Today Ingenio announced Ether, which according to Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence, “creates a range of interesting e-commerce opportunities for experts who sell advice rather than products.” I thought this launched months ago, I wrote Ether in November 2005. following the link for details about Match’s old Profile Helper service.
Ether allows those who have something valuable to say – consultants, therapists, accountants, online celebrities – to monetize phone conversations.
A distributed (peer-to-peer) technology, Ether facilitates connections where sellers have already established trust with their audience, such as blogs, websites or talk-radio shows. Ether manages scheduling, communication, billing and payments between sellers and customers.
Ether Phone Numbers are free. Sellers only pay a 15 percent commission after transactions successfully occur. Ether’s commission covers all functionality, long-distance costs, and credit-card processing fees. There are no setup fees or monthly service charges.
Per-hour pricing, sharing of digital content, ability to forward to SkypeIn, Ether looks interesting.
More at Marketing Vox.
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