VON Canada, Iotum will introduce a new module for Asterisk that allows developers to integrate the technology into their Asterisk-based PBX systems. They've created a developer API and a call-management application which showcases Relevance. Here's the press release:
iotum™ Makes Asterisk IP-PBX Relevant To More Enterprise Users
Relevance Engine Technology To Deliver Voice 2.0 Services To The Enterprise
(Toronto, Ontario—April 3, 2006) For the more than 250,000 Asterisk IP-PBX installations around-the-world, getting the right phone call, at the right time, and on the right device just got easier thanks to iotum. Today, at VON Canada in Toronto, iotum announced the beta availability of the iotum Asterisk integration module; two relevance-enabled call management applications for Asterisk and a rich new set of developer API’s.
iotum’s Asterisk integration module connects its award-winning Web 2.0 call management applications to Asterisk IP-PBX’s to help users prioritize which calls are important, and which can wait, based on who’s calling, and what the user is currently doing. The iotum Asterisk integration module consists of source code, installation instructions and access to an iotum test account.
“Today’s announcement represents the next step in iotum’s platform strategy”, said CEO Alec Saunders. “As of today, members of the world-wide community of Asterisk developers and integrators can use our platform to build new and compelling relevance-enabled revenue generating applications.”
Once the integration is complete, this non-commercial beta will allow Asterisk users to filter, rank, and prioritize incoming calls using iotum as well as offer users the ability to easily schedule conference calls from within Microsoft® Outlook® using iotum’s Pronto Conference Calling feature. With, Pronto Conference Calling participants join a conference call by dialing the organizer’s usual phone number eliminating the need for everyone to dial into a conference bridge or remember pass codes.
The iotum Relevance Engine API allows Asterisk developers to embed advanced, contextually driven call management capabilities into their own applications. The API allows services to be built which use the iotum Relevance Engine, the world’s first smart platform to intelligently assess the relevance of a phone call, and route it to the most appropriate device on any network.. The API is for use in a variety of different kinds of applications, including collaboration, CRM, and personal productivity applications.
Founded in 2003, privately held iotum is a Voice 2.0 company setting out to shape a world of relevant communications where devices and services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with who they want, when they want and on the device they want. iotum received Internet Telephony’s Product of the Year Award; DEMOgod at DEMO-2006; Business 2.0’s Next Net 25; and was named to the Branham 25 Emerging Companies in Canada.
For more information about iotum, visit the company’s web site, http://www.iotum.com
