Jangle.com raises the Voip bar with Free Private Calls

Jangl.com, the next generation voip kid in the block, is offering a new and unique free calling service using which you can be called by your email id and you don't have give away your phone numbers.

Sounds confusing. Yes. Let me explain.

How it works.

You sign up with Jangl.com with your phone# and email id. And then place this link http://callme.jangl.com/youemailid@xyz.com on your website, blog, myspace, ebay listing.

Callers just click on your link to get a virtual phone number to call you, without ever knowing your real number. The caller makes the first call your virtual nunber and leaves you voice messages which is sent to your email. If you want to talk with the caller, you can get the caller's virtual number to call him/her back and forward their calls to your phone.

Where can you use it?

In any web platform like your blog, website, ebay listing, virtually any where on the web. The unique advantage is, you don't give away your phone#, yet callers can call you.

Match.com, a top dating site in the US, is now using Jangle.com's service. Members can call others they are insterested in without knowing their real phone#.

Vonage! What Next?

Voip pioneer Vonage got a temporary reprive from an almost certain death sentence when a federal appeals court temporarily stayed a federal judge's order that Vonage stop signing up new customers until it stops infringing on patents held by Verizon.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ruled Friday morning that Vonage stop signing new customers after a jury found that it had infringed on several patents held by telecom giant Verizon. Hilton said he considered the possibility that his order could result in bankruptcy for Vonage, which has seen its stock price plummet in recent months.

So what next and can it survive the patent verdict. What will happen to its existing customer base.

I think Vonage will be bought by a telecom company and most probaly Verizon at a throw away price. Verizon will acquire 2 million paying customers at a price which will be miniscule compared to what Vonage paid to acquire those customers. Per Buckingham Research Associates analyst Qaisar Hasan Vonage spends at least $300 acquiring each customer.

The next question is if Vonage fails, will VOIP survive. I think any technology which challenges the status quo and brings discernible cost cutting to consumers will survive whether the company which pioneered the technology survives or not. There will definitely be a shake up in the voip industry. Smaller comanies will get acquired or merge with one another to add critical mass. But the voip technology is here to stay.