Burner syncs up with Dropbox, Slack, Evernote, and Soundcloud

by Patrick Hechinger
October 8, 2015
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Burner, the temporary phone number generator, announced two new additions to their platform today: Burner Connections and Burner Premium. 
 
The Premium feature will now let customers renew existing phone lines and Burner Connections allows users to to sync their Burner numbers with other platform like Slack, Soundcloud, Dropbox, Evernote.
 
“We felt that the phone number just wasn’t smart enough,” CEO and cofounder Greg Cohn said. “The idea behind the app was never purely temporary numbers, it was the idea of smarter phone numbers. Phone numbers that were acting like software and taking advantage of modern capabilities.” 
 
With the new Dropbox feature, the Burner number pulls any photos or voicemails directly into a Dropbox account, allowing coworkers or guests at a wedding to all share their photos into a folder with a single text. 
 
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For Slack, a burner phone number is connected to a Slack channel and any text or replies on the number are fed through that channel. This can be used for a company’s customer support or to spread any variety of news within an office Slack channel. 
 
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The Evernote integration allows users to create their own SMS auto-reply bot, generating responses for any number of pre-established questions. For example, if you’re an Airbnb host, you can make a quick auto reply for any questions your guest might have. 
 
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The Soundcloud integration converts any voicemail to a track on Soundcloud. A reggae band called Iration is using a Burner phone to encourage fans to call and leave messages and then curating and sharing the best messages to encourage fan engagement. 
 
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In it’s third year, Burner (formally part of Ad Hoc Labs) is led by Cohn, a former Yahoo vet, and Will Carter, a former Nokia employee. The company began as a platform to show user’s availability for phone calls but one of their side features, the temporary number generator, caught on and became the main product. 
 
Cohn said people are using the Burners for longer periods of time and for a wider variety of reasons than they anticipated. While the numbers are still popular with Craigslist and dating app users, many professionals and teachers are using them to communicate with their colleagues and students. 
 
“The broader point is that SMS is becoming the new email for a lot of coordination and functions, but unlike email it's trapped in its own island. This first wave of connections is built on the idea of opening that up to create your personal OS.” 
 
 
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Jobs at Ad Hoc Labs (Makers of Burner, Dialed, and Firewall)

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