Making the register fring

I’m a mobile VoIP fan boy.

I’ve been interested in the Mobile VoIP industry since the beginning.

I’m also a fan of making money.

Which has always left me amazed at fring. If you’re not familiar with fring, its a mobile communication service that gives users internet-rich communication from their mobile phones.

fring members make FREE video calls, voice calls, live chat to other fringsters and to friends on other social networks.

Over the last few years fring has amassed millions of users, but hasn’t directly charged them.

That’s great for the users. But free isn’t a business.

It appears that they’ve brought in some revenues over the last few years from licensing its software to wireless carriers. They’ve even done ads within the client.

But they’ve never done anything direct with its users. Until yesterday.

With the launch of fringout, fring users can now make international long distance phone calls (landline and mobile) to anywhere in the world for only 1c/minute.

It’s a direct shot at Skype, but also many VoIP service providers catering to the international calling crowd. Now cheap VoIP calls are nothing new, but flat rate calls to anywhere in the world from your mobile is awfully compelling.

Given the pervasiveness of the fring software, ease of use and now low rates, it looks like the cash register might start to fring.