Pay-per-call company Ingenio is gearing up to launch Ether, a new pay-pay-call service that creates a marketplace for services. Ether members decide when they can be reached by phone, and can set their rate. This will be a great tool for people who sell advice or expertise.

For years, I have maintained a telephony buyers guide (www.telephonydesign.com). The site never brought in any advertising revenue. I contribute to it mainly to provide a public service. With Ether, I’ll be able to charge a reasonable fee for telecom advice (I get a lot of inquiries from people who are researching business telephone systems and services). I could easily net a few hundred dollars per week with a service like this, which would make it possible for me to justify spending more time on the website.

This will be a great thing for people who publish specialized websites or have domain specific knowledge to sell. Pay-per-click advertising is a great source of revenue if you’re blogging celebrity nudes, but not if you’re writing about obscure telecom systems. It’ll be interesting to see how this service does in the marketplace. I’ll certainly be using it for my part-time telecom consulting business.