The "private beta" has been running for several months, but now comes the public beta. Here's the press release.
There's no marketing or marketplace here; it's essentially a distributed billing and calling infrastructure that allows experts and service providers (where advice is the primary product) to do "e-commerce." Think "life coaches," attorneys, therapists, financial counselors and anybody else who might sell expertise in person or over the phone.
There might be some legal issues in some cases, where state-regulated professionals cross state lines in practicing (e.g., lawyers, therapists). There are also some potentially new consumer behaviors here that represent minor hurdles to adoption. Regardless, it's pretty interesting and gives services a way (although earlier versions of this have existed in the past) to participate in e-commerce.
It's also interesting as an alternative way to monetize blogs for those who have a following.
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Here's Shankar Gupta's piece about it in MediaPost (reg. req'd); here's CNET's Rafe Needleman's blog post about it.
