In preparing for our announcement of our acquisition of IMified, we found that we were frequently asked certain questions about the acquisition – so naturally we created a FAQ. We hope these Q & A answer many of your questions and if not, please do leave us additional questions as comments.
Q: What does the IMified service do? What do people do with it?
A: IMified offers a simple, web-based platform that enables companies and developers to write an instant messaging (IM) application once and connect it to all the public IM networks, including AIM (AOL), GTalk (Google), MSN (Microsoft) and Yahoo.
IMified provides a scalable platform for creating and hosting interactive instant messaging (IM) agents (Bots). Building, managing, and scaling an interactive IM application or “bot” has traditionally been a complex and frustrating task. IMified’s solution removes the complexity and provides a simple solution for building and deploying IM applications on multiple public IM networks using one API.
Examples of applications using IMified’s platform include:
- Information retrieval
- Emergency notifications
- Order status
- Package tracking
- Virtual agents
- Auto attendants
- Instant CRM
- Surveys
- Data entry
- Interactive games
- Identity verification
Here is how it can work (and this is a working example):
- In your Jabber/GTalk IM client, you add “myweather@bot.im” to your list of contacts.
- When you want to know the weather, you simply send an IM message to “myweather@bot.im” with your US ZIP code.
- The IM message you receive back would have the most recent weather forecast for that ZIP code.
The IM interaction could involve a simple exchange of information or could involve many different steps.
Q: Why did Voxeo acquire IMified?
A: In order to continue providing our customers with the best platform on which to develop Unified Communications and Unified Self-Service applications, we are always looking for ways to extend the capabilities of that platform.
Q: How will IMified integrate with Voxeo’s existing products?
A: It’s too early to speak about precise integration plans, but you could obviously see some expanded IM capabilities added to our platform.
Q: What is that status of the IMified employees?
A: The IMified employees are all now members of the Voxeo R&D organization, reporting in to Wei Chen.
Q: Who are some of IMified’s customers?
A: As the IMified service is currently in Beta, the service has been freely available to developers and so far over 7,500 developers have signed up. We can’t disclose company names, but we can say that companies using the IMified platform include a large auction website, a major weather website, a major discount travel website, and many more…
Q: What will happen with the existing IMified site and service?
A: No changes will be made at this time. Existing customers will still be able to use their IMified applications with no interruption to service.
Q: Can developers still sign up?
A: Sure, just go to http://www.imified.com/ to get started. Developer accounts are free.
Q: How are IMified applications developed?
A: Developing an IMified application is quick and easy. First, create a web application that will interact with IMified’s service via HTTP. Use whatever programming language you like and the IMified web services API as documented here: http://new.imified.com/developers/api Then place your application on a publicly accessible web server.
Next, login to your IMified.com account, add a new application to your account and choose a name for the bot. Configure that application to point to the URL of your application. By default your bot will be accessible to Jabber/GTalk users. You can go into the “Network Settings” for the bot to add connections to the AIM, MSN or Yahoo IM networks.
That’s it! Now users simply add the bot as a contact in their IM service and start interacting.
Q: When was the company founded? When did it launch the IMified developer platform?
A: The company was founded Feb 2007. The developer platform was launched in Oct 2007.
Q: What were the terms of the deal?
A: C’mon… you know we won’t answer that! As a private company acquiring another private company, we don’t disclose terms of the acquisition. We can say that the amount involved was greater than $1 and less than $1 billion. 
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