Mobile VoIP with EQO

In April I was cruising around on LinkedIn and came across an announcement that EQO, a Canadian based company had recently picked up US$9M in Series B funding. As there is more VC funding around these days – but it is harder to get – I decided to have a further look. I recently caught up with Simon Edelstyn, MD of EQO’s EMEA operation. With the new injection of VC cash, Simon is working hard to build his local team and to begin actively marketing the EQO solution.

EQO is one of several new entrants into an emerging space which can be largely grouped into a category of Mobile VoIP. Other relevant players in this space include TruPhone, NimBuzz, Fring, SoonR, Mobivox, iSkoot – and a bunch of others that I’m sure I haven’t yet come across.

EQO Mobile enables people to make international long distance calls and exchange IM and text messages on their mobile phones at local calling and messaging rates. The application, which is only about 200KB, auto-installs on the handset and then auto-imports your contacts so that the user can make calls, send texts and do IM (including MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, ICQ and Jabber) with just a single click.

Mobile VoIP solutions have a wide variety of implementations and a dizzying array of features and functions – but they all aim to offer consumers a more cost effective means to place international calls. This makes for an interesting set of opportunities and challenges.

Mobile VoIP Communities

Communities.

Of the few words that are usually included when we talk about the Web 2.0 movement – Communities is one of the biggest. EQO has an opportunity to build a significant community all connected by through the EQO client.

The Mobile VoIP community is a very unique beast. It is actually very specific and easy to segment into a non-mainstream set of demographics. The majority of Mobile VoIP users are those with friends and family who live abroad. A further characteristic is that these consumers may not have a traditional land line phone and they may not have easy access to the Internet. i.e.; If they had the Internet they’d just use Skype – and if they have a landline they could use any number of cheap call cards available from newsagents.

Before someone jumps up on their keyboard soapbox I should mention that these services do more than just Mobile VoIP – The majority of these services include some instant messaging functionality.

Frankly, I have always been – and continue to be – underwhelmed at the idea of mobile instant messaging. The mobile device user interface is not designed for it – and consumers who are on-the-go aren’t interested in long conversational exchanges with multiple people in the same way as they are when they are sitting in front of their home ( or work ) computers.

Granted, I am ever-so-slightly outside the core demographic for mobile devices – namely 18-34 year old males – but whereas I do see people chatting or sending texts, I do not see people spending hours trying to have instant messaging chats with their friends. Up until lately – mobile data charges alone have been limiting that interest. But I digress…

So – now you’ve got all of these international focused consumers – what types of services might you want to market to them? – I came across an answer to that the other day: MoneyGram. If you are always calling to friends and family back home – there is a good chance you might want to send them some of your money too!

Marketing and Monetizing Mobile VoIP

In the first instance, EQO is not using the client for advertising and they are not currently stating that it is in their roadmap – but it doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to figure out that this is one logical step in the evolution of the service. And I guess this gets down to the question – What will the be the consumer’s preference? Slightly cheaper calls and advertising in the client? – Or an add-free option with slightly higher call prices?

EQO – and most of the other Mobile VoIP solutions require that a client be downloaded and installed onto your mobile phone. The majority of new phones in the market today are at least Java capable – if not capable of something more powerful such as Symbian, Palm, Windoze Mobile, etc. This means the majority of phones are capable of running the client – but there is the tricky issue of convincing the consumer to remember that every time they turn their phone on they also have to remember to start the EQO client. Java enabled phones do not currently have an option to include an auto-start list of applications.

If the client functionality is extended to include display advertising it may look initially like today’s mobile web banner ads. The difference is that these are being displayed not in the phones browser, but within the EQO client. And as the client is already voice-minded, banners could be linked to do more than just click through to another mobile web site – they could be linked to initiate a telephone call directly to the call centres for a particular brand or advertiser.

Ok – stop laughing – I know the majority of companies today don’t want to hear from customers through call centres and actually spend ££thousands$$ hiding and obscuring their phone number from customers who want to speak to a human! It was just a thought!

Over the next few weeks I’ll be doing some testing and evaluation of each of these Mobile VoIP services and we’ll see which ones have the best features and functionality – but for me – I’m interested in knowing which ones of these has the best advertising model and how well consumers will accept advertising as part of a cost-effective mobile international calling offering.

As always, would love to hear your thoughts on EQO – or on any of the emerging Mobile VoIP offerings.