Thrutu wants to make voice calls more social. Thrutu, a division of Sequoia-backed Metaswitch Networks has introduced a new free Android app that integrates with the native phone client.
Thrutu comes with five different buttons, each a fun and easy way to share information and media during a conversation.
– Location: callers can see each other’s position update live on a map.
– Camera: snap and share a photo during a call
– Gallery: select and share a photo from those already stored on the phone.
– Contacts: share contact details that will appear instantly in the other caller’s address book.
– Prod: for the first time, you can convey touch in a phone call! Playfully poke the other person by causing their phone to vibrate during the call.
With Thrutu, simply make a phone call in the normal way and Thrutu will automatically appear if the person you’re calling also has Thrutu. (You do both need to have Thrutu installed and activated.)
“The phone call has not fundamentally changed in the last hundred years, yet we now use our phones to do all kinds of sophisticated things such as text, email and interact on social networks,” claims VP Liz Rice in Thrutu’s launch pitch. “With Thrutu we’re truly changing the conversation, by bringing these activities into the actual phone call.”
Rice further said that “This is real-time; it’s impulsive; it’s spontaneous,” Rice said. “We’re fundamentally about sharing things within a phone a call.”
