Fring is a new free iPhone application released on Friday that seems to have generated as much buzz in discussion forums about its Skype VOIP capabilities as it has confusion. The application web page describes Fring as:

fring™ is a mobile internet service & community that enables ou to access & interact with your social networks on-the-go, make free calls and live chat with all your fring, Skype®, MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM®* friends using your handset’s internet connection.

How well does this all work? Unfortunately in my limited testing and usage I was deeply disappointed. My initial reaction was disdain for yet another social networking application that I’d have to load (and unload) with some frequency on my iPhone (caused mostly by the rule that iPhone apps can’t run in the background). Let me tell you where this application fails.

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