As a Battlefield finalist, CallApp gave a darn good pitch in front of TechCrunch Disrupt NY attendees in one of the earlier rounds of the startup jousting. Though they weren’t one of the six chosen for the final showdown, I was intrigued enough to get a private viewing of the app at their booth. In less than 144 characters, here’s what they do: CallApp pulls in public social network status to provide context for smartphone calls.
It’s like the consumer version of what call center agents see on their screen when you connect up with customer service. But in this case the CRM data comes from Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, among other sources.
CallApp’s CTO, Amit On, showed me first hand how this works. I watched as he called my cell phone number and my name magically appeared. Impressive. In the backend, CallApp is doing some pretty fast information retrieval, associating names with phone numbers.
Then with the name, CallApp tries to pluck out a Facebook profile. Unfortunately, with my very common surname, there were far too many entries. The idea is that CallApp would display, with proper permissions, my recent Facebook posts, and do the same for Twitter. The app makes tremendous sense for friends and followers on the same social network; it’s less useful when calling someone new.
This app deserves a closer review. Sigh, I wasn’t able to try it since they haven’t released an AppStore version. CallApp currently runs on Android devices.
Regular consumers who are social media-centric will definitely get a lot of utility out of CallApp. With more business folks–I’m talking to you sales and marketing departments– hooked into Twitter and Facebook and bringing their iPhones and Androids gadgets to work, CallApp may find a home in enterprise environments as well.