Taking callers on your Internet Broadcast

[MyTakeRadio]

I feel the same way. I wish they offered better packages. They seem to do a good job when it comes to callers but the pricing is a little wacky for me.

I use the $40 a month plan and that gives me everything I need with regards to running a 3hr call in show.

[andrewzarian]

Rich can you screen the callers with Blogtalkradio? How do you control that aspect of it?

[MyTakeRadio]

Yea one of our team members screens calls and adds notes to my viewing screen so I know what they are calling about. Runs very clean. When I get home tonight I'll do a screen cast and post it here for you to see how it works .

[andrewzarian]

That would be amazing Rich. I think this is a topic that many of our members would be interested in hearing about.

[MyTakeRadio]

I went to BTR headquarters to quality test their current switchboard so I will gladly share a walk through with you guys. If it wasn't for their shitty audio quality I would endorse them strongly.

[MyTakeRadio]

Here is the walk thorugh I promised. Battling some serious allergies so please excuse my terrible voice lol

[andrewzarian]

Thats a great video Rich. you have convinced me to give it a shot. Maybe we can start using this for the AZ show and the Free for all.

[andrewzarian]

Has anyone tried opening Skype up on multiple computers and taking callers that way. Would it be possible to put callers on hold or pot them down until you are ready to answer the call?

[mcphillips]

You can do it, but it's a kludge. Here's what I'd like to see. The equipment is available, but I can't put my hands on it yet.

• A softphone with multi-line buttons. That is, the softphone can answer multiple lines and put them on hold.
• Four SIP telephone lines with "hunting" (such that when line 1 is busy, the call transfers to line 2).
• One softphone at the studio, and one softphone for the screener, wherever he may be.
• When the screener puts a call on hold, the studio sees the line flashing on hold.

That is, we need a SIP/VOIP key telephone system where the screener's phone and the studio's phone (both softphones) have a busy lamp field. I'm almost positive that Jim Castro can make this happen with the equipment he knows how to use. The two problems that I have not been able to solve are, line indicators that allow the studio to see a line on hold, and a VOIP service that sends a busy signal to the caller when the line called is busy. All of the services I've tested want to send them to voice mail.

Unfortunately, Blog Talk Radio's interface is the best yet. The performance of their telephone bridge is terrible. The quality is just telephone quality, but that's fine for telephones.

A company called TurboBridge has a nice telephone/SIP conference system, but they do not offer the ability to screen calls. I'm thinking through a setup that would allow a screener to answer a call on Skype and then transfer the call to the room that's on the air. The studio would not unmute the caller to put them on the air until he was ready. Since the caller is in the on air room, he would be able to hear the show.

[mcphillips]

Andrew, the CallInStudio software has quite a few features built in, including call screening. There is a free $16 credit for new users. Give it a try. It seems that it will work a lot like the call screening function of BlogTalkRadio. Depending on how many calls you take, the CallInStudio option could be cheaper than BTR.