Hoiio Blog

Yesterday we introduced to you Hoiio Genie, today we would like to highlight some upgrades to our Hoiio Number service.

1. Own multiple Hoiio Numbers
In the past, you can only own 1 Hoiio Number, with the current upgrade you can have many. The main reason why we implemented this is because we are going to start selling Hong Kong numbers soon. We’ll let you know once they are available.

2. Choose your favorite number combination
Now you can choose your favorite number combination as your Hoiio Number. Search using both numbers and alphabets, for example: 1111, eli, eli123. If your favorite number combination is not available, worry not. Hoiio is getting more numbers soon. You’ll be the first to know.

Any questions, drop us an e-mail at support@hoiio.com

Few months ago, we asked you what new features you would like to have with our Hoiio Number. Today, we introduce to you *drumroll~ Hoiio Genie

What does Hoiio Genie do?
1. Genie remembers all your phone numbers for you.
In the past, when you wanted to forward your Hoiio Number to a different phone, you had to either remember or jot down the number first. Imagine having to do that few times in a day. Now, Genie helps you remember all those numbers. Forwarding your Hoiio Number from your mobile phone to your office desk phone now takes only a click.

2. Genie routes your call based on a day-of-the-week and time-of-the-day schedule.
Have you ever wished that you could forward your Hoiio Number to your desk-phone during office hours, and to your mobile after office hours? Genie grants your wish with its Weekly Planner feature.

With Weekly Planner, you can even command your Hoiio Number to not forward calls (hang-up) based on the schedule you created. For example you can block calls for those weekly sales meeting, or night classes you need to attend. Genie also maintains a Whitelist for those important people whose call you do not want to block.

3. Genie helps you stay reachable when you are overseas.
Going on an extended business trip? A week in New York, another in London, 3 days in Paris. Your loved ones might lose track how to reach you. Should they call your New York mobile or hotel number? Are you in London yet? If you are, should they call your London office or mobile number?

With Hoiio Number and Hoiio Genie’s Overseas Trip, they only need to know one number to reach you. Pass your Hoiio Number before you go abroad, and configure the Overseas Trip, and she will do the rest for you.

One more thing, have you ever been woken up by a call in the middle of the night while you are overseas because your friend back home forgot about the time difference? Genie has a Do-Not-Disturb feature too to make sure you sleep peacefully and soundly. We know how important it is to have a good rest while away from home.

4. Genie blocks calls from unwanted sources.
Tired of being harassed by an ex-lover? Tired of receiving calls from telemarketers? Tell Genie to add those numbers into her Blacklist and Genie will protect you from them.

What do I need to do to start enjoying those features?
First, you need to get a Hoiio Number. Login to www.hoiio.com now, and get your favorite number combination.
Secondly, tell the world about your Hoiio Number. Print it on your name-card. I highly recommend you to give your Hoiio Number instead of your mobile number when you fill up credit card application forms, so you can block their telemarketers :D Also when you need to publish your number on the internet, publish your Hoiio Number for the same reason.

So, what are you waiting for? Login now and get your Hoiio Number now, before your favorite number combination gets snatched. If you have any questions, drop us an e-mail at support@hoiio.com

Dear friends,

Great news! We have decided to extend our special SMS rate until Feb 7th, 2011.  The rate will be applicable when you send SMS to Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Phillipines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, USA, or Vietnam.

Check out the promotional rate below.

Cheers,

Ronald

Dear friends,

If you are a Singapore user, you can now enjoy up to 63% savings when making calls to Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Greece, India, Laos, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Sweden. Check out our new rates below.

Cheers,

Ronald

Dear friends,

We have an early Christmas gift for you: a new and upgraded user portal!  Below are some of the improvements we did.  After you’re done reading, don’t forget to try it out, and let us know what you think by leaving your feedback and comments.  If you want to skip this skillfully written blog :P and just start exploring our new portal, login here (but please still give us your valuable feedback, please?)

1.  New looks and easier navigation

We have redesigned our portal’s user interface so that it’s pleasing to the eye and easy for everyone to use.

The top portion of the portal is the main navigation menu.  Click on Dashboard if you want to make a call, send an SMS, subscribe to or configure your Hoiio Number, or transfer some credit to your friends.  You can also use the main navigation menu to view your past Transactions, check Rates, and access your Phonebook.  The Apps menu is where you download your copy of Hoiio apps.

You can find the sub-menus on the left side of your screen.  The picture above shows the sub-menus for Dashboard, where you can initiate a call, send SMS, etc.

2.  Reorganized transaction logs

To make it easier for you to view your past transactions, we now group them into categories: Call, SMS, Topup, Credit Transfer, Number, and Miscellaneous.

Let’s say you’ve been using Hoiio for making business calls, and want your employer to reimburse your Hoiio topups, simply go to the Topup category, print the transaction logs, and submit it to you HR department.

3. Upgraded phonebook

Our upgraded phonebook now has two categories of contact: Mobile Contact and Web Contact.

Do you know that Hoiio mobile apps can synchronize your mobile phone’s phonebook to Hoiio user portal, either manually or automatically? Those contacts which are synchronized by Hoiio mobile apps falls under the Mobile Contact category.  Changes done to a contact in your phone, will be reflected on the user portal after the next synchronization.

What about a Web Contact? A Web Contact is a contact which exists only on the web.  It won’t and can’t be synchronized to your phone.

With both types of contacts available readily on the user portal, especially the Mobile Contacts, you can conveniently initiate a call or send SMS.  Imagine this: You are in front of your laptop, you need to send a few SMSes to some friends but just don’t feel like squinting your eyes on your phone display.  You could just login to Hoiio user portal and send the SMSes from there.  You don’t even need to browse your phone to find your friends’ numbers and jot them down (come on, how many of us actually remember our friends’ number by heart? :P), and then type them one by one into the user portal because your Mobile Contacts are already synchronized there.  It doesn’t kill too that it’s so much faster typing on a regular-sized QWERTY keyboard than on a puny phone keypad, don’t you think so?

4.  No account expiry, just credit expiry

In the past, if there was no transaction done in your account in the span of 180 days, we would expire both your credit and your account.  If you had wanted to use Hoiio again, you would have had to recreate your account from scratch. With the new portal, we will only expire your credit so you don’t have to recreate your account all over.  This is also inline with our efforts to provide you with more free services, like Hoiio SMS that we launched a few months ago.

We are very VERY excited about this new portal, and we hope you are too!  Keep a lookout as we will be bringing out more exciting features soon!  Thanks for reading, don’t forget to try our new portal out by logging in at https://secure.hoiio.com/user/User.html?#login.  And thanks in advance for your feedback!

Cheers,

Ronald