Didnt we all love Gizmo Call when they were offering Free 10 mins Calls Worldwide? Just after they launched, VOIP Guide cracked into Gizmo Call to give 20 mins and later 40 mins Call with that ultimate Gizmo Call hack. Rest was History, Thousands of calls were made with our ultimate Gizmo Call hack.
Finally Michael Robertson (Gizmo Call CEO) couldn't take it anymore. Free Calls + Hack was way too much to handle for Gizmo Call and then the day has come. They suddenly cut the call limit to 3 per min. However they didnt stop there, the day finally came when they reduced free calls to 1 min per call. What did they expect people to do? It takes 20 secs to connect the call and then about 5-15 secs to pickup the call, that leaves us with about 30 secs to say Hi? lol. What a Joke!I didnt bother to go back to Gizmo Call again. That was it for me.
They later offered a Gizmo Call incoming Calling number, another uselss feature coz When i was calling to India from Singapore, it assigned me a US number. Did they expect a guy in India to Call USA and then connect to me. I didnt bother to get into more details.
The Free Calling wave is all over the internet with more VOIP providers offering free calls to multiple nations. Gizmo Call has lost all the ground they gained back in early 2007. They had a golden chance to capitalise on their initial success, but they were lost half-way.
Now they seem to get back on track with 50% cheaper calls to around the world (landline/mobile). Still there rates are a bit high, I won't say Gizmo Call is great in terms of Voice Quality however they aint bad. They are offering 13c per min to India, which is not a great rate either. However a few calls will do to check the voice quality which I consider as the first parameter in using a VOIP service and I totally ignore providers offering cheaper calls with pathetic voice quality. Isnt VOICE the most important aspect of a Phone Call. The reason we call someone coz we want to TALK to that person.
I have a strong feeling that Gizmo Call at some stage has to offer free calls to sustain in this competitive market or say Goodbye soon. This market is going to be more and more competitive in future and the future is about FREE VOIP CALLS. People would argue that FREE CALLS is a distant dream but well if you know how to make money in VOIP besides being a traditional telecom carrier, you can pull it off. There are various ways to make money from FREE VOIP and I hope Gizmo Call can think of some.
Micheal once discussed on his blog, "My plan with Gizmo Call is to offer phone calls that will feel free because they are paid for with advertising. The popularity of free email services, news services and community sites demonstrates that people will often choose ad sponsored services over paid ones. Because Gizmo Call is written in flash we can insert advertisements into the experience in a helpful manner. If you call 1-800-FLOWERS we can tell you about the great San Diego-based company".
He needs more hints or specific consultation on making Gizmo Call run as a FREE VOIP Service? Maybe he should hire me :-)
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