| Soft VoIP

There has been a fare share of buzz around the launch of Nimbuzz Talk, a service that allows you to talk with your IM contacts from your mobile phone. It is a software download that once installed on your mobile phone allows you to make free calls and send free SMS to your contacts, where ever they are in the world.

Currently in beta, Nimbuzz Talk is compatible with MSN Messenger and Google Talk and has presence features to allow contacts to see if you are available or not. Calls are charged at local rates, which means you could get either free or dirt cheap international mobile – landline or mobile – mobile calls. It doesn’t require a wireless link to the internet, calls are routed via an 800 number.

I’m not sure how things will pan out for Nimbuzz in the future. Skype are known to be working on their mobile version, which when it eventually does become publicly available will snap up a huge marketshare. If I was ever going to use the service I would need it to work with Yahoo! IM and AIM. Nimbuzz is also incompatible with Mac OS X right now, but you could run it with Parallels if you really wanted to.

Is this going to change the face of mobile telephony? I don’t think so, but it’s always good to keep your options open.