Plivo Blog

We’re proud to announce that Plivo has been chosen as one of the four companies to attend the Innovation Showcase at Enterprise Connect! 

“The third annual Innovation Showcase program takes place at Enterprise Connect Orlando 2013 later this month. The mission is simple: identify and recognize young firms with innovative approaches to enterprise communications. This year a record 20 companies applied.

The submissions tell a broad story. Some of the applicants were geared more toward the CMO than the CIO. Some seemed to be inspired by science fiction shows, and others were highly targeted toward specific platforms such as Lync or Google Apps. A few were aimed at at specific verticals. A few innovations were in the area of management tools, and a fair share were cloud solutions. Of course, as always, a heavy share of solutions focused in the core areas of voice, conferencing, and mobility.

Each year, four companies are selected to be in the Innovation Showcase. As always, the four selections are unranked within the Showcase. This year’s Innovation Showcase includes the following four companies…”

Read the full article here

If you will be attending Enterprise Connect, stop by and say hello; we’d love to meet you!

We’ve teamed up with Sansay to offer a new and powerful cloud communications platform and couldn’t be more excited!

“Sansay’s newfound interoperability with Plivo gives Sansay devices the ability to easily work with the cloud communication functions and messaging services offered by Plivo. This will allow the newly-minted coalition to pursue not only over the top (OTT) markets, but also the growing market for Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) in voice and video alike.

Under the arrangement, Sansay’s SBCs will provide the necessary security features to ensure privacy on the calls, as well as the various technical aspects of such communications like packet header manipulations, transcoding and call routing. Meanwhile, Plivo will be serving as more of a face-forward sort of functionality, serving as the API platform from which several major VoIP applications—hosted PBX messaging, call recording, WebRTC and several others—can be introduced…”

Read the full article here!

About a month ago, we launched new transcription capabilities that enable enterprises and developers to build even more powerful applications, like true visual voicemail.  With this update, recorded calls (in English) can be transcribed in two different ways:

1. auto- strictly done by a computer, fast (usually complete within 5 minutes).
2. hybrid- recording is checked by an actual person, leading to a much higher quality overall (usually complete within 20 minutes).  

Currently, transcription support is for calls 120 seconds or less; however, we’re in the midst of extending that time to cover entire conference calls. Stay tuned for updates!

How to Use
Transcription ties in with the recording features. What that means is that wherever there is a possibility to record a call, you can transcribe it too. The functionalities in Plivo that let you do this are:

1. Record API
2. Record XML
3. Conference API
4. Conference XML

With respect to transcription, all the features above use the same set of parameters:

1. Transcription type- auto or hybrid (as discussed above)
2. Transcription URL- This is the URL to which Plivo will send the transcription text once the call has been transcribed.
3. Transcription Method: This is the type of HTTP method used by Plivo to send the request to the Transcription URL. The valid values are GET or POST.

Pricing
Auto $.05/min
Hybrid $0.35/min

Check out our detailed pricing for all services at www.plivo.com/pricing, ping our 24/7 support at www.plivo.com for more information, or sign up for an account today!

While we’ve been working on new and exciting features (stay tuned!), we’ve also been marking our calendar with several events that will allow us to bring the Plivo story to more enterprises, service providers, and developers.  

During the upcoming weeks, you can find us at:

Channel Partners- will be in attendance February 27 & 28 and look forward to talking with more service providers about how Plivo and our partners can enable service providers to jump off the raise to zero and deliver some compelling applications.  

SXSW- will be in attendance March 9-12 and will be spending a great deal of time with our friends at SoftLayer.  By leveraging dedicated servers with SoftLayer, we are able to deliver the ultimate level of call quality.  

PyCon- Come see how Plivo works! Because we are a gold sponsor, we will have a booth (#171) and be holding demonstrations the 14-16th. Stop by to get your Plivo gear and information about our free developer accounts.

Enterprise Connect- will be in attendance March 18-20th to discuss everything that is possible with Plivo. We will give a a WebRTC demo on the 18th that should not be missed.

If you will be attending any of the events mentioned above, please get in touch, we’d love to meet you! You can drop an email to Mike (mdl@plivo.com), Rachel (rachel@plivo.com), or connect with us on Twitter.

1. How long have you worked at Plivo? How does it feel being the first hire?

It’s been a year now since I joined and it’s been a crazy year at that. I met Venky at a coffee shop about a month prior to joining. When he explained Plivo’s vision to me, I was very excited. I really didn’t think in terms of being a first employee. I knew that both Mike and Venky were on to something awesome and that the problem they were solving was as genuine as it was challenging. I always wanted to be involved in a startup that was technological, as opposed to say an e-commerce venture, and I wanted to be involved from the very early stage. Plivo was perfect and I considered myself really fortunate to have gotten this opportunity.

2. What are some of the major changes you’ve seen? Can you give some insight to how the company has evolved since you started?

Well, obviously things have changed. We’ve grown pretty quickly. There has been growth in revenue, team, and our appetite for new features. The time I joined was when Plivo moved into it’s first office ever in Bangalore. We (Venky, me, Kunal- who came later, and Mike- remote from France), literally lived there for a few months getting the first version of our API and UI ready. We soon got a call for the YC interview and it was around the same time that we’d decided to shift to a bigger office. We were super thrilled after we got through to the summer batch of YC 2012. The team grew bigger after that and we launched publicly in June. We were really happy with the response to our initial set of features. After “Demo Day” at YC,  we also got funded by a marvelous set of investors who didn’t just bring in money but gave proper guidance and shared invaluable experience as well. Now we have our HQ at SF. I’ve missed out many things but it’s been crazy in a nice way. So many things happened and so many things changed. However, one thing has remained the same. We still think the same way in terms of new challenges and features. We still pump code in with the same zeal and fervor.

3. What were you doing before you joined Plivo?

I was working at Adobe for about two and a half years in the Flash Builder team. It was a good experience. I did things varying from evangelism to working on the media installation scripts. That’s where I first used python and started loving it’s simplicity and power.

4. What websites/apps do you visit/use/think are great?

Github for reading code, twitter for finding out what else is interesting to read, this nice app called Readefine that makes any article pleasing to the eye.

5. Hobbies/Interests aside from Plivo?

I read a bit, like solving crosswords, listen to quite a lot of music, and I like to drive on empty roads.

6. What are you most looking forward to?

I am looking forward to the coming year and adding some really exciting features to Plivo. I am hoping to get to a stage where we can deploy stuff even faster than we are doing now. What I’m looking forward to the most is finishing the really awesome things we have planned for 2013 :)

7. Any inputs/tips/suggestions for folks deciding to join startups as initial team members?

Before joining Plivo, I was told “Don’t treat a start up as a job, treat it as a lifestyle”. That is so true. If you are planning to join a startup, make sure that everything about the startup excites you and conforms with your DNA. The aim of the start up, the founders’ vision, the work that you’ll be doing, etc. As an early member, you play an important role in deciding the fate of the company, so it’s good to give it a lot of thought before taking the plunge.

Connect with Nishad on Twitter
Interested in joining the Plivo team? We’re hiring!