Phoning Home for the Holidays

[BigBlueBall News]

Jeff Hester
December 3, 2004

Can’t make it home for the holidays? Not to worry. You can keep in touch with friends and family with America Online’s new AIM Voice Conferencing service.

"It’s everybody’s issue this time of year. So many friends and family to keep in touch with, so AOL has launched the modern equivalent of the party line where you can literally reach out to friends and family" says AOL’s Regina Lewis. "With a few clicks on your AIM buddy list, invite them all to a live group phone call."

Launched today, the AIM Voice Conferencing service (AVC) includes a special offer of 500 free minutes for each new user.

"The new AIM voice conferencing service is really easy to use. You don’t need a personal assistant to pull this off. There’s no dial-in numbers, there’s no pin numbers to remember. The service places out bound calls to each participant." Lewis explains, "Whether they’re on a regular phone or a cell phone, it conferences them in."

The new AVC service allows you to conference up to 15 people. You can also include people who aren’t on your AIM buddy list, as long as you know their phone number.

To access the service, you must be running the free AIM 5.9. Run AIM 5.9 and click the "Add Tools" link near the bottom of your buddy list. The "Select Tools" panel will pop up and allow you to select the Communications Tools, providing you with one-click access to AIM Voice Conferencing.

Note that the promotional 500 minutes must be used within the first 30 days of AVC registration. Usage is counted per user, so multiply the minutes times the number of people on your call to calculate how much time you’ve used. For example, if you hold a conference call with 10 people, you could talk for 50 minutes (10 x 50 = 500) for free.

Of course, if you get your friends and family to sign-up, too, then they also have 500 free minutes, so your friends or family could really make a lot of calls.

Related Links

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