After having read about Gizmo in today’s issue of the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger (article not (yet?) online, unfortunately), I wanted to check it out myself. Downloaded it, installed it, did some echoing tests. Everything fine – Gizmo seems to be a pretty useful VoIP client, even in its early stage (v0.8 beta). It offers full SIP/VoIP compatibility (something Skype doesn’t offer), built-in call recording capability (dito), call in and out as a gateway to the POTS (as usual). As a first impression, Gizmo seems to be equal to or even better than Skype.
Now comes the funny side note: As most other software vendors entering a market where success heavily depends on network effects, Gizmo has a so-called tell-a-friend page. I usually ignore such pages as if, I prefer notifying friends myself (in order to not give someone else’s e-mail address to a potentially sneaky service provider) instead of sending an invitation through a web form. However, by clicking on a GUI element I just happened to be forwarded to this page.
The funny (or strange) thing about that page now is that if you take a close look at the bottom of the page, you can actually spot a picture of the former (and IMHO one of the best ever) president/mayor of the City of Zurich, Josef Estermann! The Gizmo guys were even unknowing or impudent enough to take his picture as a representative for the tell-a-friend message “Blind Date” (note that as far as I know, Mr. Josef Estermann is happily married to Mrs. Maggy Estermann):
I bet there are many ladies (and gentlemen, for equality) who’d like to have a blind date with Mr. Estermann (though it probably wouldn’t be a blind date anymore). I seriously doubt, however, that Josef Estermann agreed to have his picture taken for this advertisement. It might be just an unconscious mistake by Gizmo’s marketing department or the work of careless copy-cats. I guess it’s rather a funny coincidence/mishap than maliciousness, though ;)