From the EDge

I was enjoying reading about Jajah’s latest first-est with the most-est press announcement. All of us in marketing appreciate the news value of the most or the first of anything and do work overtime to make a point of the same, but I had to stretch my mind a bit to follow the Jajah story. Admittedly it is a story from the start that I haven’t been able to get too excited about. (When you say Jajah, I can help but think of Ah Ha! ) The Jajah press release in question announced free telephone calling in much of the world.

Offering free phone-to-phone calls in any significant part of the world is an announcement. I cannot argue about that. Then is the part about not using such service too much, while admitting that there was no particular plan to control such behavior was most amusing. Over 10 years ago, Jeff Pulver experimented with the first version of Free World Dialup, which was an extension of his ham radio interest. As such it was dependent on mutual benefit, but within the spirit of a hobbyist community. The JaJah offer is much more general, and seems a bit flawed if it is an offer that is not an offer– or what is it.

Pulver’s original Free World Dialup was the first attempt at exploiting the Internet for free transport beyond my PC to your PC. Since then there have been many variations of free calling. The only catch to the JaJah offer, as presented, is that the parties be signed up with JaJah. So it is 1999 again. If you tell me who you are and I can collect your eyeballs and/or ears and then convert that into some future value, and we will all live happily ever after. Maybe.

It seems to me that Skype has played this game well of virally spreading free communications value. Certainly their approach resonates with the Skype early adopters to date. The Jajah target is less clear. It is not really appealing to Internet users, as Skype exploits the natural communication of IM and voice between clients. Jajah forces a non-integrated experience of going to your PC to talk on your phone—huh? Of course, for family calls this is all well and good, but is only appealing for cost savings. This is not a market dynamic I would recommend to anyone. Let’s see. It is attractive to people who will do anything to save money, but then must be expected to not use the service much, enabling them to save more?

Guy Kawasaki likes Jajah. He seems older than he would like to think. I am adamant about bridging the present with the future, but this monkey motion to make a phone call is not any natural behavior. The integration into Outlook, etc. makes sense, but the basic website call initiation needs help. If Jajah even appears relevant in Skype’s shadow we will offer transparent dialing to eliminate that step. In the mean time enjoy awkward calling of free calls—but don’t talk for long.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 at 9:10 pm and is filed under VoIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.