Ad-Supported Calling?

There can be no doubt about the direction of advertising. So if the trend is so clear, it is inevitable that ad-supported calling will get closer attention. Jajah has been trying this in Germany and Austria, for example. Jajah has partnerships with three large media companies, including Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper; ProSiebenSat1, which owns two major German TV stations, and NewsAT, an Austrian station. The partners will spend seven million euros to advertise Jajah’s Internet phone service.

They will point users to their own Web pages, which will have a co-branded Jajah service from which people can make calls. Essentially, the media companies will subsidize voice to build traffic on their sites. Deutsche Telekom, Germany’s large phone company, is part owner of Bild. So, in a sense, DT is kicking the tires to see what's there.

Jajah will keep 50 percent of any advertising revenue that it sells on the pages it shows people while they make calls. It will sell a banner and a skyscraper on each page.

Separately, Globe7 offers a softphone-based approach integrated with video streaming. The play seems to be that the content downloading creates an ad potential. Ad viewing then earns calling credits. The angle here is possibly more interesting than the old "listen to a short ad and then I will connect your call" approach. PC-based or Web-activated sites can show ads on a home page, without disrupting a call.