Internet Calling

In light of all these new media marketing strategies I've been discussing I thought I would talk about yet another today... Internet Calling.

Internet calling has not always been a very successful venture; however, in more recent years it has become more efficient and effective with the advances of technology and companies like Skype and Yahoo! Voice. These services make the cost of mobile calling fees go down as they present a threat to calling companies- many users claim the call quality is just as good and the rates are half as hurtful on their pockets.

Skype is software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet. Calls to other users of the service and to free-of-charge numbers are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a fee. Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing. While there are some concerns such as the level of security of personal devices and conversations with its services, Skype has experienced rapid growth in popular usage since the launch of its services. While Skype has grown from roughly 75 million users in 2005 to 309 million users in 2008 a very large user base, there is a user bias in the Mac and Windows networks and a few complaints by Linux clients and unnerved Palm OS and Treo clients.

Yahoo! Voice is a Voice over IP PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC service, provided by Yahoo! via its Yahoo! Messenger instant messaging application which is also a free service that is advertisement supported. Yahoo! Voice uses the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), GIPS codec and the DialPad engine for voice transport. This Yahoo! service has approximately 97 million potential users through the IM client base.

What does this mean for Boston Marketing Firms and Boston Public Relations Agencies? Well, with wi-fi chips going into cell phones and consumers spending so much more time on the internet and their cellular devices while saving money, we can infiltrate this new market and use the void to inject audio advertisements in exchange for those continued low rates.