Okay, this one took a little longer than I predicted, but VOIP service Foonz is suspending its service. More than a year ago, its chief marketing officer decided to shift focus to another startup. That wasn’t a good sign. Foonz has been using up its minutes since then.
Today, its users received the following notice that the service is being suspended:
Temporarily Suspending Foonz Service
May 20, 2009Greetings-
We regret to inform you that as of May 22, 2009, we will temporarily suspend the free Foonz service.
We are disappointed that we have to do this, but we are unable to maintain our relationship with our current telephone carrier, and we have not yet been able to arrange for a new vendor.
We are working on an alternate solution, and we are hopeful that we will be resuming the service in the near future. Your account data will be maintained throughout this transition.
In the mean time, please let us know if we can be of any assistance during this service interruption.
The Foonz Team
info@foonz.com
Maybe Foonz will strike a better deal with another carrier and the suspension will truly only be temporary. But giving away free conference calls just doesn’t pay.
Really interesting. Especially on the heels of the announcement yesterday that over the last 18 months Second Life users have logged over 15 billion minutes of web voice calls.
Maybe foonz could partner with Second Life to offer “group second life calls”… just an idea
“Giving away free conference calls just doesn’t pay.”
How about free SMS notifications ala Twitter? Oh yeah I forget, if Oprah and Aston Kutcher uses it, its different.
If Twitter does not begin to make a profit soon… they will be going them in the deadpool.
“Giving away free…” twitter messages “…just doesn’t pay.”
FYI:
Twitter has enough cash at this point to run for the next 12 quarters without an additional capital injection.
And seriously, how can you hate Twitter so much? It is so strange to me…
Foonz was an interesting service with a spectacularly bad name. Same with Utterz (which the above-referenced CMO smartly revised to Utterli).
What’s up with Jaxtr?
There are two sides of mobile web, VoIP and apps. So far, the VoIP side is loosing pretty bad. : T