In addition, it asks whether the user wants the ID available to other members of the service in an online phone book and whether the user wants to receive promotional e-mails. Again, if all required fields are not completed the user can't continue. Finally, it takes just a click for a quick download and a telephone dial pad pops up on the screen. Put on the headset, click the number and talk. By contrast, at Net2Phone, a user gives the type of computer and an e-mail address, then downloads the free software.
Registration requires name, address, phone numbers and e-mail address.
We don't intend to waste their time while on the phone. In addition to advertising, the Internet phone services hope to sell licenses to other sites. One service, Click2Talk, lets Web surfers talk to service or sales representatives from the site they are visiting, or request a call back while online. The telephony services may follow the pattern of other Internet crazes. Because it doesn't cost much to set up an Internet telephony service, McCarthy, the analyst at Forrester Research, expects the number of sites to increase in the short term.