Ether is hands down the most clever and innovative company i've seen all WEEK (won't give them longer, because i hear of so many companies lord knows i've forgotten about some). Countless people can now setup their own call centers offering tech support. Shoot, combine it with skype, and you have a virtual call center with billing offloaded to ether. Just get a skypein # have it routed to your office in the phillipines or wherever.
Pete Cashmore
· 3 years ago
Brian,
Well, I don't know about innovative - let's not forget that Ether is exactly the same idea as Keen.com - and in fact has been created by the same company. What has changed since then is that thousands of bloggers have become experts in their respective fields and need easy ways to manage their consulting time with clients.
While the idea was before its time back then, I think it will fit right in with the new ecosystem.
csven
· 3 years ago
Very cool.
David
· 3 years ago
Well, this is not your typical 'del.icio.us' rip-off!
Scott Faber is also listed on the management team for Ingenio, which offers pay-per-call advertising. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of underlying call-management technology is similar.
Pete, Well so i missed keen, oops. This has more potential. why? because EVERYONE can be an expert. Right now I am going to announce: for $10 a call, I will google something for you. Need a quick fact? Call my ether # and I will tell you. How's that for convenience? :-)
chartreuse
· 3 years ago
i like the idea. but when I went to register someone had TAKEN MY NAME!
Maybe I'll try sign up as Pete Cashmore instead. :)
Brian Breslin
· 3 years ago
too bad i don't have an access code. i thought this was supposed to go public?
Bart Claeys
· 3 years ago
There are quite a lot of Web 2.0 companies forgetting about users outside United States. During sign-up process they ask for a zip code and I must always cheat cause our zipcodes don't go higher than 9999.
Sometimes it's also hard to figure out whether a certain service works outside the States and that's something Ether does wrong in its communication as well. 1-888 is a total different number in Europe than in de States. I happen to know it's toll free but that's not as obvious as Americans think for foreign users.
Robert Oschler
· 3 years ago
Off-topic but somewhat related to revenue sharing.
Webmaster-Talk.com just announced ad revenue sharing for people that start threads. I wonder if this will lead to a drastic increase in "noise threads"?
Pete Cashmore
· 3 years ago
Bart,
I agree. Making up zip codes is becoming one of my specialities.
---
Robert,
Interesting. Digital Point forums did an Adsense-based revenue sharing scheme a long while back (it's still running, afaik) and it seemed to work ok.
Tiago Vaz
· 3 years ago
Bart. In my last market research I´ve notice that almost 80% of the market-share for Web2.0 are in the USA. There is no reason nowadays to internationalize these services.
I think that in the near future, services with focus on major cities outside the USA will be a great market!
For example, social networks focused in São Paulo, Bombaim, Honk Kong and etc.
Best Regards
Pete Cashmore
· 3 years ago
Tiago,
Yes, but some extent that's a vicious circle - Web 2.0 services are designed for the US, so they become popular in the US. I've actually seen a lot of attempts to build these services for other countries, but they don't get the same coverage - often because the only available information on them is in a foreign language.
Dan
· 3 years ago
wonder why/how ether will work with keen.com? Wouldn't one kill the other... Would someone care to comment?
All Comments
Shoot, combine it with skype, and you have a virtual call center with billing offloaded to ether. Just get a skypein # have it routed to your office in the phillipines or wherever.
Well, I don't know about innovative - let's not forget that Ether is exactly the same idea as Keen.com - and in fact has been created by the same company. What has changed since then is that thousands of bloggers have become experts in their respective fields and need easy ways to manage their consulting time with clients.
While the idea was before its time back then, I think it will fit right in with the new ecosystem.
Scott Faber is also listed on the management team for Ingenio, which offers pay-per-call advertising. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of underlying call-management technology is similar.
http://www.ingenio.com/documents/corp/home.asp
Well so i missed keen, oops. This has more potential. why? because EVERYONE can be an expert. Right now I am going to announce: for $10 a call, I will google something for you. Need a quick fact? Call my ether # and I will tell you. How's that for convenience? :-)
Maybe I'll try sign up as Pete Cashmore instead. :)
i thought this was supposed to go public?
Sometimes it's also hard to figure out whether a certain service works outside the States and that's something Ether does wrong in its communication as well. 1-888 is a total different number in Europe than in de States. I happen to know it's toll free but that's not as obvious as Americans think for foreign users.
Webmaster-Talk.com just announced ad revenue sharing for people that start threads. I wonder if this will lead to a drastic increase in "noise threads"?
I agree. Making up zip codes is becoming one of my specialities.
---
Robert,
Interesting. Digital Point forums did an Adsense-based revenue sharing scheme a long while back (it's still running, afaik) and it seemed to work ok.
I think that in the near future, services with focus on major cities outside the USA will be a great market!
For example, social networks focused in São Paulo, Bombaim, Honk Kong and etc.
Best Regards
Yes, but some extent that's a vicious circle - Web 2.0 services are designed for the US, so they become popular in the US. I've actually seen a lot of attempts to build these services for other countries, but they don't get the same coverage - often because the only available information on them is in a foreign language.
Wouldn't one kill the other... Would someone care to comment?