Launching cool tools category

With this post I’m going to launch a new blog category: Cool Tools. Cool tools are anything and everything that make my business or my life run just a bit easier, provide good value, and may even be a delight to use.

Today’s installment: free conference calls on http://www.freeconference.com.

That’s right, free conference calls. The only cost is the long distance charges from your and the other participants normal carriers. (If you want 800-number dialing, they do offer it as a paid service.)

The first time I used it I thought, where are the ads? Where’s the upsell to 800-service? How else could they possibly be making money?

The second time I used it I thought, uh-oh, I hope this doesn’t make us look cheap.

The most recent time a well-heeled business strategy consultancy initiated the con call, so I don’t think I need to worry about appearances any more.

So, how do they make money? Is this just some ploy to win “earballs” before they go down in the next equivalent of the dotcom bust?

I assume their model is similar to FreeConferenceCall.com (a service I haven’t used and can’t vouch for). According to the New York Times, “it routes calls to portions of the phone network that don’t get much use. The phone companies pay FreeConferenceCall.com a fee, and they recoup it through long-distance charges on portions of their networks that are idle.”

Brilliant.