Vonage begins testing exciting new contact management and calling features

Posted by Joe on December 22nd, 2007

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Vonage has begun testing of a new feature called ContactBook that will greatly enhance their internet telephone service for both new and existing subscribers.

ContactBook is an enhanced online address book that not only makes it is easy to add contacts from other sources, like Microsoft Outlook, but also very simple to manage and communicate with those contacts. According to Vonage ContactBook will include:

• Contact Management – Manage all your contacts in one centralized place. You can store all of your important contact information online including phone numbers, addresses, and e-mails.
• Import your Contacts – Easily import your existing contacts from Microsoft Outlook.
• Group Calling – Want to talk to friends or co-workers all at once? Vonage Group Calling allows you to talk with up to five contacts at the same time.
• Call Blast – Have a message that you need to send to a group of people? With Vonage Call Blast you can record a message and send it to up to 20 contacts with the click of a button.
• Click-To-Call – Call a phone number with a simple click of the mouse. No memorization of phone numbers needed!
• Speed Dial – Create easy-to-remember speed dial numbers for your contacts. One more way to make your life easier with Vonage.
• Voice Activated Dialing – Simply dial *44 from your Vonage phone and say your contact’s name and Vonage Voice Activated Dialing will place the call for you.

Vonage also notes that all calls made through these enhanced features will be available at the same great low rates that Vonage subscribers are used to.

Any current Vonage subscriber can opt-in to be a part of this new feature test by going to the Vonage ContactBook page and logging in to their account. ContactBook is in alpha stage which means that it is not totally ready for prime time and Vonage is likely still working through some final quirks and bugs. As such, we would recommend only Vonage subscribers that are ok with some potential hiccups opt-in for the new feature.

Even if you don’t opt-in now, the full feature set should be widely available to all Vonage subscribers some time in 2008.

We are huge fans of consumer VoIP services as is, so it is great to see even more exciting features being added by providers like Vonage. If you want to learn more about other VoIP services please read our comparisons and reviews at NextAdvisor.com.

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