Those of you who have been following my previous articles would remember that I promised a tribute to SunRocket as my next article, but when I started working on it and realized the amount of research it involved, I decided to err…. put-it-off for a while, shall we say? Instead, here’s an article about something which stands as the core reason for people flocking to this guide – FREE CALLS!
Canadian based Intertainment Media Inc has established a marketing services and technology relationship with Itibiti Inc) –a privately held company that provides various niche product offerings in the online telephone services market – to provide customers with a video ad based free VoIP Service. While the actual calling bit will be Itibiti’s end of the bargain, marketing will be handled by Intertainment Media Inc, using the Video Player and ad based technology platform it previously deployed through its wholly owned subsidiary, Eye Rock Digital Network Intertainment will also be providing technical development services for the integration of the communication technology and marketing systems. The service has been scheduled to launch in September, and Intertainment has roped in Trooker to give a hand in the final distribution of videos to customer’s soft-phones.
The condensed form of the Press Release basically had the following to say about the service –
1)Customers will have a soft-phone on their desktop through which they would avail the service.
2)Computer – to – Computer (peer-to-peer) calling services are free.
3)Traditional communication features – like local and long distance calling – will also be free.
4)Add-on communication features will not be free, but can be ‘earned’ through participation programs.
5)The VOIP soft-phone is customizable with skins and other features.
6)The audio portion of advertisements will automatically be muted during user calling activity.
-Vinay's thoughts: This voip service sounds very similar to Globe7, who after becoming popular stopped offering free calls. I wonder if that's what these guys planned :-)".
No details about the scope of operations were released, leaving much scope for speculation about which countries would come in the ‘long distance calling’ category. David Lucatch, President and CEO of Intertainment Media Inc had the following to say about the venture.
“This platform allows Intertainment to provide a true ‘push’ based system for advertising directly on a primary communication device. Consumers have taken well to free VOIP based programs, and companies like Skype have had tremendous growth and valuation. The ad and video based system allows the group to offset the costs of the service through the delivery of advertising services, making it a revenue model in combination with a user acquisition tool.”
So this September and there’ll be yet one more way of calling across the globe (hopefully) for free –this time, without any hacks or exploits. A method of free calling that will STAY… unless, of course, the entire VoIP Industry decides to catch the SunRocket bug.
This article is written by Samarth Chandola, our VOIP News Editor.
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