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Celebrate Chinese New Year with Rebtel

Stockholm, Sweden – January 30, 2008 – Gong xi fa cai – Happy Chinese New Year! Chinese tradition says that the first words heard on the first day of the year can affect your fortunes for the entire year. In order to help spread good fortune, Rebtel are running a Million Minute Giveaway. During the Chinese New Year festivities, anyone can call friends in China to wish them luck and prosperity for the New Year – completely free!

Starting February 7, 2008, the first day of the Chinese New Year, anyone living in the 39 countries served by Rebtel can use their mobile phone to call any phone, anywhere in China for free. Each person can make up to five hours of free calls to China. The offer will run during the Chinese New Year festivities between the 7th and 21st of February.

“The Chinese New Year is a celebration of change,” said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel co-founder and CEO. “So out with the old way of calling China, and in with the new – the Rebtel way. Give it a try. Saving money on long-distance calls is one way to ensure that you prosper financially for the rest of the year!’
For further information please see www.rebtel.com/china

Rebtel Direct calls to China cost less than 2¢ per minute from any of the other 39 countries that Rebtel serves. By comparison, AT&T charges $3.50 per minute to call a mobile phone in China from a mobile phone in the U.S. That same call from the U.K. using Vodafone costs $3.33 per minute. From Canada, the cost per minute for calls to China on TELUS Mobility can be as low as 8¢ per minute – but only with an $8.00 or $12.00 per month special service plan.

With Rebtel, there is no charge to set up an account. No monthly fees, no connection fees, no hidden costs, and it works with all mobile carriers. No change to your current mobile service is required.

By: Ola Sundqvist, January 30th, 2008 Tags: , , , ,

Absolut Spirits Exec Takes Marketing Helm at Rebtel

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – January 23, 2008 – New media and brand communications specialist Patric Blixt has joined Rebtel as Head of Marketing Communication. In his new role Patric will oversee all marketing and brand-management activities for Rebtel, the global communication company that allows people to call any phone, anywhere in the world for just pennies per minute.

“Patric is world-class consumer marketing,” said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel’s co-founder and CEO.  “He has exactly the skills, perspective and 14 years of experience that we need to leverage our momentum in the market right now.”

Head of Marketing Communications

Patric Blixt

Patric comes to Rebtel from V&S Absolut Spirits, one of the most awarded brands in digital communications, where he spent the past three years growing Absolut.com into the largest spirits site on the Web. At Absolut Patric founded one of the largest drink databases, and was responsible for digital media, CRM and innovation projects in 124 countries for all of the V&S Absolut Spirits brands.

“Rebtel is adding new customers and strategic business partners at an incredible rate these days,” said Patric.  “This is clearly a company with a future where I know can contribute and make a difference in growing daily users and expanding beyond the 40 countries we serve today.”

Prior to Absolut, Patric served as marketing director for Pricerunner.com, one of Europe’s largest price comparison web sites, which doubled in size while he was responsible for brand, public relations and communications strategies, consumer contacts and site development for all markets.

Patric, 37, began his career at the top as CEO of X-Com, an interactive communications strategies and development company that he founded and later merged with Mogul.com, a content management, application development and systems integration company in Sweden.

After completing school in 1996 Patric went on to serve as product manager for interactive education for EF, and then later as director for Brand Dialogue Scandinavia at Young & Rubicam, where he was also director for the Ericsson, Ford and CIC accounts. Other previous positions include director of digital media for Collaborate, where he developed strategies and programs for leading brands including Gore-Tex, and managing director for Blond Swedish Amateurs, where he developed brand, communications and marketing strategies for Avis and H&M.

By: Ola Sundqvist, January 23rd, 2008 Tags: ,

Facebook Users Get Free Global Conference Calling

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – January 17, 2008 – Rebtel, the people’s global communications company, today introduced Group Talk – a new Facebook application that lets users set up free conference calls that can included both Facebook and non-Facebook users in 40 countries around the world.
“Do something fun, celebrate a friend’s birthday together, plan an event, or use Group Talk to schedule a free one-on-one call with someone special living abroad,” said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel’s co-founder and CEO.

Setting up a Group Talk call can be done in less than a minute.  The person who sets up the call enters their Facebook friends’ names, clicks Add, and can then make the call private – just for the people invited – or public, which makes the call open to any of their friends who want to join.

To include people who are not Facebook users the person setting up the call enters participants’ names, mobile phone numbers or landline numbers and their email addresses, and clicks Add.

Everyone invited to a Group Talk call automatically receive a local dial-in number in the city or country where they live via SMS (text message) or email.  For the first person who joins a conference call, Group Talk offers to call all of the other invited participants to let them know the Group Talk session is starting.

Facebook users are able to see Group Talk conference calls that have been set up by their friends, by members of the Facebook groups that they’ve joined, or by the organizers of events they’ve been invited to attend, and can get a phone number to join any of those Group Talk calls with a single click of the mouse.

And because Group Talk is built by Rebtel, conference call participants’ personal phone numbers are always kept private.

The Group Talk application is free to all Facebook users and is available starting today.

Try the application, go to http://apps.facebook.com/conferencecalls/

By: Ola Sundqvist, January 17th, 2008 Tags: , , ,