Vodafone announced this week its “Passport Summer Roaming Promotion” which will run from June 1st through the end of August. With this promotion, Vodafone callers can take their home price plan on holiday with them to 35 European countries – plus Australia and New Zealand. While there’s normally a 75p connection charge to make and receive calls when roaming, with this promotion that fee has been eliminated and the calls will be charged at the same rate as local calls back home. If callers have inclusive minutes, the cost of the call is taken from these.

This is great news for UK Talkster callers planning to gallivant around Europe this summer on holiday. We’ve never billed ourselves as a roaming product, however with this plan Talkster callers can use their Talkster numbers as they usually would when calling from home.

So for example, if you go to Spain on holiday and want to call you brother in Germany you will be able to use your Talkster numbers just as you would normally do from home. Combining Talkster with Vodafone Passport transforms a very expensive calling scenario – an international call made whilst roaming – into a call that costs only what a local call would when you’re at home! You can call anywhere in the world using your Talkster numbers in the same way as you do while you are at home. talki users can also dial their local gateway number, to make calls anywhere in the world using their talki prepaid account.

There has been some speculation across the industry that this Vodafone promotion will pressure competitors to do away with roaming surcharges as well and could even usher in new EU legislation limiting the charges that Euro mobile operators could bill customers for utilizing one another’s networks. We shall see!

By James Wanless
President & COO of Talkster

Today we are proud to announce that here at Talkster we have taken the next step in our quest to offer the best in ad-supported communications. Introducing talki, our new mobile application! Since the launch of Free World Dialing we have had hundreds of thousands of requests for new services, and many of have asked the same question: “When will you be able to help me cut the cost of international SMS?” Well, we listened and took that request one step farther and also included picture messaging. Sometimes you just want to say it with a picture when words can’t quite capture the essence of the moment!

Text messaging continues to grow in use, rather than be replaced by other methods of communication. We are aware that out in the market, there are various IM aggregation plays where you can get your desktop IM buddies onto your mobile phone. However, what we believe is needed — and what Talkster begins delivering today — is an evolution of SMS, the most successful mass market mobile communications tool ever.

People started to use SMS long ago not because it was convenient but because it was a lot cheaper than calling. Over time it has become accepted as the way people communicate and become part of the way people want to communicate. It hasn’t changed much with the exception of being able to string multiple messages together to make a single long message, but that’s really not revolutionary, at least not from a network perspective. MMS came along and I have it from reliable sources in the content provider arena that it’s use isn’t growing but in fact declining. Why? Because it doesn’t work? No. Sure, there are some interoperability problems, especially internationally, but the main reason is because it’s too expensive! IM too has become more prevalent on mobile devices but interoperability is an issue there too, as well as a reliance on the need to interconnect with the MSNs and Yahoo!s of the world. Also, it doesn’t interact with your SMS so it’s just another parallel communication channel.

So, what is talki? Talki is a service that you can use through a small piece of software that you install on your phone (currently for phones that run java — the largest segment of the global market — and Blackberry; Windows Mobile to come). Talki uses your phone number (not some IM alias) to identify you and can be used for many things:

• Send text messages, of any length, from your phone to your friend’s phone if they are using talki. There are some valuable, practical features in there backed up by a world class messaging server. Unlike SMS which can get clogged up in the carrier networks for hours or in extreme cases days, talki offers guaranteed delivery with an easy visual view of whether your message is waiting to be delivered or has landed on your friends handset.
• Send picture messages. On most phones you can take a picture in real time or attach a picture that you took previously. The protocol that we developed is highly efficient and can transport image files rapidly from point to point.
• Make Free World Dialing calls. This part of the service continues to grow at a rapid pace. Using talki to make the calls is much more covenient. If you get a call from your friend, the application rings on your handset and connects you to your local Talkster number to complete the call. This is for friend to friend or friend to group calls.
• Send SMS text messages. We realized that not all your friends will get talki straight away. If you want to send messages to any phone as a standard SMS, you can do that from within talki.
• Wiki searches, literally putting Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia with 10 million entries, in your pocket! This is only the beginning. We can include the query or search of any open source of information. This can be pulled or pushed, in real time, based on a set of criteria.
• Address book integration. talki integrates with your local address book so that you can conveniently add contacts to the application and invite friends who you would like to use the application.
• Message backup. If you have ever lost your phone or it has just died, that list of text messages you had is probably lost. Not with talki. If you re-install the application on the same or a new phone, all your messages will be restored, along with your contacts as if you had never moved!

Depending on handset, the application runs in the background and is always on to accept messages and calls. It uses a very small amount of data and with the continuing decline of data costs, is very cost effective to use.

Well, that’s all great you might say, but what about the ad supported business model? This is where we have some very interesting annoucements coming along but I can share with you some details already. The talki messaging platfrom is built from the ground up to include the option for advertising. Not just banner ads on the top of the screen as you see on many mobile sites, but ads which are carried as part of the messaging protocol. Ads are generated with each message send (no, we are not reading your messages!) and can be placed in the messaging window in a very non intrusive but effective manner. For both the consumer and the advertiser, we have included several “call to action” links. Ads can contain images, in addition to web, SMS and click to call links. All of the ads are generated and tracked through the talki advertiser portal. The open standards used in the API enable us to connect to ad content aggregators to deliver content in addition to that generated on our own advertiser interface.

We also have created this as a white label opportunity. With very little effort the talki mobile client can be modified for look and language for service delivery in support of brands, service providers and aggregators. The whole platform and client components are a fast and easy way for service providers such as MVNOs to quickly enhance their offerings without having to rely on the underlying network provider’s infrastructure. From now on, service enhancements can be entirely sofware enabled! The talki service links into MVNOs existing messaging and works as an ehancement for which they can charge and offer high marging services and has the option to include ad support. We have seen some great mobile players such as Virgin step into the ad-supported arena and most recently seen mainstream operators such as T-Mobile break from the pack and offer ad-supported games. Let’s be clear here though, “ad-supported service” doesn’t mean “paid for entirely by advertising.” In some cases it can, but it will be used wisely as a means to maintain margin and stay price competitive while offering better end user services. It’s a win-win-win, or as they say here in Canada, a hat trick!

Check it out at www.talki.me and give it a try (except those of you still living in mobile internet walled gardens! We will get over the wall to help you soon, we promise).

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!