photo by Albertas Agejevas

Facebook has a large following, especially amongst students. It is a great social network that allows you to communicate quickly by typing messages on each others ‘wall’, but what if you wanted to talk to someone instead of having to wait for a reply.

Well I discussed previously how you can save money by using Skype, but that still didn’t allow you to make free calls to a landline. But what if you are living in your own/rented house. How can you let your friends call you for free?

But now there is a way from a company called Truphone. In which their Facebook app ‘Call Me’ button, places a button on your Facebook profile allowing people to phone your landline for free, from their computer (with microphone and headphones).

Sounds to good to be true, but there are couple of drawbacks to the system, firstly you are limited to the number of minutes you can phone someone for, at present this is 25 mins for those without the Facebook app and 2.5 hours for those with, per month.

Secondly there is a risk to your privacy, especially if your profile is visible to other users in your network, e.g. the girl with the pretty picture, may find she gets some calls from guys, that she rather didn’t get. Also even if your profile is only available to friends, the ‘prank’ / drunk call is still a possibility.

The drawbacks aside, it has the potential to be a very useful way of keeping up with the latest gossip, or to just get/pass on information. As long as it remains free it has my initial backing.

Martyn