Twilio Recipes Open source PHP for common PBX features | Hacker News Reader

Twilio Recipes Open source PHP for common PBX features

twilio.com

37 pointsjeffiel8 comments

VoiceXML certainly has it's place in the Enterprise, but it's definitely a steep learning curve. At Twilio, we've attempted to simplify the model for developers who are already busy with many projects and technologies.

As Caligula pointed out, you can "play around" with VoiceXML on a number of Enterprise platforms such as TellMe, but if you want to launch, you'll have to engage in a long enterprise sales cycle and sign long contracts. That's no fun :(

- jeff

Jeff Lawson Co-Founder, Twilio

How about a PBX application that asks me to leave my name and number and when rep picks up my call (# in queue) my phone rings. No waiting hours on the phone with cable company. This is not a new idea - maybe some1 is doing this alrready.

Could initiate this by calling & entering info or going to a website or Twitter.

I fail to see why this got 23 upvotes. From what I can tell, it shows examples using their API. They are an alternative to VoiceXML. VoiceXML is a industry standard that most companies use.

I would avoid Twilio as I cannot find a justification to making a different standard. Although their transparent pricing and hosting everything is appealing. I actually looked into them before but their xml language turned me away.

If you want to play around with making voicexml apps for free try out https://studio.tellme.com/

I've personally had a lot of fun playing with Twilio. Hint, though: don't decide to pay until you're done using up your demo minutes because those go away when you have a balance.

Getting to pick my phone numbers, etc, and have someone else host the infrastructure is pretty cool. I'm just trying to figure out how to really leverage it at the cost level to make it a worthwhile toy. There are a number of good ideas, but they require a lot of marketing effort to become efficient.

Twilio will succeed simply because they've reduced it to being ridiculously easy. I mean, a complete non-coder could practically put together a working app based on Twilio, which I doubt is the case with any VoiceXML provider.

I personally wrote a phone-in support service, company extensions directory and voicemail-to-email service with Twilio in literally a couple hours. It now integrates seamlessly into a new support system I'm launching for one of my companies in the next month or so. Twilio's part was so easy it was an afterthought, but will really make my new service shine.

Couple that ease of use with their super affordable and transparent ($5/mo + $0.05/min for an 866#) pricing model, and you've got a winner. I can appreciate the need for standards, but sometimes they're simply trumped by easier and better technologies. Look at the progression from SOAP -> XML-RPC -> REST for example :)

PS. Had an interesting issue with call forwarding through my wireless carrier and Twilio's support has been top notch in helping track it down. Can't say the same for my wireless carrier though... ;)

Anyone have an invite code? I would love to try this service out, looks very promising. The first thing I have in mind is allow for call in issue tracking/complaints/bug reports. Something like this coupled with basic speech recognition would easily allow that, and likely cost thousands of dollars less then a similar commercial solution.

They're liberal with the invites, just try to get on their beta invite list. A week or so ago I got mine right away.

http://www.twilio.com/request-invite

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