A startup called PhoneTell is releasing an app today that can supposedly give you useful information as you're making and answering phone calls.
The PhoneTell application, which is launching on Android smartphones, should be useful in two distinct cases. In one, you're in a meeting, or driving, or can't answer the phone for some other reason, and someone calls you. Normally, you'd have to wait until you're free to call back, or maybe type out a "can't talk right now, will call back" text message. PhoneTell makes it easier to respond. You can send that text with just a tap of a button, or choose from other built-in and custom messages. If you want to call back, the app can also add that call to your calendar and send you a reminder. And even if you don't have the caller's number in your phone's address book, PhoneTell may still be able to tell you who it is by pulling data from YellowPages, Whitepages, and telemarketer lists.
Meanwhile, if you want to make a phone call, PhoneTell also helps you search for numbers beyond your address book -- not just from the data sources above, but also from Yelp and your contacts on Facebook, Linkedin, and Salesforce.com. The idea is that PhoneTell can become the one place where you can find the phone number you need, no matter where it is.
The company previously launched an iPhone application under its old name, CallSpark, at the DEMO conference coproduced by VentureBeat. But chief executive Steve Larsen said the iPhone can't support all the features the company wanted, namely the call response options. So it revamped the app and is releasing it for Android, with a BlackBerry app is coming soon. And PhoneTell will be come back to the iPhone, either with a more limited app or, hopefully, with the full features if that's doable with the new version of the iPhone operating system
As for revenue, Larsen said the app is free, but he guessed that about 5 percent of PhoneTell searches will have a commercial intent. So the company set aside a spot in the search results for a paid listing.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based PhoneTell has raised a $1 million angel round from investors including Ron Conway, and is raising another.
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