Gingerbread TV Launches SweetTalk VoIP and Video Software for Moms18 December 2005
Christmas is the time people make home videos, send Christmas cards and call loved ones on the phone. Now they can do it free through a new family-oriented VoIP and video software called SweetTalk from Gingerbread TV. «The SweetTalk VoicePod is our gift to the families around the world,» says Christine Marie, also known as Mrs. Gingerbread. «And it's just in time for the holidays.»
It started out as a humble TV show called The Gingerbread House in Palmdale, California. Christine Marie would bring her gingerbread cookie puppets to life through ventriloquism while sharing fun, enriching ideas for mothers and children to do together. «We had no money. We had no set, no music, no director, no script --nothing but love when we started,» she says. «I would leave my job teaching kindergarten, go down to the station, and the guys would yell, ‘You're live!' and that was it. The puppets and I just started talking.»
«The phones started ringing, and she's been talking ever since,» says producer Tolga Katas. Katas, who is also a MAC developer and president of Appian Inc., introduced Marie to John Draper, a.k.a. Captain Crunch, who first became famous for «phone phreaking,» or outsmarting the telco's with a bluebox tone generator in the 1970's. Draper, now a MAC developer for the WhitePhone brandable VoIP software, taught Marie about VoIP. VoIP, or Voice Over IP, he explained, enables users to bypass long-distance charges and call anywhere in the world, computer-to-computer, for free. Marie got it. She saw the WhitePhone plan as a way to not only connect with the $1.6 trillion mom market, but also as a portal to host enriching video clips (vlogs) and make a difference in the world. Mrs. Gingerbread, the «Beloved Operator» on this VoIP service, rebranded the software in pink, cookies and roses, and named her brand of Voice Over IP, appropriately, SweetTalk.
«What Christine Marie has done with the WhitePhone software is the most creative use of VoIP I have ever seen,» says John Draper. «She's not competing with Skype. She's not competing with Vonage. With SweetTalk, she has essentially used VoIP technology to create an interactive community for mothers and children, and she's done it as a single mom, right from her home studio. It's ingenious.»
Nick Ogden, the president of Voice Commerce, Ltd. which has developed the brandable WhitePhone, explains, «WhitePhone is designed to build and strengthen on-line communities and has natural applications throughout the whole media industry. The SweetTalk VoicePod demonstrates this by providing users with a rich interactive experience, far more than has been possible until now – including with video messaging. With SweetTalk, you can even talk to a gingerbread puppet or send video Christmas cards to friends and family.»
«She's like Martha Stewart, Shari Lewis, and Disney combined,» says Tolga Katas, «She's adorable and silly, but don't underestimate her. She has the brain of a marketing genius, and she might just surprise the male-oriented technology world with an unexpected recipe for success. And it isn't IBM blue.»
About Gingerbread Media
Gingerbread Media, a subsidiary of Appian Inc. develops enriching media, content, and software for mother and others. Christine Marie, the president of Gingerbread Media, is a former kindergarten teacher, published author, and professional speaker. Gingerbread Media produces The Gingerbread House TV show and educational DVD's for family enrichment.
About Voice Commerce Group
Voice Commerce Group, a Jersey based company, was established to deliver commercial applications of Voice Over IP technologies. The team behind Voice Commerce is led by Nick Ogden, who founded WorldPay, and Peter Grant, who helped him build it to one of the leading Internet payment systems by the time it was sold to Royal Bank of Scotland in 2002. The group's principal products include WhitePhone, which is a brandable Internet community communications system, and Hello, which enables any web site to be voice-commerce enabled in a matter of minutes by embedding a link which users just click to call the site operator. For further information please contact:
Nick Ogden, president, Voice Commerce Group
+44 1534 746 533
Source: emediawire
All trademarks and copyrighted information contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
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