As with everything in the late 'naughties' the new business paradigm seems to be FREE! Especially when it comes to content delivered over the internet, or via wireless devices, I hesitated to use the word phone as that now seems so twentieth-century.

A British company, and a former Red Herring100 Europe winner, is once again at the forefront of the innovative mobile phone service idea, wherein Blyk (not a typo!) gives away free ad-based text messages and phone calls to subscribers in exchange for receiving text ads and video ads. So far the company has gathered 100,000 subscribers in under six months and as an added bonus the ads are having a 29 percent direct-response rate, way above most other returns in the many more nebulous worlds of advertising.

Either way, it could be that next time you talk to mom, say on Mother's Day (May 11th!) with your heartfelt greetings, it might be brought to you by an Interflora, or a Hallmark informercial, reminding you that you messed up and should have remembered to send flowers and a card. Still, the good news is, as long as you don't suffer from an embarrassing cell phone anxiety complex and don't mind being seen in public with the cheapest, wimpiest, stripped down model in the 'hood,' you can call, or text mom to try and make amends, the free price tag, for now at least, is a pretty tough price to beat.