Jajah, as we’ve mentioned several times, remains among the edgiest of the new Internet telephone companies.
Today, the company seeks to mobilize users in India, offering them free calls if they get five other people to register for the service. Some 100 million Indians have both an Internet connection and a real phone, which are necessary to use the service.
The merits of viral strategy appear obvious considering such marketing has worked well for Internet companies such as Tagged, Facebook and Friendster. It’s the first time we’ve seen such a viral move by a VoIP company, though. It also comes at a time when the industry is in the midst of painful consolidation: SunRocket, another VoIP provider, has gone out of business, leaving 200,000 subscribers without service — after raising $80 million in venture capital, including a significant $33 million less than a year ago from folks like BlueRun Ventures, Mayfield Fund, DCM and Anthem Capital Management.
It’s OK to be innovative when your service is free, but how are you going to make money?
Obivously, companies have offered VoIP for free before, which is the ultimate marketing strategy. Skype offers free calls between registered users, for example. However, Jajah lets participants in the viral program call anyone for free, even if the recipients of the calls aren’t themselves registered (though it applies only to calls within India, to North America and the UK). The calls are free for 30 minutes only. Dialpad, another early VoIP player, got buried by Indian users, who used its free service to call relatives in the U.S., and overwhelmed Dialpad’s network costs. So how on earth is Jajah going to make money, by driving phone call costs down to zero? Jajah says it still thinks people will pay for many calls. After the 30-minute free call limit is up, it charges a low rate, but one which still makes it money: From now until India Independence Day (August 15), India calls will cost 7.3 cents/minute (3.2 INR).
Jajah says it will offer similar campaigns in other countries, hinting Brazil, Russia and China may be next.
Jajah has plenty of competition. Companies like Rebtel and Jaxtr are following closely in Jajah’s footsteps, using a similar way of connecting calls (by connecting your real phone with an Internet line)
A few days ago, Jajah introduced an anonymous calling feature to be used on dating site eHarmony.
It remains to be seen how successful this company will be. It has more than a million users, and says it is controlling more of its infrastructure through partnerships with companies like Deutsche Telekom. It says it is upgrading its sound quality, and that much more is coming this Fall. What’s remarkable is that it has done all this on slightly more than $20 million in funding, much less than the boatloads of funding received by companies like Sunrocket and Vonage (Vonage, a public company, is seeking its stock price at an all time low).
Tags: co:Jajah7 Comments
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Pran Kurup said:
Not a bad strategy. Its consistent with the Web 2.0 mantra of giving stuff away. As you say, it remains to be seen if it will fly. The fact that SunRocket folded is actually both good and bad. Good because there are many users looking for alternatives now. Bad because users are likely to go in for more established players.
Skype, Yahoo, Google talk etc works well for computer-computer calls. What is the compelling case to switch from one of these to Jajah?
Pardon my ignorance about this service, but I didn’t find a “Why Jajah” kinda write up on the Jajah site. -
Frederik Hermann said:
Matt, thanks again for your coverage and support!
And to answer your question Pran:
WHY JAJAH?
Jajah is free and low-cost global calling with your regular phone.
There is no headset, no download, no software and no broadband connection needed.
You are using your existing phone (landline or mobile) and so is the person you are calling.
You can call your friends for free and very low cost, no matter if they are online or not.
Registration is free and there is no contract to commit to at all.
You simply provide your number (landline or mobile) and the number you want to call and Jajah connects your call - two local calls globally.
Try it out at http://www.jajah.com - it’s really easy.
Thanks and regards,
Frederik
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maria said:
Why would you consider Jajah the edgiest of all VoIP providers? Is it because they are better known provider in the US? Perhaps, I need to fill you in on a real treasure I recently discovered – Rebtel (www.rebtel.com). Besides their crazy antics on & offline - providing a great comic relief (http://blog.rebtel.com/), they are an innovative firm.
Rebtel lets you make international VoIP calls in exactly the same way as you normally do - from one phone to another, via your contact list, at the touch of a button – via your mobile or landline. Unlike Jajah, which requires repeated visits to its website, Rebtel numbers can be set up during one quick visit to Rebtel.com. Once the user has set up their local numbers, dialing a Rebtel contact is exactly the same as making any other mobile-to-mobile call. By the way – you may find the rates between UK & US and India attractive as well – 0.6 cents per minute!
Would love your thoughts…. -
JAY said:
why people consider Jajah the edgiest of all VOIP providers? call rates of Jajah also bit high then other provider like Betamax (www.voipcheap.com,www.justvoip.com) jajah cost twise more then justvoip for india from thailand
but jajah is better then rebtel because rebtel is offering limited country. its not allowed me to call from many asian country like india,thailand,malaysia etc -
thailandian said:
Yes.Jajah is expensive than Betamax clones like voipcheap, justvoip, 12voip and even their latest nonoh.net (They just started nonoh.net as an alternative to jajah)
But betamax people are real cheaters.
Just make a google search for “voipcheap cheating”
Lot of people are crying nowadays.
No customer service at all.
But Jajah won’t take even a penny more than what we’ve used.
That makes the BIG difference.
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american betting idol line said:
Like the site very much, thanx 4 your efforts webmasters
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AndreyDer said:
My wife uses voipcheap.com sirvices.
From the begining everything looked OK, but then
nobody knows how they calculate those “FREE” minutes.
My wife never used anounsted 300 minutes. And all the time ufter couple days they start charging and never reply on e-mails.
Does this frase from their web-site (* Max 300 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days and per unique IP address.) sounds tricky? Seems like they count always for last 7 days, which is not really per week.
Plus we found out that even when it says FREE call, your money on account went down.
We are moving from them.
