[January 11, 2000]

Multitude Adds Voicemail To Firetalk, Continues To Build Voice Communication System Of The Future

In a continuing effort to evolve communication beyond the legacy technology of the phone system to the next-generation potential of the Internet, Multitude, Inc. announced that users of its free Internet talk service, Firetalk, are now able to send Internet-based voicemail messages.

The addition of free voicemail on the Internet is yet another in a series of recent developments the company has made towards its goal of becoming the communications system of the future. Additionally, the new voicemail feature validates Firetalk's status as the only Internet service to offer free worldwide calls, unlimited conferencing, instant messaging, voice chat at any web site and group Web Tours with voice -- all in one powerful, easy-to-use application.

"Our goal is to shatter the limited perceptions of voice communication over the Internet," said Multitude CEO, Bruno Tapolsky. "When you consider how many different functions people use the Internet for, it becomes clear that the full potential of voice on the Internet is so much more than just voice chat, telephony or any other single application. Firetalk strives to integrate voice so seamlessly into a variety of applications that it transforms the Internet into a next-generation communications system. Years from now, we will see this period in time as the one when the Internet grew from a phenomenon to an industry-changing force that turned the tables on the old-world telecommunications companies."

Firetalk now allows its users to send voice messages to other Firetalk users. Firetalk voicemail messages can also be sent to multiple destinations at once, and saved for future playback. All voicemail messages will include sender ID, subject, date and time sent. With Firetalk's new voicemail feature, users will no longer need multiple memory-draining applications to enjoy the efficiency and convenience of Internet-based voicemail. A one-minute Firetalk voicemail takes just 15k of disk space and may be saved on the recipient's hard drive.

Today, the majority of households use some type of voicemail functionality, according to analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC). Overall, 66% of households use a telephone answering machine and 15.3% of households subscribe to a telco-provided voice-messaging service, according to IDC's 1999 U.S. Residential Telecommunications Survey. Now that Firetalk provides high quality voicemail for the Internet, users will experience the convenience of the telephone with the power of the computer, all completely free.

The category of voice-based Internet communications is set to take off. According to IDC, venture capitalists poured more than $200 million into the space in 1999, and expect to double that amount in 2000. Industry experts have high expectations for category growth because voice on the Web is sticky, cheap and adds an element of interactivity to text-based chat. Businesses and consumers stand to reap benefits from Internet-based voice communication in all of its forms: telephony, Web messaging, Web conferencing and voice enablement of Web sites. Various companies provide one or two of these Internet voice capabilities, but only Firetalk encompasses them all.

"Firetalk has raised the bar for the many companies that are using the Web to haul voice messages, by incorporating carrier-class functionality like real-time notification, and broadcast capability," said Mark Plakias, program director, The Kelsey Group, a strategic knowledge company that focuses on local advertising and electronic commerce. "By integrating full-featured voicemail with Firetalk's conferencing and shared browsing features, Firetalk has sent a clear message to the industry that they no longer have to settle for partial or point solutions."

Firetalk now offers additional features that make it the most user-friendly voice service on the Internet. In addition to voicemail service, Firetalk has enhanced its popular voice Forums feature with easy-to-navigate categories; and added directed/shared browsing with its Web Tours feature, allowing users to lead voice-enabled group tours to any site on the World Wide Web.

Firetalk Web Tours is a new feature that gives users the ability to guide the browsing experience of others by leading voice-enabled group tours anywhere, to any site on the World Wide Web. Web Tours enable a "tour leader" to direct the browser of up to 20 people. Without ever typing a URL or even touching their keyboards, tour participants are automatically transported wherever the leader takes them on the Web. In addition, Firetalk is firewall compatible, so people can participate in Web Tours from work or home.

With Web Tours, friends and family scattered throughout the globe can join together in a voice conference call and travel as a group to any Web site on the Internet for planning vacations, evaluating universities, shopping for gifts or buying a car. Users in business environments can now initiate global conference calls while directing participants throughout locations on the Web to share data or content.

Firetalk voice forums are created by users, for users, enabling the Firetalk community to share interests on hundreds of news and human interest-related topics. New to this release, Firetalk has added a hierarchy to its voice forums, allowing users to quickly identify or file created forums by topic, thus creating greater control and efficiency for participants. Firetalk voice forums include categories such as computers and technology, family, health, games and hobbies, international, sports, and lifestyles, among others.

Firetalk voice-enables the Internet in many ways: by offering free Internet calls and by voice enabling Web sites. Firetalk will drive to zero the costs of personal long distance calls to friends and family and will allow groups to conference together for free. Users are able to make high quality, one-to-one or conference calls over the Internet via their PCs by clicking names on their personal contacts list. The Firetalk application, which can be obtained by a free download from www.firetalk.com, runs as a small, unobtrusive application window on a PC. It is not necessary to make any technology changes to web sites so that users can talk there. Firetalk is offering partnering opportunities for Internet businesses and sites that want to take advantage of Firetalk's powerful community-building benefits.

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