tuitalk takes talk to new low (price)

A Turkish service called tuitalk, which acts as a broker between advertisers and telecom operators, used the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week to announce that it is providing free international calling to callers world-wide … as long as they are willing to have their calls prefaced by advertising.

A Turkish company has announced its entry into the world of free international phone calls ‚ using a combination of a normal voice phone and the Web. tuitalk offers a completely free voice calling service subsidised through multimedia advertisements.

An example of how an ad would appear on tuitalk

Services are subsidised by commercials that are directed to subscribers based on their profile, their preferences and advertisers’ marketing targets. ‚tuitalkers‚ , as users are known, access services over the Internet and maintain their profile and preferences, while partner advertisers define their target market along with their alternative commercials and interactive marketing applications.

tuitalk’s own advertisement for its advertising service

tuitalk matches tuitalker’s preferences and profile with its partner advertisers’ target audience profile and plays the most appropriate commercial prior to handing the service request to one of its partner telecom operators.

For telecom operators, tuitalk is a new channel outside their traditional coverage of fixed or wireless networks. Independent of the underlying access infrastructure of the telecom operator, tuitalk integrates with the operator network and hands service requests to its partner operators once the associated commercial is viewed by the tuitalker. Owners ARGELA-USA are adamant that tuitalk is not an operator, but a partner that attracts global subscribers over the Internet and brings them to the operator for additional traffic and a new revenue stream.

For advertisers, says ARGELA-USA, tuitalk provides a direct advertising opportunity to a highly desirable demographic, as well as a new venue for purpose-made commercials, complemented with interactive marketing. It enables innovative and interactive services leveraging profile information that users provide to make the free calls. Video commercials played or images shown prior to free telecom services means no fast-forwarding and no alternative commercials: but result in interactive and direct marketing to a captive and target audience.

tuitalk has already partnered with Turk Telekom, the fixed line operator of Turkey, with more than 20 million customers and just under 5 million ADSL customers. New operator entries are due to be announced during 2008.

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