Om Malik has commented on SkypeOut going free along with the purported Vonage IPO. One part is worth commenting about:

The buzz on the Street is that the Vonage IPO is on the rocks. They HAVE to raise money or they are in a world of hurt. Their investors don’t want to put another penny in and the company seems to still be bleeding cash, $75 million in the first quarter of 2006.

It's obvious where the money is being burned: marketing (and possibly flying out to many potential employees, I included).

I can't go a day without seeing a Vonage TV commercial or ad banner. I even saw an ad banner for developers yesterday on Slashdot. There was even a brief shot of their Indy car on the local news during coverage of the Indy 500.

Yes, they're sponsoring a fucking Indy car. That's where the money is being burned.

They really need to start reading the books by Seth Godin, the guy who's managed to successfully market a useless site. Of all the big Internet companies/sites, there are very few if any that I can think of that have used a marketing campaign such as Vonage's. All of them have been based on some variation of word of mouth, having a product people talk about, or requiring my friends use it too. Sadly, being "the Internet phone company" just isn't one of them.