With this post, scaredpoet.com is officially becoming a corporate shill. Well, okay, not really, but despite my original personal pledge to myself that this site wouldn’t become a commercial advertising whorehouse, I’m going to shill a company anyway, but only because I think the concept is damn cool. Not exactly bleeding edge anymore, but still cool.

And of course, this dubious honor goes to Vonage.

I won’t dish out their schpeil here, especially when you can easily go to their website and get all the details. The bottom line is this: I can get you a free month of Vonage service if you’re a new customer signing up, and haven’t yet ordered the free, nice little doohicky that shares your broadband connection and gives you a VoIP phone jack. If you’re interested, e-mail me and I’ll get you the details.

The catch: You have to be on the service for at least a full month before you get your free month (in other words, you get your second month free). The good news is, there’s no contract, and you can cancel anytime (though they generally will want the aformentioned free doohicky back when you cancel).

Okay, shilling over. 🙂

My take on Vonage: It’s a great concept, and in spite of a few recent service glitches that have since been corrected, I think the concept might go far. What could possibly stop them very dead in their tracks though are traditional phone companies which are currently stumping to make lawmakers tax the service just like regular phone services. Will such regulation kill the VoIP market? Only time will tell. In the meantime, the service is dirt cheap for what it is, so if you’re so inclined, take advantage while you can. And if in the end, the traditional phone companies get their way and regulation forces the VoIP companies to go under, well, you can always port your phone number to another phone company. And maybe Vonage will end up being too broke to ask for their free doohickies back. 🙂