In October last year, we introduced what we thought would be a small new feature – mobile caller ID. It’s turned out to be the most popular thing we’ve ever done – yesterday the service crossed 250,000 registered users – and it’s become the focus of the whole company. We’ve decided to rename the company to make it clearer what we do: Mr. Number.
We’re also announcing today that our progress in caller ID has allowed us to develop a whole new approach to detecting telemarketers and other problem callers automatically. Every time one of our users gets a call or text from someone who is not in her address book, Mr. Number knows about it. Over the last six months we’ve discovered that telemarketers, debt collectors, and other nuisances have very distinctive calling patterns. Based on this research, we can now identify phone spam based on calls to just a handful of users. Instead of a name, our caller ID app displays “Suspicious number”.
Please join us at http://mrnumber.com, subscribe to http://mrnumber.com/blog, and comment over there. (This will be the last post at skydeck.com.) You can continue using the Skydeck app on your phone, but if you want new features going forward you need to download Mr. Number – available today at BlackBerry Appworld, iTunes, and the Android Market. Thanks for all your support!
Thanks to Apple, Google, and RIM, the last few years have been all about smartphones. It’s easy to forget that the majority of people in the US still don’t have a smartphone. We haven’t forgotten, and today we’re announcing our first service for all the other phones out there: Skydeck Reverse Lookup.
Caller ID and reverse lookup have become Skydeck’s most popular features. If you get a lot of phone calls from people who aren’t in your address book, Skydeck can turn those numbers into names. Currently, Skydeck can deliver a name – not just city and state – for more than 50% of cell phone numbers and over 90% of landline numbers, and our results are getting better every day. We’re tracking thousands of telemarketers, debt collectors, and other scourges so that you can screen your calls.
Skydeck Reverse Lookup now works on almost every phone sold by AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile and costs $9.99 per month. Just visit m.skydeck.com from your cell phone to get started.
The latest version of Skydeck – including Caller ID – is now available for all Android handsets in the US.
We started releasing new versions of Skydeck for Android in November, but it took longer than we expected to support the new Verizon Droid (because Google rewrote the contact management system for version 2.0 of the Android operating system, if you are interested).
Get Skydeck now from the Android Market on your phone.
Last night Apple approved version 1.0 of Skydeck for the iPhone (link goes directly to the App Store).
Back Up
You can back up all your iPhone contacts wirelessly, you can manage them online, and you can move them to a new iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android device if you lose or replace your phone.
Look Up
Every time you call or text a number that is not in your address book, Skydeck Caller ID will look up that number for you and let you add it to your contacts with one click.
Keep Up
You can keep all your contacts up to date. Ask any number of friends for an update via Skydeck and the app will gather all their responses and update your iPhone address book for you. If you are both Skydeck members, we’ll keep your contact information up to date automatically.
For the first time, you can keep your contacts up to date by connecting Skydeck to Facebook. Skydeck will check to see which of your phone contacts are friends with you on Facebook and import all their profile photos for you – not just once but every time they change their photos in the future.
Skydeck for iPhone is a free app, and we hope you like it. We have lots more features in the works; let us know what you’d like to see next in the comments.
UPDATE March 3rd 2010: We’re making some more changes to the Skydeck service and the BlackBerry version is free again.
There’s a new model emerging for startups like Skydeck. You build simple products with easy-to-understand features, you release them for free to gauge demand, and then you develop them further in collaboration with your users until they reach a point where the value you’re creating and the business model become obvious. (more…)
Skydeck now supports the official releases of OS 5.0 for the BlackBerry.
What does that mean? If you have a brand new Storm, or an old Storm that just got upgraded to OS 5.0, go to m.skydeck.com on your phone and download the latest version of Skydeck.
If you downloaded one of the “unofficial” releases of OS 5.0 for your Curve/Tour/Bold/etc., we’re sorry, but Skydeck may not work for you yet.
Today T-Mobile became the first carrier in the US to offer customers the following choice: sign a new 2 year contract and get a cheap phone, or bring your own phone to the network and get the same plan for a lower monthly fee, with no commitment.
This is really interesting. Bear with me.
For years, US carriers have locked customers into long-term contracts by offering them a ‘cheap’ new phone. It seems like a great deal, until you realize that the carrier has crippled the phone. Some features don’t work at all. Some require you to pay the carrier an extra fee. And there are lots of restrictions on third-party apps (like Skydeck).
So why don’t more people pay up for the unlocked, uncensored version of their phone? (more…)
What do you do when you get a call from a number that you don’t recognize? At best it’s annoying, and it can be much much worse.
Do you answer and sometimes wish you hadn’t? Or do you let it go to voicemail and hope they leave a message?
Starting today on Blackberry smartphones, Skydeck gives you another option: ignore the call and Skydeck will tell you who rang. (If you have the right phone and carrier, we’ll let you know while the phone is still ringing.) (more…)
There’s a battle brewing for control of your mobile address book. Don’t be surprised. Tap Tap Revolution or Twitterberry may get the love, but the address book is the most valuable app on your phone.
Phone numbers are not like email addresses. Those are often sensible or have a display name attached, and the message itself may have a signature. Xobni has shown that you can build an address book on the fly in Outlook by mining the headers and content of your email. Phone numbers are almost random. Area codes are losing their meaning thanks to virtual numbers and number portability; no major mobile operator supports Caller Name Display; there is no (official) directory of cell phone numbers; and you can’t sign a phone call. Unless you have a gift for memorizing 10-digit numbers, you have to maintain your own little routing table.
It’s tedious enough to stop some people from switching carrier if they can’t take their address book with them. In the US, most phones do not have swappable SIM cards. Until recently, few allowed third-party apps to access the address book, and almost none support SyncML out of the box. (This is why popular European services like Zyb, Soocial, and Funambol are not well known in the US – they were all originally based on SyncML.) Some carriers offer wireless backup and restore, but only between their own phones. Some even block you from sharing contacts one a time over Bluetooth. To transfer your address book, you have to hack your phone with BitPim or buy a $40 gizmo like Backup-Pal or CellStik.
But there’s much more at stake than “churn.” (more…)
Today we’re announcing a mashup of Skydeck and Google Voice that gives you the core features of both for free.
First, in case you don’t know, what is Skydeck and what is Google Voice?
Skydeck is your cell phone online. All your calls, text messages, voicemails and contacts are backed up on Skydeck.com and you can search, read, and reply to your messages (by voice or by text) from Skydeck as if it were your cell phone.
There’s no change to your phone number or the way you use your phone. The Skydeck app on your phone backs up all of your contacts, calls and texts to Skydeck.com. If you don’t answer a call, Skydeck takes a voicemail, converts the speech to text, and sends you an email. If you are at your desk, you can call or text people from Skydeck. The call appears to come from your cell phone, so your friends will know who it is. (more…)
Thanks to Apple, Google, and RIM, the last few years have been all about smartphones. It’s easy to forget that the majority of people in the US still don’t have a smartphone. We haven’t forgotten, and today we’re announcing our first service for all the other phones out there: Skydeck Reverse Lookup.
The latest version of Skydeck – including Caller ID – is now available for all Android handsets in the US. 
Last night Apple approved version 1.0 of 
Skydeck now supports the official releases of OS 5.0 for the BlackBerry. 
Today T-Mobile became the first carrier in the US to offer customers the following choice: sign a new 2 year contract and get a cheap phone, or bring your own phone to the network and get the same plan for a lower monthly fee, with no commitment.
What do you do when you get a call from a number that you don’t recognize? At best it’s annoying, and it can be much much worse.