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August 15, 2007
Rebtel: One Year Later. And now available on Facebook
It has been a year since I flew to Stockholm to meet with the founding team of Rebtel. And I left Stockholm quite impressed with the team, their vision and their prior track record in being disruptors.
Rebtel recently released their own application for Facebook which is available at: http://apps.facebook.com/myrebtel/
I took the opportunity of their Facebook application announcement to catch up with Hjalmar Winbladh, CEO of Rebtel and asked him a couple of questions:
Q. Why Facebook? Why now?
A. By opening up their site, Facebook represents the future because they have released the excitement shared by all of us regardless of their age of communicating as freely, individually, and creatively as possible. That's what Rebtel has always been about as well. Facebook's "friending" is a brilliant notion. It sets the tone. (You said it yourself, Jeff, "a viral, vibrant home base for students and professionals alike." )
By launching a Facebook app, Rebtel becomes now an integral part of social networking - bringing mobility to the party. Now you can reach all your friends when not online with just a local call, no exorbitant long distance charges and right from your mobile phone, not chained to the desk. And, we make it fun and this is just a start.
However; in the mobile world, consumers are still controlled by an oligopoly which believes distance should have a hefty pricetag and innovation & open platforms should be held back. I think the generation reared on the Internet doesn't realize the price-gouging, the limited offerings, and the noose around their neck when they use their mobile phones.
Just as the Internet suspends time and distance, Rebtel is able to do the same via voice.
Q. What's changed during the past year-both from a competitive and technology perspective? And what have you learned over the last 12 months?
A. When we launched last year-it's hard to believe it's just been a little over a year-I don't think we realized the extent of the differences and the vast chasm between the PC revolution and the mobile revolution. The world between the Internet and the cell phone represents the last frontier for entrepreneurs. We are trying to bridge this divide. But to try and transform the last IT oligopoly, i.e.: the mobile operator, is really difficult and slow-going. As a disrupter (Rebtel's name comes from rebel), this is taking longer than we might have thought but we knew it wouldn't be easy, nor swift. We all know that the world is going IP and IP means Internet-based business models where the customer rules and profit margins are slim or non-existent. The mobile operator has been extremely successful in defending their control over the mobile value chain-from IP and Internet-based commoditizations and innovations.
We've learned a lot at Rebtel and are growing very steady. For some who thought this would be a rocket-ship ride, that's not going to happen-for all the reasons I've mentined above (and many more I could list). But our initial service is valuable and clean -we help consumers to, at the very least, reduce their long distance fees by turning all their international calls into local calls all without any downloads, headsets or forcing you to use a PC. Once they give it a try, they keep coming back.
Over the coming months, we will be adding even more fun and viral-type features building out community like functionality leveraging Facebook and other social networks.
You know, most telecomm services haven't changed that much over the last decade. You're the last person I probably need to tell that to:-) But consumers are still bombarded with mixed messages and misinformation. I would bet that most consumers think that their multi-band phone will just automatically work overseas from the US and the only reason why is that you first need check your credit level to be able to claim the 100ds of USD in roaming charges when you are back home in the US. Clearly, as long as we are forced by the mobile operators to use proprietary devices, there is little or no chance for third parties to develop, innovate, and spread creative networking applications to the masses.
We are still very excited here at Rebtel to lead the revolution.
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You can find Hjalmar Winbladh and other members of the Rebtel team on Facebook. Facebook is also where you can find me.
Tags: Rebtel, Facebook, Social Media, VoIP, Hjalmar Winbladh, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on August 15, 2007 02:35 PM | Permalink
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Comments
hey,
thanks for your review, nice to read! I also work for Rebtel, and it seems like Alex's link didn't work so I'll post it again!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4841078662
-Linus
Posted by: Linus Kendall at August 16, 2007 08:34 AM
(i work for rebtel): wow, thanks! we're already gearing up for subsequent development, which we'll leverage facebook for. there already is a facebook group for reb me users here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=
Posted by: Alex de Jong at August 16, 2007 04:49 AM