Evoke Communications went public in July 2000, the same month as its rival WebEx. The two companies made different bets on how meetings would move online. Evoke, based near Boulder, Colorado, sold conference calls and web meetings to businesses, just as both were moving from operators and switchboards to the web. Its customers could set up a call themselves, share slides and invite others without help. The market for online collaboration was still young.

Voice First, Slides Second

Evoke bet that conferencing would become a self-service product. Users scheduled and ran their own calls and added web presentations, which cut the cost of each meeting. It sold the service to companies large and small. WebEx focused more on web sharing, while Evoke leaned on voice. That left Evoke's business tied to voice minutes, a market where prices kept falling.

Renamed Raindance, Then Sold

Evoke priced its IPO at $8 a share in July 2000 and listed on Nasdaq as EVOK. It sold 7 million shares. In 2001 it renamed itself Raindance Communications and focused on conferencing for business customers. Raindance stayed public for several more years under its new name. In 2006 West Corporation, a large provider of call services, acquired it. Bigger players with their own networks came to dominate conference calling.

Cover: The Song of the Lark, Jules Breton. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a single voice singing at sunrise.