What the mashup does is ask you for the phone number of the business you’re looking for information on, and you get the total number of reviews for that business and the average review.  We’re working on phase 2 as we speak.

This is a little mashup that took almost no time, and yet has a good amount of utility (and we have ideas on on more features that will add more value to this service).  I published the mashup mainly to prove a point.  This simple and inexpensive mashup really provides great value to Yelp.  We’re opening up their database so that now it can be used be people with no access to a computer.

The value of a service like Yelp is not so much in the data.  It’s in the use of the data.  It’s great that they have a huge number of reviews on their site.  But it’s not until someone actually sees that data that it becomes useful.  By adding voice access to your database\applicaiton\network you can dramatically increase the usage of that data, and by definition the value of the service you are providing.

I encourage you to check out my post on IfByPhone’s blog.  But if you want to try out the mashup, just call 866.596.8333 and type in the number of the business you want reviewed (use 312.266.1616 for the place with the best ribs in Chicago).

IfByPhone announced on Monday that you can now post phone calls to your Google Analytics account.  Why is this important?  My single favorite acronym: ROI.  If you are in any way trying to measure ROI on your website, you have one major issue.  You know that people are calling in on the phone number you list on the site, but it’s hard to impossible to measure.

Most times, the number listed isn’t specific to the campaign or even the web site.  So even if you could get the numbers on calls coming in, you can’t know which are coming in via the website.  But using IfByPhone and their new mashup, you can take out multiple numbers for online and offline calls and post all call details to your Analytic accounts.  That’s simple.  It bridges a significant gap.

Now, you can not only measure the ROI, the business impacy of the website.  You can measure it from a single interface.  Everything under one roof.  Don’t take my word for it:

Closed Loop Marketing

But with Ifbyphone’s new system, now we can achieve the vision of having web and phone lead data reported in ONE system. And not just any system, but the very popular Google Analytics.

Fierce Voip

In the latest “Gee, that’s cool” Voice 2.0 mashup, Chicago-based Ifbyphone has created a mashup to integrate direct response call date with web advertising info from Google Analytics to enable customers to gauge the overall effectiveness of a lead-generation campaign.

Website Magazine

Telephone application platform company IfByPhone made a whopper of an announcement today. Marketers are now able to integrate direct-response call data with Web-based advertising information available from Google® Analytics. That essentially means that it’s now possible to gauge the impact of an offline lead-generation campaign.

But traffic to your website isn’t the actual goal, is it? More leads, more business - that’s the goal.  What is the other option?  Click-to-call advertising.  Instead of directing prospects to your website, direct them to your sales staff.

Put yourself in the place of a web surfer.  You see an ad, and decide to click through - that’s the first call to action.  Then you hit a landing page with more information.   If the page is built well, there will be enough information to nudge to you learn more.  But still, there are obstacles before you can capture them as a lead.

At a minimum, they have a second call to action - make a phone call, place an order, fill out a webform, etc.  How many things can go wrong inbetween the time they clicked on the ad and the time they have to initiate the second call to action?

• They could decide to do more research and leave your site
• They could simply lose interest
• They could just get distracted and walk away (in my house, this would be children arguing and/or running into walls)

Let’s say they want more information and and fill out a contact form.  I talk to people all the time that complain about lost business because they can’t get back in touch with people after they leave information on a website.  That’s money that you as the advertiser are leaving on the table.

Consider that banner ad as a click-to-call instead of a link to your site.  They enter in their phone number, and their phone rings.  Now they are connected to the sales staff immediately.  It is a single call to action.  That’s a big deal.  On top of that, you have them on the phone, and you know their phone number is valid - because the provider just called them on that number and reached them.

Of course, this approach isn’t for every campaign. If you are selling Swatch Watches, then you don’t want to talk to every single lead. Talking to people who might generate $5 in revenue will actually cost you money.

But if you’re selling a higher ticket item (cars, appliances, insurance, many types of services for example), then every lead is much more valuable to you.  You need to make sure you talk to as many leads as possible, becuase that’s how you are going to close the business.

The big benefits to this approach are that you drastically cut down on abandonment by making it a single call to action, and that you can close the prospect when you have their attention.

On top of all of this, you can do a couple of interesting things using readily available technology like route calls to a local store based on the callers location, or route the callers to a qualification IVR (in this case a series of quick questions) - and route only qualified calls to your sales staff.

So in summary, click-to-call advertising can be a superior advertising method as long as the campaign is for high ticket items.

I probably won’t be attending many of the talks, but the one I am hoping to see is Fred Wilson’s Keynote.  Today, Fred announced in his blog that his VC firm has invested in Zemanta.  You can check out related links provided by Zemanta below.  I think it’s a nice fit with their portfolio, and I like the service they provide.  Zemanta scans a post as you type, and suggests related articles and pictures to include in your post.  Pretty cool.

Related articles by Zemanta

• NYC Web Tech Events - Week of September 15 - Huge Week of Events!
• Can’t Go to Web 2.0 Expo? Network with Technology Influencers on Tuesday Night, 9/16
• Web 2.0 Expo Meeting Scheduling: Twitpitch Me!

Both of these technology companies do something that is both an obvious need and difficult to accomplish.  Simply put, that’s making the conversation more interesting.  One of Fred’s common themes in his blog is that the comments are much more interesting than the actual posts.  I don’t know that he gives himself enough credit, but the underlying point is accurate.  There is real value in the conversations that are going on on blogs, on tweets, and other places.

I really value technology that brings those conversations to new audiences, and allows for more conversations. Disqus just released a new version (which will be appearing here shortly).  Go check out Fred’s post, and the official Diqus post.
You can follow me on Twitter here.  My Disqus profile is here.

One thing that it took me a while to realize is that people likely aren’t going to be a fan of what you’re doing.  More to the point, if what you’re doing is really popular, you probably aren’t doing it right.  Think about it.

What do all startups have in common?  First, the vast majority fail.  So if you’re a pundit, you’re going to be right most of the time betting against.  Secondly, a startup is about doing things differently than what other companies that are already successful are doing.  It’s not hyperbole to say that startups are mini-revolutions.

If it’s not revolutionary, there is probably someone out there who has more money that can do what you’re doing reasonably well.  It’s the vision of the founders and leaders of a company that set it apart.  It’s having a vision that is unique.

Honestly, it took me awhile to realize this.  But now that I had that little epiphany, I think it’s pretty obvious in retrospect.  And it makes me worry a lot less about public perception as well.

He talks about how great social media is because you can ask almost any question, and get great answers.  I commented that it’s great for Fred, because he has thousands of followers in his social net.  For regular people, not so much.  And thanks to Disqus, you can see the back and forth it generated here.

Anyway, his reply is that sooner or later, people will start following places (and presumably things and concepts).  So the limitaiton in followers (at least for Twitter) will go away.  This particular solution is limited to Twitter (I’d love to see something like dynamic rooms in FriendFeed).  But it’s a step in the right direction.

That’s yet another reason why Twitter is a big part of the future.  It’s really the best way to track the Internet Zeitgeist.  It’s a fast moving, reactionary, real time conversation.  We’re not quite there yet, but it’s getting closer.

Another reason Twitter is great is that someone now added voice to it.  Go check out Phweet.  It’s very cool - developed by Stuart Henshall and David Beckemeyer .

It was the first time anyone had admitted to Googling me before we talked.  It was validating in a way.  A big reason I blog is to raise not only the profile of my employer, but my own personal profile as well.  And when I did an ego search, it was pretty interesting.

I have two main blogs that I write on in a professional sense, this one and IfByPhone’s.  When I googled my name, the first two pages were filled with a guest post I did at VoipSupply.  That’s great, but it would have been much better if I had been paying attention to what people were going to see when they searched for me.  You see, my prospect thought I was a VOIP guy, which I am not. The reason it shows up all over is because I blogged there under my full name, not just my first name.

So a short lesson is that if you’re going to build a personal brand, you might want to make sure to:

• Ego search every once in a while
• Market your full name

Some snippets:

JP Rangaswami, managing director of service design at BT, said: ‘Silicon Valley is emerging as a hotbed of telecommunications innovation. With Ribbit, not only do we extend our presence in the Valley, but we also gain a groundbreaking platform, a growing community of developers and a world-class team that share a common vision. Buying Ribbit lets us accelerate that vision.’

Since its launch, Ribbit has attracted thousands of developers, launched an innovative solution for the enterprise software market, and has begun testing a consumer application scheduled for general release later this year. The acquisition of the Ribbit platform will complement BT’s existing capability in the software platform space with its award-winning Software Development Kit (SDK) initiative. BT’s SDKs enable developers to integrate new applications with BT’s services using a single line of code.

I’m in the Voice 2.0 industry.  This is great news for me, my employer, and the industry as a whole.  BT would seem to ‘get it’ so to speak.  When I translate this deal, I think that BT understand the value of CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processing), and apparently Ribbit’s relationship with developers (presumably mainly Flex developers).

So at this point, it’s not important whether they’re going to build a ‘Grand Central’ competitor or Skype competitor.  It seems like BT just wants to stay a step ahead of the game.  Just think if there was a company that had actual off the shelf applications, an API that didn’t force you to use any particular language and a low price point.  I wonder what that would be worth?  Just asking.

EDIT: You should go check out Thomas’ take here.

You choose some contacts, record a message (IfByPhone will call either your iPhone or any other phone you’d like).  Then the message gets sent out when you want it delivered.
I spend a lot of time driving in the car - without the ability to safely send emails or SMS messages.  And I tend to forget to do things.  Like pick up the milk.  I’ve tried using Jott with Sandy.  The idea being that I could call Jott, have them interface with Sandy (a reminder service).  But it doesn’t really work.  Generally, the transcription of my voice isn’t relaiable enough to pick up both the task and the time.   But that’s a convoluted solution for a reminder call.  So I plan on using this app for that just as soon as I get an iPhone.

You can read my post at IfByPhone on the application here.