Thursday, 19 July 2007 18:01
Ashton Kutcher is creative director for Ooma
Written by David Stellmack
We never knew that he was into VOIP
Ashton Kutcher is the creative director for a new startup company called Ooma. With $27 million in funding, this is not your typical VoIP company. Ooma is using a peer-to-peer model much like Skype, but the real catch is that after you pay Ooma's one-time fee of $399, all domestic and long distance calling is free.
The ‘viral style’ marketing campaign known as code name "White Rabbit," as well as the company logo, was said to be designed by Kutcher. Plans call for Ooma to give away the first 2,000 Ooma boxes in trade for trying the service. This is where the ‘viral style’ marketing campaign takes over. Ooma hopes that these initial 2,000 boxes will start a buzz to create demand; it is also necessary to ‘seed’ the devices in order to make this peer-to-peer network work so that users will be able to complete calls.
With rival VoIP provider Sun Rocket closing its doors and other VoIP providers struggling to survive, $399 is quite a chunk of cash for the average VoIP user to invest in something that might not be around very long. While some of the innovation that Ooma is bringing to the table is interesting, it is going to be a tough uphill battle for this company to gain a foothold.
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