Zello
Type Private
Industry mobile software
Founded December, 2011
Headquarters Austin, Texas
Key people Bill Moore, CEO
Alexey Gavrilov, CTO
Products Zello
Employees 14 [1]
Website www.zello.com
Zello is a mobile app startup located in
Austin, Texas, behind the creation of Zello
apps. The apps are push-to-talk (PTT)
walkie-talkie for consumers and business
and available for Android, iOS, Blackberry,
Windows Phone, Windows PC, rugged
mobile devices and two-way radios. Zello is
free while the Zello@Work app is free for
up to 5 users.[1]
Company history
Alexey Gavrilov developed the product
originally called Loudtalks which was
announced at the TechCrunch 40 Mobile
and Communications Conference on
September 17, 2007. [2] Zello acquired the
Loudtalks technology, rebranded, moved
the development team to Austin, added aps
and announced June 20 of 2012. [3] Bill
Moore is the CEO and Gavrilov is CTO.
Moore founded and was CEO of TuneIn
where Gavrilov and his team created
popular TuneIn apps.
Products
Zello acts as a replacement for traditional
two-way radios, offering additional features
such as history, replay last message,
notifications and Bluetooth device support.
It works over 2G, 4G, 3G and GPRS/EDGE
networks. [4] Zello is a "a direct messaging
service that allows members to
communicate freely either privately with
individuals or over open channels that can
support hundreds of thousands of users,"
said U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. [5] It allows
people to use cell phones and computers all
around the world like walkie-talkies. [6]
Zello users can create channels and give
control to other Zello users to become
moderators. New York Times' technology
columnist David Pogue describes Zello's
channels, "Like most of the best apps, Zello
lets you create groups so that you can carry
on something like a party-line phone call
among a handful — or hundreds — of
friends or collaborators." [7]
Once a channel is created, channels can
appear on the "Trending" list and creators
can assign additional moderators to keep
their created channels safe. Though
available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone
and Blackberry, Zello can also be accessed
from a Windows PC computer with the Zello
for Windows PC. [7]
News
Zello made the news in June 2013 when
Turkish protesters used it to circumvent
government censors. [8] As a result, Zello
top most downloaded app in Turkey during
the first week of June 2013. [9]
In February 2014, it was blocked by CANTV
in Venezuela. Zello issued workarounds and
patches to overcome the blocks to support
approximately 600,000 Venezuelans who
have downloaded the app to communicate
with each other amidst protests. [10] It "has
been one of the most downloaded apps in
Ukraine and Venezuela." [11]
