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This month, we’ll be looking at FREE LOVE, which is all about the ongoing rise of ‘free stuff’, and the brands already making the most it. Not to mention the millions of consumers who are happily getting into a free-for-all mindset. Absorb and apply!

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By Maria Puccio
Marketing Manager at Talkster

It’s Valentine’s Day, a time when everyone’s thoughts turn to love, relationships, flowers and in my case – chocolate!

But here at Talkster, since communications are what we do, and most of our time is spent assuring that people can communicate easily and seamlessly, Valentine’s Day makes us reflect on our users (I like to call them “talksters”) and how they keep up with loved ones who are far away.

We’ve had lots of people write us to say that Talkster has helped them stay in touch with a long-distance loved one – be it a boyfriend, girlfriend, parent or sibling – by giving them the opportunity to call more often and feel closer to that person. We are always pleased to get those comments and notes because it shows us that people are using Talkster and liking it.

Patrick wrote to tell us that after having lived in Berlin for a over a year, he made lots of friends there, and now uses Talkster all the time to stay in touch now that he’s back in Australia.

But one of my favorite notes is from Catherine, who writes:

“I found this on Facebook, and honestly thought this was too good to be true… that there had to be some catch.

I looked into it as much as possible, read up on some reviews, and realized this might just be legit.

So someone extremely special to me lives in London, while I’m in the US. I haven’t heard his voice in over 3 months, and can’t see him for another 5. I prayed that this would work, because it would truly be a dream.

So I dialed, got the number to call….the phone is ringing…and he answers. My heart skipped a beat. We were able to talk for multiple hours.

I love this service, and thank you so much. You offer a truly amazing service that has given me the best Christmas present I could ever ask for. I got to hear the voice of the one I love again, thanks to Talkster.”

Since so many talksters are in long distance relationships, I was curious to know more about long distance relationships and communication. I did a bit of research to see what the experts say.

According to relationship expert Dr. Laura Berman, in her article, “Long-distance love: How to make it fly”, communication is essential.

Dr. Berman outlines how one of the problems long distance relationships face is not knowing where the person on the other end is, not being able to reach them and then worrying about what they’re up to. Dr. Berman’s solution to this is to always agree on a time when you are going to call each other.

“When your partner is miles away, it is easy to jump to conclusions when he doesn’t answer his phone….Even after you find out the truth (he was taking a nap and didn’t hear his phone), the stress and anxiety you created during those incommunicado hours have already taken their toll,” Berman says. “To avoid this problem in the future, agree on a time when you and your partner will call each other, no matter what comes up. Pick a time that is convenient for both of you, whether it is first thing in the morning or on your respective lunch breaks. Keep your phone date at all times, and if you must break it, be sure your partner knows ahead of time.”

Another problem Dr. Berman addresses that can arise in long distance relationships is loneliness. Dr. Berman’s solution is to “stay connected”. One way to do this is to find “a free online telephone service that lets you call land lines and cell phones all over the world”, Berman says.

And if you’re not in a relationship, Valentine’s Day is a great time to get in touch with friends or family and remind them that they’re important to you too. May from Toronto is planning a big Talkster conference call, where she can speak to family members in Vancouver, Hong Kong and mainland China all at once. Now that’s pretty sweet!

Wherever you are, and whomever you’re calling, Talkster wishes you a Happy Valentine’s Day! Stay in touch!

Celebrate the Year of the Rat with Free Calls from Talkster

By James Wanless
COO of Talkster

2008: The Year of the Rat

A Rat year is traditionally known as a time of hard work, activity and renewal. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2008 will be a great year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start.

This seems fitting as Talkster has just announced the launch of free world dialing to or from anywhere in Mainland China! Now families can stay connected for the New Year for free by using the Talkster service, which is now available in Mandarin at www.talkster.cn.

With one-fifth of the world’s population residing in China, the addition of this country seemed a perfect fit for Talkster’s mission: to make telephony free—period. There is no catch here.

While other companies are offering special reduced rates as part of a limited time promotion, they won’t be offering free calls to China after the New Year’s Lantern Festival like Talkster will be. And, of course, there are talk time limits and hidden charges with those other services.

Talkster wants to make international, long distance and group phone calls free for all residents of China, as well as their friends and family in other countries around the world, year-round, with no restrictions on how long you can talk.

If you can’t make your New Year’s reunion dinner this Thursday, why not try free conference calling from Talkster to connect the entire family for the cost of a local call?

Don’t want to miss Shou Sui? Talk with your family members for free the night after your New Year celebration to reminisce about the events of the passing year and welcome the year that has arrived, without having to worry about expensive long distance calling or your calling card minutes running out.

Make sure your 吉祥話 (Jíxiánghùa) are heard loud, clear and inexpensively! Use Talkster to visit with family and friends spread across the globe for years to come.

May your New Year be prosperous and full of luck,

James Wanless

In China, the Rat is considered a courageous and enterprising animal example. People born in a Rat year are said to be realistic, perceptive, charming, ambitious, logical and creative. To learn more about the Chinese animal zodiac and find out what animal your birth year corresponds to, visit http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/zodiac/Rat.html.

By James Wanless
COO of Talkster

An interesting post this week from our friend Luca Filigheddu comparing Talkster to a number of other (VoIP) services prompted me to put on my blogging hat. The services Luca compared were categorized as VoIP services but to a user of these services it’s not VoIP that makes it as interesting, rather it’s the cheap price.

Luca wrote a very good subjective piece that leads into a broader discussion about the cost of a call and the attempts to make it ever cheaper.

I have often heard it said that quality counts and at a certain point, trying to shave off a cent here and there on the cost of the call substantially reduces the quality. If you can’t shave the cost then how does a business create margin? If they give away calls between their users (calls that costs one of these businesses money) how do they in the long term make any money? We can all wait for the Skype/eBay acquisition fairy to come and visit us one night, but let’s face it, that’s not likely to happen.

In our experience (even long before starting Talkster) there’s nothing like free to acquire customers. Don’t get me wrong; you still have to give an acceptable level of quality, but free definitely “sells.” But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if something is free if its quality is sketchy.

Also, adding value (e.g. convenience, new features) to the call allows a voice service to differentiate its “free” service over the next company’s “more free” offer. Talkster has some things up our sleeve in this regard as well, but I am going to save that for another day.

I’ve written it many times here and discussed at length in interviews and at industry speaking opportunities - - Someone has to pay for free calls. Talkster believes that when we balance the issues of credit control (especially outside North America) with the minimal margins that cheap calls generate, our ad-supported model is the way forward for consumers. Advertisers pay for calls on the Talkster service. Because they pay for the call, we can ensure we are delivering the quality people expect when they place calls.

JaJah made an announcement about an ad-supported beta offering well after we launched our service at the CTIA show, and it certainly seems to be a bandwagon that a number of other companies are jumping on.

Advertising seems like an easy play but recognize that beyond the technical issues there are some fundamentals that need consideration. For example, advertising becomes annoying if it’s not relevant. Do I really want to listen to a commercial for discount car insurance for seniors if I am a 20 year old university student with nothing but a public transit pass? The answer is no.

If it’s targeted and relevant an ad becomes an offer. When an ad is regarded as an offer by the consumer on the receiving end, they no longer view it as obnoxious and are more likely to engage with it.

Equally, the advertisers need to reach the right audience in order to increase brand awareness, inquiries and ultimately sales of their products or services. Beyond targeting, to maximize the effectiveness of a campaign there can be “calls to action” within the advertising channel that allow callers to interact with an ad and bring immediacy to an offer.

At Talkster, our team has individuals with more than 30 years (yes, some of us – not me — are that old) of direct marketing experience and know how to make this work. Being able to effectively communicate the offer and deliver the mechanism to close the sale is at the core of what we have developed for advertisers.

For now we are satisfied to be recognized in the same pool as a number of VoIP players. But in the near future, we will be viewed in another light as we build on our Ad Supported Communications Platform and extend our reputation as more than just another cheap or free phone call.

It’s that time of year again where if you (like me and many others I know) have family spread around the globe you figure out how you can possibly get everyone together in one place at one time or else you spend the whole holiday season driving and flying from place to place to see them all. For the record, when I have grandchildren, I expect everyone to travel to me!

Joking aside, it’s tough to get one’s entire family in one place to catch-up on all that happens while we are apart. It doesn’t matter which time of the year it is, the family news gets passed from one person to another in a series of one-on-one conversations as the phone is passed around from person to person. This year will be different though. The Talkster family is very proud to play a part in connecting families this holiday season with our “Talkster Free World Dialing” service we launched this past October. With Talkster’s Free World Dialing friends and families can set up group calls with up to five other people from around the world.

It’s really easy to use and best of all the calls are free! All you do is go to the Talkster site from your PC or mobile phone, enter the names and numbers of the people that you want in the group call and each of them is assigned a local number to call to join the conversation.

When we built Talkster’s Free World Dialing we knew it had to be easy to use, even for people who don’t have a computer. This means when it’s time to make our family group conference call, I don’t have to rely on my old Uncle to remember what time the family call is going to start. All I do is dial the local number, record a short message telling my family to all to get on the line so we can chat and Talkster does the rest. Each of my family members gets a call from Talkster where they hear my short recorded message. They hang up the phone and dial in to their local Talkster number. Once they have connected, we are joined together. We all listen to a 10-second targeted audio ad that fully subsidizes the cost of our call, and then we can talk as long as we want.

It doesn’t matter if all of my family members don’t all call into our group call at exactly the same moment. They can join at any time the call is in progress. We can talk for as long as we like and people can come and go as they please.

This year there’s less traveling needed yet my family and yours can still share their news and good wishes together. I know nothing is as nice as being there, sitting around the table together with loved ones; but Talkster is a good alternative to keep families connected when you can’t all be in the same place at the same time.

Happy Holidays to you and yours from all of us in the Talkster family.

InformationWeek just ran a group review of six companies positioned as “Skype Alternatives.” The review was quite favorable to Talkster, stating:

“Talkster’s technology has an immediate benefit — it lets you pick the least expensive way to reach your contacts — and it’s got long-term potential as well, because voice communications are moving away from reliance on the 10-digit telephone number and over to Web 2.0 addressing schemes, such as IM handles that can be resolved to IP addresses. Talkster is positioning itself for the future.”

You can find the entire review here.

Turn Your Cell into a VoIP Phone. LAPTOP did a thorough test of 4 services taking various approaches to mobile VoIP and instant messaging.

Talkster received high marks for voice quality and ease of use. Given the relatively small feature set of our beta service (which is just a preview to our upcoming Enterprise service) we were more than happy with how we stacked up.

There was one piece of information in the article that we believe was a bit misleading and warrants further discussion here. It was mentioned that all of the services reviewed (including Talkster) require a mobile broadband connection (3G, wi-fi etc.). This may be true of the other services, but with Talkster it is exactly the opposite.

We specifically designed Talkster NOT to require broadband or unlimited mobile data plans. The Talkster service uses a very small amount of data to get updated information about your instant messenger buddy list (if their status changes) and, when making a call, an even smaller amount of data to set up the call through the Talkster network. Once you are talking on the high quality voice call (thanks for the props Laptop Magazine!) it’s just your regular cellular voice channel that is being used.

Routing the call through the Talkster VoIP network means that you connect at a local point, we carry the call over our managed network, and when it reaches the other end we connect it through a local gateway to the phone you are calling or in the case of calling your Instant Messenger buddies through VoIP all the way to their PC.

There is a misperception that calls over data networks are free. There can be a difference in cost, but you still pay for a connection to a 3G network (your mobile carrier charges you for a data bundle). In the case of using Wi-Fi, you can find free Wi-Fi hotspots but it doesn’t help you when you are on the move as Wi-Fi hotspots cover a very small area and there is no seamless handover from one to another that would allow your voice call to continue.

Regardless, unless you are on a managed Wi-Fi connection that prioritizes VoIP traffic you can experience, as was highlighted in the article, “choppy connections”, “delays” and “poor voice quality”. For consumers looking for just a cheap call this might be overlooked. For business users looking for clear, cost effective voice connections to their colleagues and customers, the networks and technologies need to evolve before they are mainstream in the mobile world.

We at Talkster support the idea that mobile VoIP will take advantage of mobile data networks when they are available. We are investing time, money and thought into making it ready for prime time, while at the same time offering a service that meets the needs of users today with networks and devices they already have access to.

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It’s always nice to be recognized for your effort and especially so when it’s a well respected organization like TMC. Talkster was selected from hundreds of entries to be a recipient of the seventh annual Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award. I am especially proud of the whole Talkster team who have worked so hard to take us to where are today. I can’t single any one person out for the thanks and praise as it truly is a team effort. “With this award Talkster has been recognized for our innovative technology in the mobile VoIP and Voice over Instant Messaging space with the judges recognizing the future potential of contact presence as well as the ability to use our VoIP network for long distance and roaming cost savings that works in a truly global fashion, We are happy for the recognition of the innovation which is just the tip of the iceberg here. 2007 is going to be the year when all of the hard work is going to be made public. While awards are nice to have, true satisfaction will come from seeing our partners offer innovation to their customers and bring new revenue to their bottom line using Talkster technology as part of their offering and an ever increasing number of direct Talkster customers from around the world realizing the Talkster advantage.

Well done team! Keep it up. Your hard work is appreciated and worthwhile.

There was news from E-Tel this week from SIPPHONE and the Gizmo Project announcing that together they now make it possible to place a call from the Gizmo client on a PC to other PC-based Instant Messenger clients such as MSN, Google Talk and Yahoo. The announcement garnered coverage and comments from folks like Om, Rich and Tom.

Federating is where 2 or more networks make an agreement to allow users from one network to communicate with another. This is what Google has pioneered through the use of open standards and to a lesser extent what AOL and MSN did by creating a bridge between their closed networks. Federation between the major players like Yahoo and AOL for text instant messaging has been a slow process with no immediate prospect of inter-network voice connectivity. Without federation these VoIP (and VoIM) islands are getting bigger and yet no closer. Gizmo has taken a good step forward in bridging these islands from the desktop, similar to what Talkster is doing from the mobile phone, as we announced back in October of last year.

While Gizmo enables Gizmo users to call from the Gizmo client on a PC, Talkster has taken this capability and extended it out to the mobile handset in support of our belief that users should not have to be sitting in front of their computer to make VoIM calls. So for the last 6-months, Talkster users with an ordinary mobile phone (no PC or broadband required), have been able to call their Google Talk, Gizmo and MSN buddies from anywhere.

We at Talkster are acutely aware of this concept of communication islands. During our current beta phase we have shown our capability to connect to public voice over instant messenger networks. Much of this work involved codec transcoding and signalling. As we move forward to our end goal of a complete communications solution for the Enterprise, the VoIM "island mentality" becomes less significant. Connectivity to public IM networks will always play a role, but to us they serve as a proxy for how Enterprise users communicate. In the Enterprise world, standards based instant messaging (XMPP) and voice (SIP based IP PBX) communications are controlled through policy. The use of open standards removes the need for technical trickery and places the focus more on the appropriate permissions to allow communications between different networks.

These permissions exist on two levels. The first is within an organization and determines who is able to see the presence of whom and therefore, is able to place calls through the VOIP network. The second is peering. Will company “A” allow VOIP calls and IM traffic to flow directly to company “B” and vice versa? The management of policies to determine such permissions and the tools necessary to implement them are areas that consume Talkster’s focus.

The bottom line is that open standards are absolutely the way forward, and we applaud the Gizmo Projects’ success in adding the Yahoo component to its PC-based service. It’s been well proven with the PSTN and email paradigm. Let’s hope that island mentality doesn’t stifle the future of open communications.

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