Blabbelon, a free, push-to-talk, private VoIP service, now enables fantasy league players, who are spread geographically, to have live voice chats.

Many Web sites such as ESPN (News – Alert) and Yahoo host fantasy sports leagues with live, up to the minute statistics and online drafts, allowing players from anywhere in the world to come together and form a league.

However, the ability to unite people together utilizing technology has eliminated some of that live, in-person experience that made fantasy sports so popular. Blabbelon has made it happen by offering voice chat feature to fantasy league players.

In a press release, Ed Ikeguchi, CEO of Blabbelon, said, “Online fantasy drafts have always been missing the friendly camaraderie that you get with live drafts. Blabbelon lets fantasy leagues interact naturally – by voice. It’s really like your friends are in the room with you.”

An avid fantasy sports player, Jim Crook, said in the release, “Fantasy leagues are as much about socializing with friends as they are the players and the games. While it’s always great to win or score the ultimate fantasy team, the opportunity to trash talk with your fellow competitors is what the leagues are really about.”

According to Blabbelon, it’s a free, high-quality voice chat that has the users up and running with just one click. When a user enters a chat or “Blab,” other participants can be invited to join. In less time the members of the league can draft players, make critical trades – and do some trash talking.

Because Blabbelon runs through a Web browser, there is no software downloads or subscriptions.

Leveraging Skype’s (News – Alert) SILK codec, the Blabbelon multi-platform service is able to deliver wideband audio quality, said officials with New York City-based VoIP service company.

Free Push to Talk Service Puts Personality and Trash Talking Back Into Fantasy Leagues

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Imagine for a moment you are midway through a fantasy baseball draft with friends spread across the country and someone makes “the pick.” The sort of pick that would send everyone to the floor laughing if you were all in the same room. Too bad the only one currently hearing your laughter is your dog Rufus. Enter Blabbelon. Through Blabbelon’s simple, push to talk functionality, you and your friends will be afforded the opportunity to rain down the appropriate level of criticism on your fellow players.

With just one click, Blabbelon opens the lines of communications for fantasy league players. With the advent of websites such as ESPN and Yahoo hosting fantasy sports leagues with live, up to the minute statistics and online drafts, players from anywhere in the world can come together and form a league. However, the ability to bring people together through technology has eliminated some of that live, in-person experience that made fantasy sports so popular in the first place. Enter Blabbelon, the free, push to talk, private Voice over IP service.

“Online fantasy drafts have always been missing the friendly camaraderie that you get with live drafts. Blabbelon lets fantasy leagues interact naturally – by voice. It’s really like your friends are in the room with you.” Ed Ikeguchi, CEO, Blabbelon.

Blabbelon’s free; high-quality voice chat has users up and running with just one click. Once a user enters a chat or “Blab,” they can invite participants to join. In just minutes you and members of your league can be drafting players, making critical trades and most importantly, talking trash. No downloads. No subscriptions. No hassle.

“Fantasy leagues are as much about socializing with your friends as they are the players and the games. While it’s always great to win or score the ultimate fantasy team, the opportunity to trash talk with your fellow competitors is what the leagues are really about.” Jim Crook, avid fantasy sports player.

For more information, or to start Blabbing, visit www.blabbelon.com.

About Blabbelon

Blabbelon is a free, push-to-talk, private Voice over IP service that helps people gather and communicate. It uses Skype’s SILK codec to deliver super wideband audio quality. Requiring no software downloads and running through a Web browser, Blabbelon is a multi-platform service that is ideal for a wide range of voice needs. Blabbelon is a privately-held company, headquartered in New York City.

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Nope, it’s not a game ‑ it’s a new way to voice chat while you’re online. Blabbelon is a Web‑based voice chat solution hoping to supplant popular programs like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. Unlike the latter services that require the host to run a server, Blabbelon simply requires you to log onto their site and create a room (or a “Blab”), which other users can then join. It’s free and uses a push‑to‑talk system that can handle thousands of chatters. Blabbelon also employs Skype’s SILK super wideband audio codec, so the sound quality should be quite good. The press release is available on Business Wire.

A push‑to‑talk chat client for the PC is now available for all those guild raiders or casual gamers. Blabbelon, afree‑to‑use, browser‑based service is still in the beta phase.

The browser window has a contact list, Blab channel list, news and chat interface panels. You can close and open these panels as needed as well as set up a “push‑to‑talk” hot key.

Blabbelon provides users a unique name to send to friends or have friends find you. Users can also text chat in this interface, and create their own channel to make their Blab name easier to search for. To help keep in contact with your friends, you can copy the URL and send it to those on your contact list.

Since Blabbelon is a browser‑based system, you will rely on URLs for sharing channels. When you create your own Blab, you will have administrative rights over that channel including password control and the ability to ban other Blabbers.

The quality of the sound was crisp and clear, although users won’t find as many audio options compared to Ventrilo, a fee‑based voice chat service.

Blabbelon CEO Ed Ikeguchi took time to answer some questions via email about the new service.

What is the situation with current online gaming that Babbelon saw needed addressed?

Voice chat in MMOs is broken. The most popular service, Ventrilo, is complicated to set up, addled with limitations, is hard to manage games with and is limited in how many players can be on a server. And you have to pay a monthly fee for the privilege. Basically, it is more trouble than it is worth, and seems to be hanging around simply out of habit and the fact that no one has challenged them. Not anymore.

In current gaming systems, users are seldom able to make their voice servers “their own” by creating the rooms they’d like for inviting anyone they wanted for gaming purposes or real‑life. This is due to the current situation where voice servers are “rentals” by a single person or group who then become administrators. In Blabbelon, every individual user is an administrator of their own personal voice system interface, but we also give groups (like gaming guilds) the ability to set up permanent spaces just like they are used to now.

Explain how Babbelon’s solution outperforms the current offerings?

One‑Click Entry with No Downloads: Users register once for the service, and can start new chats (called Blabs) through a URL. Chats are run through a Web browser with no complicated start‑up procedures and no software downloads, allowing other applications to run simultaneously while the Blab runs in the background.

Fast Push‑to‑Talk/Low Lag: Blabbelon provides minimal delays in push‑to‑talk timing, ensuring quick reaction time to any in‑game occurrences and lower lag times, while still providing superior voice quality with less bandwidth consumption.

Party Control: Each user within a game is placed within a specific stereo space, giving administrators more control over their groups. Blab leaders can be assigned dominant push‑to‑talk capabilities, allowing features such as better management of unruly users and ensuring that sessions run smoothly without forcing session members to mute offending parties. Also, Blabbelon allows administrators to permanently ban unwanted users.

Party/RAID/Guild Security: Purchasing a server with other services often means that “chat leeches” continue to use the server without permission, but Blabbelon enables the administrator to set a wide‑range of group security measures. Through Blabbelon, administrators can easily reset a URL, keeping leeches from re‑navigating back to a voice server as with other services such as Ventrilo.

Multiplatform Control: Blabbelon works on Windows, Mac, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome without the need to download any content, install new browser toolbars or submit passwords.

Scalable: Each Blabbelon session can handle several thousand users.

Privacy: Blabbelon is a personalized and private environment. Only invited and known users are allowed to join, and users can maintain complete anonymity through the use of in‑system aliases.

This is aimed at World of Warcraft players, right? But can it be used in other games?

Blabbelon is aimed at and can be used for any MMO or online game (ie: Facebook games, Second Life, etc.).

Basically, any game where talking to another person would be done. Blabbelon is made so that it’s agnostic of the game and works great for anything.

If you are keen on online gaming, this site will have you jumping up and down with joy. Well, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but it is going to be a site you will find useful for certain. You see, it offers a high‑definition communication system for voicing yourself while playing online.

The way it works is by letting users take turns, and talk by pressing a key. That is what is called “push‑to‑talk” technology and it makes sense for two reasons at least. Firstly, people don’t talk at the same time in the real world. Secondly, (and this is somehow linked to what has just been said) it would be impossible to handle communication when it comes to teams made up of 30 or 40 individuals any other way.

This service is provided on a SaaS basis. That means you don’t have to download or install anything, and that both Macs and PCs are supported by default.

In actuality, while this system is primarily being pitched at video game aficionados there is no reason why you couldn’t use it to talk with contacts in your real‑life.

Best of all ‑ it is provided at no cost whatsoever. If you are feeling garrulous, give it a try and see if you find someone receptive on the other side.

In their own words

“Blabbelon is a free and private service that helps people gather and communicate using high definition voice quality. Blabbelon requires no software to download, install or configure, and runs entirely in the web browser of your choice on either Mac or PC.”

Why it might be a killer

Gamers will find it worth a try – the potential it has for in‑game engagement is endless.

Some questions

Will there ever be premium services on offer?

www.blabbelon.com