Dial-A-Vet

The next time you dial a call center, theres a chance youll talk with a disabled American veteran working from home. Thanks to the alliance between the nonprofit group Creating Opportunites by Recognizing Abilities and telemarketing company West Corp., more than 260 veterans now are employed as contracted agents, setting their own schedules and telecommuting in comfort.

The idea started with CORA founder Ilene Morris- Sambur. These military families are going through enough stress learning to live with a disability, says Morris- Sambur. The least we can do is provide opportunities that can decrease the financial burden many of these families are experiencing.

CORA partnered with West Corp.s West at Home division to launch the Telework Pilot Program. Participating veterans are certified as customer service representatives through the West at Home platform.

Fun⁶

If you need a little extra dough, you can make money off your friends by distributing your favorite ringtones and wallpapers and, ahem, adult content.

The concept behind Sixophone is pure fun to the power of six, says Managing Director Linus Silvas. When people buy phone content that they like, the chances are their friends will like it, too. Rather than directing mates to a mainstream WAP service, Sixophone customers can point them to their personal shop and make some money in the bargain.

Heres how it works: When you download content from the UK-based WAP site Sixophone (often at nearly $2 a pop), a shop is created for you. You then send a text message about the download to up to six friends and if they want to buy it, they do so from your online store. The original download stays on your phone. In turn, they get their own virtual storefronts and can sell to six other people, and so on.

When friends buy your content, you get 10 percent of the proceeds deposited into your PayPal account. If your friend also sells it, you get another 1 percent. One ringtone can net nearly $1,000, Sixophone claims.

OVERHEARD…

I expected the legal equivalent of body armor, I was handed Swiss cheese.


Robert McDowell, Republican FCC commissioner, on his reasons for abstaining from the AT&T Inc.-BellSouth Corp. merger vote, after receiving analysis from the FCCs lawyer that he could participate.