Zello is a tech software company in

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, U.S., known for the Zello app, which emulates

push-to-talk Push-to-talk (PTT), also known as press-to-transmit, is a method of having conversations or talking on half-duplex communication lines, including two-way radio, using a momentary button to switch from voice reception mode to transmit mode. H ...

(PTT) walkie-talkies over cell phone networks.

History

Alexey Gavrilov developed the product originally called Loudtalks which was announced at the TechCrunch 40 Mobile and Communications Conference on September 17, 2007.Riley, D. (September 17, 2007
TechCrunch 40 Session 2: Mobile & Communications
Retrieved March 6, 2014. Zello acquired the Loudtalks technology, rebranded, and moved the development team to Austin. It added apps on June 20, 2012.Perez, S. (June 20, 2012)
"Voice Chat App Voxer Gets New Competition From Zello."
Techcrunch. Retrieved March 6, 2014. Bill Moore is the CEO and Gavrilov is CPO. Moore founded and was CEO of

TuneIn TuneIn is a global audio streaming service delivering live news, radio, sports, music, and podcasts to over 75 million monthly active users. TuneIn is operated by the company TuneIn Inc. which is based in San Francisco, California. The company ...

where Gavrilov and his team created popular TuneIn applications. Zello made the news in June 2013 when Turkish protesters used it to circumvent government censors. As a result Zello was the top most downloaded application in Turkey during the first week of June 2013.(June 2, 2013
Zello Walkie Talkie Daily Ranks.
App Annie. Retrieved March 6, 2014. In February 2014, it was blocked by

CANTV CANTV () is the state-run telephone and internet service provider in Venezuela. It was one of the first telephone service enterprises in the country, founded in 1930. The largest telecommunications provider in Venezuela, it was privatized in 19 ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Zello released workarounds and patches to overcome the blocks to support approximately 600,000 Venezuelans who have downloaded the application to communicate with each other amidst protests. It "has been one of the most downloaded applications in Ukraine and Venezuela." In July 2017, in

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

, Zello was the main application which was used by thousands of volunteers and rescuers for communication purposes while looking for Ivan Berladin who went missing. In August 2017 during relief efforts following

Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey was a devastating Category 4 hurricane that made landfall on Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest t ...

in Texas, Zello became a popular method for communications between volunteer rescuers (particularly members of the

Cajun Navy The Cajun Navy are informal ''ad hoc'' volunteer groups comprising private boat owners who assist in search and rescue efforts in the United States as well as offer disaster relief assistance. These groups were formed in the aftermath of Hurrica ...

) and people stranded by the widespread flooding. The app received over 6 million signups in one week as Florida residents responded to hurricane warnings for

Hurricane Irma Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread destruction across its path in September 2017. Irma was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Maria two ...

. In September 2018, while

Hurricane Florence Hurricane Florence was a powerful and long-lived Cape Verde hurricane that caused catastrophic damage in the Carolinas in September 2018, primarily as a result of freshwater flooding due to torrential rain. The sixth named storm, third hu ...

caused unprecedented flooding in the US states of North and South Carolina, rescuers used Zello to request information about the locations of people needing help and on street conditions. On August 27, 2021, the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

select committee Select committee may refer to: *Select committee (parliamentary system), a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues *Select or special committee (United States Congress) *Select ...

investigating the

2021 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...

demanded records from Zello (alongside 14 other social media companies) going back to the spring of 2020. Members of the 2022 Freedom Convoy have almost exclusively used Zello to communicate with other members and supporters.

Products

Zello is a live voice push-to-talk communication platform that turns any smart device into a digital two-way radio that works over Wi-Fi and cell networks anywhere in the world. Purpose-built to connect frontline teams and communities, the push-to-talk walkie-talkie app offers instant voice communication with one or many in unlimited secure, private channels, as well as message replay, emergency alerts, location tracking, dispatch capabilities, and Bluetooth device support. 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 applications, 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."Pogue, D. (September 5, 2012
"Smartphone? Presto! 2-Way Radio."
The New York Times. Retrieved March 6, 2014. 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. For other smartphone operating systems (e.g.,

Sailfish OS Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on free software, and open source projects such as Mer as well as including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla. The OS first shipped with the o ...

) there are Zello-compatible apps provided by third parties. Zello Work is the paid service of Zello app that allows corporates and users looking for real-time communication over groups and channels. Zello Work is different from Zello but is however owned by the same company.

References

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External links

Official Website
Companies based in Austin, Texas Walkie-talkies Privately held companies based in Texas Technology companies established in 2011 2011 establishments in Texas Software companies based in Texas Software companies of the United States

History

Products

See also

References

External links