What's Visitalk?

It's another FREE Voice-over-IP (VoIP) enhancement service, a very popular one indeed as a result of of aggressive and continuing consumer-rewarded campaign for the past few months. Its VoiceMail or "listener" program sits on Windows taskbar to notify you of incoming PC-to-PC calls or voice-attached message, monitor "buddies", and provide quick-links to key areas of Visitalk.com website. Using the program involves frequent visit to the website, and talking instead of typing, hence the prefix "Visit" and suffix "Talk".


Do you really need Visitalk to initiate VoIP conversation?

Not really. What Visitalk provides is another identification number (coined as PCN), that for some reason, made to look like an IP address, just without the dots -- very useful for most internet users who rely on dynamic IP address assigned during each modem dial-up session. Most popular instant messaging software (i.e. ICQ, AOL/Yahoo/MSN Messenger) provide similar identifiable ID/username, thus can also function exactly like Visitalk. The key idea of these programs is to report your IP address to a main server, so that someone on the other end can reach you directly from their PC, using a H.323-compliant client program, i.e. NetMeeting, without the need to confirm your IP address prior to each voice-chat/messaging session.

More likely, what prompted the introduction of Visitalk is discontinuance of public Microsoft servers for NetMeeting -- non-profitable community model, just like why most commercial organizations abandoned USENET newsgroups.


But why join Visitalk.com anyway?

1. Get the FREE Labtec $20-retail headset (around $7-15 street value) before the offer last (posted on the website to expire by June 30, 2000 but had actually been postponed each month since I first knew about Visitalk, back in January/February). A headset (integrated microphone and mono headphone) like the one given away to every subscriber can certainly improve voice-quality by canceling background noise, a little if not a lot, compared to using a combination of desktop microphone & speakers - a setting that may cause "looping." In the past Visitalk offers the headset for totally free (including S&H), but it now charges a $2.99 S&H fee (also ships to outside the USA for US$3.99!).

2. Visitalk.com has certainly grown into a huge VoIP community. I'm surprised to know that over 1% internet users in my 100,000- population city has already registered with Visitalk.com - talk about reachability.

3. I prefer FREE PC-to-Phone service as being introduced by DialPad.com, PhoneFree etc, but most of these services have yet to support calls to phones in non-USA locations. Net2Phone, DeltaThree etc. (http://ld.net/voip?nq) do, but they're just reduced cost, not free. PC-to-PC voice-chatting will continue to remain free for years to come, and reaches everywhere in the world where internet access exist.

4. Visitalk like MediaRing etc, enhances your communication with voicemail system. With voicemail, two people do not need to be online at the same time to exchange voice message. Voicemail system simplifies voice-messaging, better than most email clients, and adds urgency value to it just like instant messaging or real-time chat.

5. Visitalk keeps a log of your voice communication, and provides an excellent contact/buddy list.

EXPERIENCE

Like most people, I joined Visitalk to get the free headset. Received it in the mail within two weeks after submitting my registration. I had promoted it to quite a number of friends, and Visitalk kindly furnished me with a couple of Buy.com $40 gift certificates (upgraded my hard drive with it, cool!) - I should have be awarded more, hmm... Thus, I can assure you that Visitalk.com's offer is an honest one - it delivers.

Visitalk listener seems more stable compared to MediaRing. Unfortunately, I haven't really used it since I don't have many acquaintance, to my knowledge that use the program. I'm more of a heavy user of ICQ and DialPad.com/PhoneFree.com. But, now that Visitalk has been real popular internationally, I might give it a second look. I'll report some more soon...

Got PCN, but no one to talk to: Gimme a ring @ Visitalk PCN # 200111206521




Recommended: Yes