• Check your phone bill. If possible, go to a lower rate plan - but only if the lower plan would cover the average amounts of minutes spent in the last 6 months. So if you’ve been using 650 minutes in a 900 minute plan, and the next one under is 450 minutes, do NOT change plans. If you can, at home, use Skype, that’s free software that allows you to make cheap ($0.02/mn for the US) calls to landlines and cells from your computer, and free calls to other Skype users .
• Repair any leaks. If you pay your water bills, now’s definitely a time to watch out for leaks. Leaks can add up to hundreds of dollars a year in water… where fixing the leaking faucet can cost as little as $2 for the old joint in the Hot handle. If you need help understanding how your faucet works, try Home Depot, they have very helpful do-it-yourselfers there!
• Eat home-made food. These days, you can make lasagna for $25, which can be reheated for lunch and serves 2 people 4 meals. That’s about $3 a meal per person. It’s home made, so it’s much healthier than any other $3 alternative at a fast food or other. Even simple pasta dishes can be made for $2-$3 per meal, and are easily re-heatable at your office’s microwave. If you can save $5 per meal per day, that’s $200 per month (20 working days per month), or $2400 a year. That week in Hawaii won’t look so expensive at the end of the year, and you waistline will thank you…

We’re very tempted to be generous again, but the last campaign proved to be extremely tiring. The responses to the survey we put up (”What kind of webcam would you like to have?”) were great… but 36% of respondents cheated. That’s right. So that we could give a maximum amount of Skype vouchers to the largest possible amount of new customers/visitors, we had set a limit of one per household, one per email address, one per IP address policy. Without that, we thought, some clever person would just fill out the survey 200 different ways (so the information wouldn’t be statistically relevant), and take all the vouchers, leaving our other visitors with nothing. Well, 36% of respondents still managed to submit several responses, sometimes trying with different IPs, sometimes, with different emails…

This was a little frustrating for us. We love to use Skype, and we know our www.ipevo.com visitors and our Ipevo phone users do too. So it’s just really irritating when we have to go through thousands and thousands of entries and spend (literally) days looking at excel sheets only to find that some 17-year-old wanted 30 vouchers for themselves. It may not look like it, but giving away free vouchers is a very time-intensive experience. Meaning, I have to sit in front of my computer for hours. I write you guys a simple letter to say thank you for participating, and whooof, 30mn are gone. I attach the voucher and send notes, and pooof, 6 hours are gone. I have to sift through thousands of cheaters’ email, and whoof, 5 days are gone.

So it’s this time of year again, the Holidays are approaching, and despite past tiring experiences, we’d like to give away some Skype vouchers. But this time, I’d like NOT to spend my evenings figuring out who tried to cheat the system. (Oh and for those of you who participated… you KNOW I’ve never used that email to spam you EVER. So help me out too!)

We’re open to ideas… what do you think would be the best way to get people who use Skype every week or so to get free vouchers from Ipevo? For starters, the best idea gets 4 x 30mn vouchers!

• Intriguing: Politics 4.0. This year, we have seen the Obama campaign use Skype in its grassroots campaign to reach out to a new electorate. So we’re thinking, could Joe the Plumber be giving you a call in 3.5 years? Could you maybe meet Joe and his family and have a conference call with others in your neighborhood?
• Annoying: Telemarketing. Of course, there’s the good’ole video telemarketing… who knows, maybe the Home Shopping Network could become the Anywhere Shopping Service. Imagine being interrupted mid-email for “an exciting, unique, only-for-this-minute, extraordinary opportunity to buy a one-of-a-kind 12 carat earring for your mom or friend by simply clicking on the link that was just spammed to you!”.
• Useful yet off the wall: egrocery shopping. So you’re looking for that tropical honey Stroopwafel your friend brought back to your from the Netherlands. Some grocery stores seem to have it, but you have no idea whether or not your local store would carry such an exotic product? Maybe you’ll be able to build a grocery list, and ask a local merchant to go check it out for you? A quick videochat would confirm/ And while we’re dreaming, it’d be waiting for your right at the cash register, so that your down time is exactly 0 minutes…

What are your thoughts? How are some of the new ways you think you’ll be using videochat in say, 5 years?

Ipevo is seeking enthusiastic interns to join our great San Jose team! Our intern positions are posted on intershipin.com.
Come work for a fun, hard-working, multi-cultural office and learn the basics of buzz/viral marketing, event marketing, and promotions with our seasoned in-house specialists! You too could be posting on this blog, be part of our TweetForce, or part of our crazy-yet-efficient tradeshow team! We have the experience and means of a multinational in a start-up setting, so if you want to learn, and learn fast, check our posting!

We look forward to meeting you,

The Ipevo Team.

Want to know more? Comment or email at cs@ipevo.com!