Following UpSNAP closely over the last months, I can see the company is well on its way to becoming a Google-like force in the audio entertainment space. UpSNAP broke on to the scene in August with audio search, essentially allowing users to search podcasts. (James pls link to my earlier upsnap post from 8/14.) For an encore, UpSNAP introduced a path-breaking pay-per call model in late September that effectively delivers ad-funded content to users for free. As UpSNAP’s CEO Tony Philipp told me an interview today, pay-per-call advertising is “built into the service” from the ground up. In his example, if users search the audio content (and UpSNAP has loads of it, including 600 radio channels and 1600 podcast feeds) for a gardening podcast, they may first hear an audio ad from Home Depot offering a coupon if they click to talk with an operator. (UpSNAP can monetize the call because its proprietary technology enables a call between the merchant and the user via a free VOIP connection, paid for by the merchant.) This way, the merchant effectively subsidizes the content - which UpSNAP makes available to users for free. (Some audio content is premium priced; in these limited cases the costs are charged to the user’s phone bill.) UpSNAP’s most recent announcement (which happened last week while MoCo was undergoing a redesign and relaunch) adds personalization to the mix, allowing users to customize their own playlists and even search for content, artists, podcasts and information services using text messages. I made a comparison with Google because UpSNAP has the content and the ad model to monetize it. But there’s a big difference: Philipp told me that UpSNAP shares its content revenues with the podcasters based on a “high-margin mechanism”.