From the story:
There's a few ways Facebook could make money off of this too. It could offer low-cost, off-net VoIP calling services, similar to the way Skype does. This could allow a user to drop to the lowest-cost voice plan and just make calls over VoIP. The cost of data plan overages could make this unattractive, but if a user utilized the service only when connected over WiFi, it could significantly reduce the cost of calling from a cell phone. Another idea could be to somehow insert ads into the interface or a short one at the start of the call. However they do it, this might be Facebook's fastest path to being able to monetize mobile.
The idea of insterting ads with phone calls was trialed in the late 90s, if I remember right. I have a hard time seeing any success in that.
Why would Facebook not want to connect consumers with businesses with easy to make voice call? A lot easier way to monetise.
Fair enough, you argue that this will get expensive for the mom&pop store to handle all those call. Well, let's put it this way: sure and there are smart folks working to make it feasible...
1 comment:
Ads are getting everywhere, and would people really care if all they did was fill post-dial delay?
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