Barablu Offers Free Calls From Mobiles
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BARCELONA, February 12  /PRNewswire/ -- - barablu announces major expansion to offer free calls between Wi-Fi mobiles.  - With the rapid growth of Wi-Fi enabled mobile, the service promises to change the way the mobile is used.
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Users will be able to update social networks Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter by a phone call.
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Japan's Softbank Corp  is  considering offering free calls between its mobile phone and  Web-based fixed line phone users to boost its subscriber base,  sources close to the matter said on Tuesday.
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Strata8 is launching a service that lets enterprise cell-phone users make low-cost calls inside their offices.
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Cell phone contacts find their way into new phones for $1.99 a month--without the thumb strain.
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(InfoWorld) - Money talks. That's why mobile phone advertising has become such an irresistible topic. As mobile phone executives converge on the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, which runs from Monday to Thursday, many plan to meet and discuss how they can benefit from the rush toward ad-funded mobile services. Interest in mobile ads is being fueled in part by higher-speed devices that are encouraging more users to surf the Web, by new broadcast mobile TV services that could attract a new breed of viewers on the go and, above all, by numerous ambitious startups, particularly MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators), which are eager to sink their teeth into a huge market. More than 2 billion handsets are spread across the globe, and their numbers are growing by the minute. Arguably, the mobile phone is the most personal consumer goods device we own. It's a trusted communication companion, for the businessperson and consumer alike. And unlike a newspaper or even a computer, it's assigned to a single owner. That has marketers licking their chops. They're excited over the prospect of being able to target their ads in a highly personalized way. And mobile operators, which have been reluctant to leverage their customer base for mobile marketing purposes, now see an opportunity to create a new revenue stream they simply can't resist. Several groups are already testing the waters or are just about ready to dive in. In Europe, for instance, HotSMS in the Netherlands currently delivers a free, ad-sponsored SMS (short message service) offer. Blyk in the U.K. and i-Wood in the Netherlands are preparing to launch free or heavily-subsidized voice and data services in exchange for mobile phone users' consent to receive ads. Vodafone Group, Europe's largest mobile phone operator, is working separately with search engine giants GoogleÂ and Yahoo. Google is developing a service that would link advertising to Internet searches -- a counterpart to its flagship business of selling ads linked to regular Internet searches. With Yahoo, Vodafone aims to jointly develop advertisements in a variety of formats, including banner ads and short videos. To help make ads interesting to customers, the operator plans to offer discounts on services such as mobile TV, games and MMS (multimedia messaging service). In the U.S., Sugar Mama, an MVNO owned by Virgin Mobile USA, gives prepaid customers additional minutes by watching online ads, answering questions by SMS or filling out surveys about products and services. Another MVNO startup, Xero Mobile plans to provide college students with subsidized talk time in return for viewing targeted, relevant advertising. AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon WirelessÂ have signalled interest in developing mobile advertising strategies of their own. Earlier this year, U.S. startup AdMob opened for business as a middleman for managing cell-phone ads. It joins Third Screen Media, which helps companies deliver ads to phones without a glitch. Not surprisingly, in Japan, which is often far ahead of the curve in delivering new mobile phone services, NTT DoCoMo Inc. has been running small banner ads on its mobile portals for more than five years. Clearly, there's money to be made. Informa Telecoms & Media, a division of Informa, expects mobile phone ad spending in 2007 to more than double from 2006 levels to $1.5 billion. By 2011, the market researcher projects spending of more than $11 billion. As enticing as mobile marketing is, industry experts warn advertisers, mobile phone operators, MVNOs and others to move carefully into this new area. The high level of personalization enabled by mobile phones makes these devices inappropriate for blanket advertising and any attempt to leverage users' IDs for unsolicited "spam" ads is guaranteed to alienate consumers, according to Emma Mohr-McClune, principal analyst at Current Analysis Inc. Mohr-McClune argues that consent and relevancy are the twin keys to unlocking mobile marketing's potential, without busting the lock entirely. Operators will have to offer their customers something in exchange for advertising consent, and they must make it relevant. And customers are more likely to accept advertising on a mobile phone if the promotions appeal directly to their own tastes and interests. All of which suggests that mobile phone advertising will most likely appeal to younger customers. "This is definitely a youth-driven market," Mohr-McClune said. "Youth is very price sensitive so they'd be interested in services that are free or heavily discounted." Ask a few and they'll agree. "If the phone service is free or a lot cheaper than what I'm paying now, sure, I'd be interested," said Michael Amos, a 25-year-old cook in DÃ¼sseldorf, Germany. Amos currently has a flat-rate subscription, which he said is comparatively low priced but something he'd drop for a cheaper service. If operators are prepared to lower fees or drop them altogether, they'll want to make sure they generate enough money through ads to offset lower subscription revenue. One way is to keep users in "walled garden" mobile portals where operators would have better control over the flow of mobile ads and the revenue they generate. Some operators may find it easier to work with companies like AdMob, which also serves as a broker and can strike deals for advertisers with individual carriers around the world. Still, mobile phone operators, MVNOs and others entering the mobile ad market should be aware that the service is no free ticket to print money, warns Sarah Harris, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics Inc. in London. There have been failures, such as Spotcast Communications Inc., which launched an advertising-supported service in Hong Kong in 1999 but shut it down a year later, she said. Harris speculates that the service was canned because only the most strapped-for-cash users were really adopting it with any eagerness. Not necessarily advertisers' favorite people, these consumers were happy to "play the game" and receive the ads but not willing to go out and spend money. Similar advertising-supported services were launched a few years ago in Europe for fixed-line phones but "you really don't hear anything about them anymore," Harris said. If the ad market for online PCs took years to mature and generate revenue, the market for ads zapped over the airwaves will take time, too. Nevertheless, momentum is growing as new ad-hungry MVNOs sprout up like mushrooms. Operators know that if they don't carve out a chunk of the mobile advertising pie before the others, they could be left nibbling on the crumbs.
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A workaround has been developed that provides a round-about method of enabling iPhone users to make free calls via Skype.
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EarthLink is offering free VoIP calling as an incentive to sign up for its high-speed Internet service. The free service is available to the company&#39;s million-plus broadband customers.
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Virgin Mobile USA, a cell-phone  service used mostly by teenagers and 20-somethings, said on  Tuesday it was giving its customers the option to earn free  calls if they view and respond to ads on their phones.
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Software allows users of personal digital assistants to make free calls using Wi-Fi networks.
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Ribbit's new Amphibian service makes phone-like voice features accessible via PC or online.
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Softbank Corp , in a tight race  for customers in Japan's saturated mobile phone market, may  offer free calls between users of mobile phones and Web-based  phones, sources briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.
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A new way of making calls directly between two phones, for free, is being trialled by Swedish company TerraNet.
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Internet phone service, a burgeoning technology that allows people to make cheap calls to almost anywhere over broadband connections, is getting a boost from retailers.
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But what happens when you turn 25? Blyk, a new mobile phone service for teenagers and young adults, went live in the UK yesterday. Customers aged between 16 and 24 get free mobile phone calls and texts, in exchange for receiving up to six adverts a day on their mobiles.â¦
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NEW YORK -- A startup has come up with a new way to make money from phone calls connected via the Internet: having software listen to the calls, then displaying ads on the callers' computer screens based on what's being talked about.
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Your mobile phone may be one of the last  spots around that&#39;s relatively free of advertising -- but not  for long.