Inspired By Our Investors at Google, FON Launches An Invitation Program

Gmail has grown by invitation rights. When you have a great product, but one that is also complex in nature as gmail is (gmail is not so easy to use for emigrants from the outlook world), invitation rights are a great way to spread the usage. Invitation rights involve not only a nice gesture on behalf of a friend, but also an implicit element of training and that is what Fon needs. So at FON we decided that FONeros who have successfully connected their Foneras will get the right to invite friends, so they do not pay 29.95 euros or dollars, but get foneras for free. What follows is a description of the program that Fon will shortly announce.

Under the motto “Fonero Gets Fonero”, all FONeros with an active Access Point –FONspot- can invite their friends to get La Fonera WiFi router for free. La Fonera allows FON members to safely share some broadband with the FON Community and connect in exchange to tens of thousands of FONspots worldwide.
The offer will allow all FON users in Europe or the USA who have already a FONspot to invite friends and acquaintances to enjoy this promotion and get this exclusive gift for Christmas. By doing so, referrals help grow the Community through their friends, who also become active members of FON once installed their free WiFi router.

Therefore, anyone becoming a new Fonero in this way will receive a La Fonera WiFi router free of charge, including shipping, that only needs to be plugged in and registered; the new member can then use WiFi to access the Web at any FONspot worldwide, free of charge and without any membership fees whatsoever. In addition to this, La Fonera also includes a private, WPA-encrypted WiFi signal that allows every Fonero to go online using WiFi at home, in a completely secure manner.

The campaign “Fonero Gets Fonero” will be launched tomorrow, December 21, 2006, in good time for Christmas and will help make the already burgeoning FON community substantially more attractive than before. In the past two months alone, over 6,000 new FONspots have been installed in Germany alone and several more thousands around the world. With each new FONspot, FONeros increase the WiFi coverage to be enjoyed by other FONeros when on the road.

Signing up a friend as a new Foneros couldn’t be easier and can be done in just three simple steps:

1. Each FONero can offer a single friend or acquaintance a free La Fonera by email
2. Email leads to a special site were the promo is explained
3. Once accepted the promo, La Fonera WiFi router is already waiting at FON Shop for €0.00 including the delivery charge.

Martin Varsavsky, founder and CEO of FON, regards the “Fonero gets Fonero” campaign as a gift to the Community: “It is Christmas time and we want to thank our loyal FONeros and reward their trust and commitment by offering them the opportunity to give new community members a Christmas present. At the same time, it is they who decide which friends they most want to surf with. In this way, they enlarge the community with FONspots in sought-after locations.”

FON continues to advance relentlessly across the globe. Well over 200,000 registered members have currently joined the Community in more than 200 countries worldwide.