Free calls to the USA! Cheap calls from anywhere in the world!

We have a new service that you’re going to want to take a sip of.  Ok, that was a corny play on words, but seriously: if you travel abroad with a smart phone, tablet computer, netbook or laptop, we have good news!  By downloading a SIP application and simply entering your StanaCard account information, you will be well on your way to cheap and easy calling with very little fuss.

There is more!  From now until the end of December, calls to the USA are FREE!  So now if you were planning on going out of the country for the holidays, calling home will be simple and hassle-free.  Instead of hustling around town trying to find an Internet café or trying to decipher phone card instructions, use StanaCard wherever you are!

You can refer family and friends literally anywhere now.  Your friends can now call you back from countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, India, or Cameroon!  In fact, if you get people to sign up, you get rewarded!  Click here to find out how. 

Happy calling and happy holidays!

Integration

With cellular platforms like Android and the iPhone taking over the market, there is more option for integration than ever. 

With my Android alone, I have already customized my Facebook contacts into my phonebook contacts so that their photos pop up when they call.  This was a lot easier than seeking out my friends and taking pictures of them, which is something I had to do with my last phone.  (I’m a little anal retentive.)  I also have the option of putting my Twitter friends in there too, but figured it would complicate things a little too much.  Then there are the options of Twitter and Facebook integration: you can have your Tweets jump to your Facebook status or vice versa.  That’s just an application without even mentioning social media monster programs like TweetDeck or HootSuite.  There are so many options!  How do you figure it out?

Now, telecommunication applications are taking off with the smart phone platforms being a perfect jump-off.  From your cellular device, you can now chat via video with some of the different applications available.  This has been a computer-only option for years, but as devices evolve, so must the functions they perform.  Soon, the tablet computer wars will delve into this phenomenon and more applications will have the opportunity to thrive.  Now, there are computer-based applications being produced to integrate or sync your smart phone apps with your PC or Mac devices.  Again, the integration aspect is going to be a big seller.  You can upload your Facebook friend list, post status updates that are synced with your mood updates, etc.  The combinations and possibilities are soon to become – literally – endless.  Asking, “What will they think of next?” is becoming exhausting!

Personally, I find video chatting to be awkward.  And I always end up looking at myself on the screen instead of the other person, worried that the glare or angle will be unflattering -- God forbid someone takes a screen-cap of my video chatting face.  My mom has been begging me to teach her how to do this, but I prefer her calling me ten times a day for a nineteen seconds each time.  No integration required!

Someone should come up with a Mom app soon.  Whatever the opposite of integration is, that’s what function it would perform.

Sara Grossman- @stanacardsara