Andy Abramson has learned that Gizmo project is about to make all calls free, in 60 odd countries globally. This is an intriguing development, which I’ve been predicting for a long long time. However, I wouldn’t have guessed it would be Michael Robertson and Gizmo to do it. Aside from Michael’s penchant for grand gestures (I think he and I would be good buddies on that basis alone), I would have predicted a vendor with an alternate business model would be the company driving minutes to zero.
If Andy’s right, the cost of using Gizmo will be… nada, zilch, zippo, free… how then do they generate revenue? Will there be a white label program to monetize the platform? Click to call advertising? Michael’s no dummy. I’m sure there’s a business model, but it’s not obvious yet.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Alec, six years ago Abbeynet offered calls to italy landline for free. The service, http://www.chocophone.com, became popular very quickly in Italy. Now, we have 300K users, but the service is no longer mantained, even if still up and running. The model ? Advertising. Not succesfull 6 years ago, but now the scenario has changed. Advertising is the “food” for all the most important and popular web applications and services, because it responds to a precise need: helping companies to get customers. if you want to make money, you have to help companies to do that. IMHO, of course
Cool!