Colleague Alec Saunders has a nice writeup this morning -

T@lkster: A New Voice 2.0 Company
The preferred attack point for cellular VoIP plays today seems to be disintermediating mobile long distance from the handset.  For the last few weeks I’ve been playing with and alpha release of T@lkster, a new Voice 2.0 offering which does exactly that.

I've looked at T@lkster a bit recently myself, although very little because they've been in stealth mode. I did some brief comparison of how it works with Jajah and Rebtel, much like alike describes in his post. My reaction is much different. Much.

That said, my comments on the other two companies seemed to simply add fuel to an already smoldering set of discussions, so I'm not going to probe in depth.

I see some value in T@lkster, but not for me. I see it as another minute stealer with only a slight twist. Being a Verizon customer in the states, who rarely travels internationally, I don't see long distance minutes as expensive. Alec sees disintermediating long distance minute from the handset as "the preferred attack point." I see it as the I'm also goign about this wrong" attack point. I don't see mobile minutes as expensive. I don't even see EVDO as expensive. Shaving those costs isn't where I see the Voice 2.0 value. But keep in mind, while I travel, it's all in the states, rarely international/ International calling rates change the equation dramatically.

On the other hand, I see some things with T@lkster that I don't see with the others that do add some real value. Web enablement is the single most vital factor in integrating a service like this. And I see some facets I don't really quite understand at the moment. Rather than comment on things I don't understand and don't have time to dig into more deeply, I'll defer to Alec. He says they're worth checking out, and that's enough for me to put them in my queue for down the road a bit.

Caveat: I'm under embargo at the moment to talk about a different solution that, in my view, can take mobile  international long distance completely off the table in this quest for Voice 2.0 success. If even those become a non-issue, then many of the rules of engagement change.

Updated Monday afternoon - Since my original post this morning, I've been contacted by Talkster's PR folks. First, kudos tp them for paying attention to the comments out on blogs. It made them very responsive. As a result, I'll be chatting with the founder of Talkster on Monday. I'm oopn to learn what they're doing and trying to fit them in my view of the value chain in Voice 2.0. There are some big companies that could take a real lesson from that kind of attentiveness to what's being said about them on the Net.  Stand by for more on Talkster next week.

Technorati Tags: T@lkster, Voice 2.0, unified communications, VoIP