Unleashing the power of the mobile internet, fring™ is a community and service that enables users to talk, chat and interact with other fring users and their favourite online communities & services, all from their mobile devices.
Originating from a vision of freedom, fring was born out of a desire to fundamentally change the way people communicate. fring users, or fringsters™ enjoy true mobility without the boundaries that have traditionally existed between the mobile and fixed internet worlds. Launched in Feb 2007, fring already growing more than 100,000 new registrations per month and has users in 160 countries around the world, with no one country accounting for more than few percentages of traffic.
fring™ facilitates free and low cost calls over the mobile internet connection and live instant message chat - instead of SMS - to each other and their communities. Integrating all buddies into one, searchable list, fring also displays real-time presence indicators (online, away, offline, in-a-call, on their mobiles or in front of their PCs) and enables users to quickly swap music tracks, pictures, video clips and other files between each other, from mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-PC.
Developed specifically for the mobile environment, fring's unique hybrid peer-to-peer/client-server architecture reduces battery consumption and bandwidth usage, permitting optimal functionality even on low-end devices. Maximizing the handset’s internet capabilities, Fring connects via GPRS/3G (using the data within an existing data subscription plan rather than traditional cellular airtime minutes) or through WiFi at home, in the office or any hotspot, making the mobile calls themselves completely free. Fring can be set to automatically switch between the best available connection type.
Fringsters can even make low cost local and international calls to landline and regular cellular numbers using their existing SkypeOut/SkypeIn accounts or almost any internet voice service (SIP), even from non SIP-enabled handsets.
Available via a simple download of a thin client and installation process, fring is a consumer-centric application that does not require a PC or any dedicated hardware or airtime. All that’s needed to use fring is one of over 400 compatible handsets with internet connectivity and an internet data package or a WiFi account.
Company Facts
Location – Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel with marketing representation in the UK, Germany, Benelux, Finland, France, Russia & South Africa via onsite agencies
Stage – Beta
Funding – fring is backed by US-based venture capitalists North Bridge Venture Partners and by Venfin limited, Israeli venture capital funds Veritas and Pitango, and Yossi Vardi, as a founding private investor.
Team – Avi Shechter, CEO; Alex Nerst, Founder and Chief Technological Officer; Boaz Zilberman, Founder and Chief Product Architect; the fring team count for 50 proud employees
For recent press about fring, please visit:
http://www.fring.com/newsroom/in_the_news/english/
