One of the things I love about startups is the fact that they don’t have any real constraints around what they can do for marketing, promotion, etc., etc. Witness this collision between VoIP and social media… Truphone’s seasons greetings message sent out via YouTube:
I love it… even if I can’t understand all of it! Just the kind of fun, cheeky kind of thing that you can do as a startup… kudos to you all, Truphone… and do keep it up, it’s fun to see!
Technorati Tags: social media, truphone, voip, youtube
Glad you like it! Lyrics are on the YouTube page to help with understanding it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUBluYnD1dY
The words (if you can’t make them out):
Once in pretty Crockham Village
Stood a lowly cattle shed
Where a startup played with mobiles
That had Wi-Fi so they’d read
James Tagg was the father mild
Truphone was his little child
Got my bill and said ‘Good Heavens!’ (JT sings!)
‘How much was that roaming call?’
We thought that we’re surely able
To make phone bills rather small
Money falls from pockets holey
See your phone bills go quite lowly
From the farm sprung little Truphone
With more users every day
From the fields of rural England
All across the USA
‘Digg this story’, said the bloggers,
‘Mobile VoIP is here don’t knock us!’
Truphone followed wi-fi’s patterns
Day by day its coverage grew
Making normal calls is senseless
When all that you need to do
Is text TRU to +44 7624 000 000
Soon we’ll be on Windows Mobile
And on other phones you’ve got
To give you the Truphone service
We’ll work hard no matter what
Join us as we journey on
Till outrageous bills are gone
So we thank you for your custom
As we end our Truphone song
(Alistair!)
[Keyboards and wiggle by the excellent Mollie Ford]
I don’t know the Truphone guys directly, but through a friend. I understand that they are setup on a dairy farm in Kent, hence the references to cheese on their website. Truphone sounds like a good proposition: you can use your cellphone to talk VoIP over WiFi. Right now it seems the only Symbian phones with WiFi come from Nokia, but hopefully we’ll see a good crop of other phones this year, and I wish Truphone the best of luck.