I got word of this yesterday, but didn't have time to dig like I wanted. It caught my eye because I recognized Jim's name from old GTE Telenet days. It's been a long time, but we worked on a couple of projects together way back in the day.

Congrats to Talkster and to Jim on this new appointment. I expect this is going to start some renewed activity from our friend at Talkster.

TELECOM LEADER JOINS TALKSTER AS PRESIDENT
Twenty-year telecom industry veteran Jim Ferguson to guide company as it brings groundbreaking new telecom service to market

TORONTO, ONT. – July 30, 2007 – Mobile communications company Talkster Inc. (www.Talkster.com) today announced the appointment of Jim Ferguson as the company’s new president. Jim is an industry veteran with more than two decades of telecom experience, and a long track record of building companies and, increasing shareholder value while growing sales and profits.

“Talkster has spent several years and millions of dollars developing a communications platform that blends telephony with web services,” said Harry Borenstein, CEO of Talkster. “We believe the new service we are building on top of Talkster’s core technology will be an important development in telecommunications, and we need the right person to guide the company in bringing our new service to market. We spent close to a year looking for the perfect candidate, and with Jim Ferguson’s experience and vision helping to guide us, Talkster will soon be changing the way people think of telephony.”

Prior to joining to Talkster, Jim was president of sales and marketing at Mpower, a business telecommunications services provider, from 2003 until its acquisition in 2006 by TelePacifc, a California-based company. While at Mpower, Jim guided a team of 150 employees in marketing, sales, field support, engineering and product life cycle teams that delivered more than $200 million (U.S.) in annual revenue. Jim’s career also includes executive roles at Global Crossing, Frontier Communications and Cable and Wireless.

“What people have seen so far from Talkster is a just a small sample of what this company has been developing,” said Jim Ferguson. “Talkster has all the right elements to be a leading player in the mobile telecom space: passionate and talented employees, a sound mobile communications platform and infrastructure, and a bold vision of how people will use technology to communicate. I know Talkster has shown pieces of its technology in the past, but later this year we will be unveiling something completely new leveraging the same core technology Talkster has been refining over the last couple of years.”

About Talkster
Talkster, the award-winning service that lets people place free calls from their cell phones to instant messaging services like MSN, Google Talk and Gizmo Project, is consolidating the many voice and text-based communications services people use every day into an easy-to-use service that works from a single familiar device: the mobile phone. The Talkster beta service showcases Talkster’s Web services-based technology, the foundation for Talkster’s forthcoming service offering. For more information or to sign-up for the beta please visit www.talkster.com.

As president of Talkster, Jim Ferguson is directing the go to market strategy for a new groundbreaking mobile telecom service the company will soon unveil. A seasoned industry veteran, Jim’s career spans more than two decades in the telecom space.

Jim is the former president of sales and marketing at Mpower, a $200 million (USD) business telecommunications services provider. Jim held this position from 2003-2006 where he guided an organization of 150 employees in marketing, sales, field support, engineering and product life cycle management His efforts in launching new products, developing strategic partner relationships and building high performance sales teams, helped Mpower post year-over-year double digit growth numbers, eventually leading to their acquisition by a California-based competitor, TelePacific.

Prior to Mpower, Jim held numerous executive leadership positions with Frontier Communications, which merged with Global Crossing in 2000. He joined Frontier in 1996 as vice president sales and within one year was promoted to president of their Western Division. Soon after Global Crossing merged with Frontier, Jim was appointed to the newly created position of vice president NextGen markets where he helped lead Global Crossing’s Internet sales strategy. In 2002, Jim was tasked to provide leadership during that company’s Chapter 11 restructuring, taking the helm of an organization that was $800,000 off plan and leading it to $1.6 million over plan in less than seven months.

Jim’s background also includes a 5 year stint at Cable and Wireless, 2 years with Racal Skynetworks, a wireless startup company and 7 years with GTE Telenet (now part of Sprint).

Jim holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Psychology and a Masters in Labor and Industrial Relations from Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. He has also attended the University of Michigan Ross Business School Executive Leadership program.