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Nothing gets past Om Malik. The tech blogger is quickly becoming the industry standard for voice-over-IP news. But as of press time, he hasn't blogged about free Skype-to-phone calling, announced today at Skype's official blog.

But give GigaOM a break. He does occasionally have real journalism to do as an editor at Business 2.0. And this news is pretty surprising. VoIP provider Skype seems to be turning its cash cow into its loss leader. The SkypeOut service, which lets Skype users call landlines and cell phones from their computers, went from fee-based to free for the rest of the year. And now we all need Om to explain how Skype plans to make money now.

Free calls to all landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada [Skype blog]