Ether pay-per-call launches for public use
Michael Arrington
35 comments »
The telephone-time monetization system Ether officially launches today, after beta testing since March. The company calls its new stage “zeta.” Ether lets you set a price for people who want to call you on the phone. The company provides a phone number, billing services and will also do pay-per-view for documents or other files. A button on your website lets potential callers click for information about your services. All of this for just 15% off the top of what ever you decide to charge callers.
Ether is a service of San Francisco based Ingenio, a company founded in 1999 that says it does 20 million minutes of paid voice commerce transactions each quarter for customers including AOL, Microsoft, YellowPages.com, and the IRS.
Ether seems like a pretty cool model, though concerns are consistently raised about the quality of offerings available. Looking around the site and doing a search for the Ether code in the blogosphere, probably the classiest case of this service put to use so far is by our fellow new web service review blogger, Pete Cashmore. Maybe I’m just saying that because I have a soft spot for new web service review bloggers, though.
See also our previous coverage of Ether when it launched into beta for more info and discussion.
remember exp.com? Dog with fleas….
I really can’t see this being of any use besides for tech support companies. Just another acronym to confuse with Pay Per Click >_>
Marshall,
Yep, I can attest that Ether is a really good service. I wrote more about my experience of it earlier today:
http://mashable.com/2006/06/22.....lly-today/
How is this any different from Ingenios other business keen (www.keen.com)? Seems like it will do well for porn and psychic hotlines…
I think that Ether is the best looking pay-per-call service. It can go beyond tech. My wife is going to use Ether for her Fashion Stylist consultancy. Hopefully Ether and a webcam = $$$ for her. Fashion 2.0 perhaps? Hehe.
Seems like I’ve heard of this somewhere before…
keen.com?
finally did ok when it became a platform for phone sex services.
I was actually an Alpha tester for Ether and I was really impressed by the service. I found the system very easy to use and makes a lot of sense well beyond the “sex hotline industry”.
Some of my thoughts from back in the day: http://www.livedigitally.com/?p=719
Yeah, Ether is for real. It’s buttoned up and serves a real need.
Ingenio was spun off from Keen (www.keen.com) and this looks like a repackaging of Keen.
Ingenio is all about Porno–they run http://www.Niteflirt.com
Ether will probably be a porn company too
Why not just use skype and it’s paypall billing service?
(near future)
Go go go Ebbe
great !
Willem - going going going
Is there a marketplace aspect to Ether?
Marc -
The ether team has said they will create a directory for it after they perfect the calling aspect. But for now, there’s http://etherdirectory.kasrak.com
ello der
kirst u der ?
xxxxxxxx
heya any1 there