Globe7 has joined the mad rush to give away Internet calling for free. But they’ve take a different approach to monetizing VoIP: making you watch video advertising. To make it worth your while, though, you get a half-cent (US $ 0.005) credit for every minute of video you watch, good for international calls.

They’ve also thrown in a free gigabyte of web storage space, where you can backup and share your files. And they’ve added customizable news feeds in the soft client so you can keep up with the latest news.

In addition to voice, you can make video calls to other Globe7 users. In fact, they’re also making a play for other video services, including IPTV/ Internet TV. Although at this point, their content consists of just clips and trailers - which is what you have to watch to earn credits for your international calls.

While they maybe wisely do not use the term "VoIP" on their home page, they unwisely only support Windows 2000 and XP. You also need Adobe Flash Player 8 or above to watch the video ads. I assume, though, that with all the other clients that support Mac or Linux, Globe7 will eventually follow suit.

Personally, though, while this is a great concept, I think they dropped the ball on this one. They really should have incorporated this in terms of a social network and given it a catchier name.

Oh, wait a minute, they did. They call it "my forest". It makes me wonder what age group they’re aiming at. My forest? Maybe that’s why they want my birthdate (and phone number and whether I’m M/F) during the registration process. All I can wonder is why?

You’re asking me for far too much information all at the same time, just to use your service. Apparently others disagree, as they’ve had about 18 downloads. It’ll be interesting to see how many people are actually using the service, and whether that number increases when they come out with a Wi-Fi version of Globe7. I’ll stick to Sightspeed or Yahoo! Messenger 8, thanks. (Although I’ll be honest; I can’t remember what info either one asked for, but I’m pretty they didn’t need my birthdate, sex and phone number.)