Pal Dave Hurwitz, who shares a passion for lacrosse recently communicated with me about the launch today of Yak For Free and told me that “YakForFree has the potential to reach millions of people worldwide, establishing yak as a premier global VoIP provider,” said David Hurwitz, Chief Operating Officer and President of yak’s VoIP Initiatives. “Free users upgrading to our yakToAnyone service provides us with a fast, cost-effective method for capitalizing on the higher margins and faster cash flow made possible by prepayment. We anticipate a large number of consumers to sign up for this free communications alternative that requires only a PC, camera and a broadband connection. Once they subscribe, we have tried to make it as easy as possible for them to upgrade to our prepaid yakToAnyone service.”
Yak’s plans are very aggressive, with the promise of TV advertising later this month, lots of PR and promotion. Their new web site also clearly has an international, multi-racial feel, giving me the sense that they are going after the market that likes to use calling cards and is cross border with their family and friends.
You can check out there B-Roll they are supplying to the media here.
In thinking through what David and crew are doing, this is clearly one of the most aggressive campaigns *ANY* VoIP provider has undertaken and blows away the likes of Packet8 with the idea of turning people on to video.
If their efforts pan out positively, then this is good news for YAK and CounterPath (previously XTEN,) but it will also have a spill over effect on EyeBall. A lot of what I’m seeing as the premise here likely rolls back to Erik Lagerway and his ineen experiments.
Good luck to all, as this is VoIP 2.0 at it’s finest, and since it’s standards based (i.e. SIP) that means a wider audience is already in place and the technology eco-system is there for everyone to play with.
P.S. But I do have a concern for David. For years I’ve been saying on the KenRadio ‘World Technology Roundup” that “if it’s free it’s me, but if I’ve gotta pay, it’s no way.” Basically I feel that people who want free will always find a way to stay using free services and rarely convert. While I believe in sampling, giving it away all the time rarely leads to conversion to paid service so hopefully YAK proves me wrong because I like the idea of what they are doing, and by leveraging the CounterPath (previously XTEN) EyeBeam technology they are able to make this all work seamlessly on the users end.