TringMe: Phone Free Click To Call
Nearly every VOIP related startup has their own click-to-call widget, Jajah, Jangl, Jaxtr, and even GrandCentral.
These widgets let you easily and sometimes anonymously set up a call
with friends over the web. They’re very useful and come packed with
features like voicemail and texting. However, each of these services
connects phones to phones, which still eats away at your mobile minutes
while you’re talking to that business contact or MySpace hottie.
TringMe offers a bit
more flexibility. Callers can ditch their phone and call directly
through their Flash widget to your mobile phone, landline, and GTalk
(Yahoo and Skype coming soon). All they need is a microphone and one
click. Although they’re still in private beta, you can try the demo
widget to the right for an idea of the experience.
Similar to the other services, your phone number is kept private and
the calls are free (now’s the time for that overseas call). You can
also set the widget to just receive voicemails, which are emailed to
you, saved on your standard mailbox, or recorded and played back in
GTalk. There is one major drawback, though. Since there is no virtual
phone number involved, callers have to be at a computer and can’t call
you while they’re on the go.
Naturally such an easy and anonymous calling service is susceptible
to abuse, and I don’t see any countermeasures in place to keep out
prank calls and telemarketers. The other services have verified phone
numbers and white/black lists to keep abuse to a minimum. I expect
TringMe will have to incorporate similar controls to make people more
comfortable with using the widget.
Tags: click_to_call, voip, widget, techcrunch, web2.0