Jaxtr, 10 million dollor and 20 million user dream

I wanted to write about Jaxtr’s funding news, got sucked up in other commitments. Yes, jaxtr just raised 10 million dollars. A funding round led by August Capital and Mayfield Fund. I read a nice Article comparing jangle and jaxtr. Apparently, it turns out the article was written by jangl CEO. Interesting Stuff. Would love to see jaxtr CEO’s response to this one sided article.
Anyway, I’m a big fan of jaxtr. You can see jaxtr callme widget in my blog, I’m a proud jaxtr user(Here is my jaxtr phone link CallMe Give me a ring, or leave a message). As I said in my earlier posts, I love the concept of web and telephony marriage. It’s a good sign that voip companies are getting some traction from the VC community, despite the Sunrocket and vonage disasters.
So where does this take jaxtr from here. Iam not sure what’s their business model. ( Looks like im not the only one having this doubt about their revenue model, almost everyone in the blogosphere are talking about this ) Freebies always attract hordes of users, but the million dollar question is? Will these users be willing to pay in the future. My guess is, once jaxtr starts charging, they will lose tons of user overnight. Currently, they have around 1 million users; almost doubled its membership since the launch of its public beta in March. They have a very optimistic target of getting 20 million subscribers in the next twelve months. According to one of the investors, jaxtr raised the money to replace the multi-billion dollar industry of selling calling cards with minutes for making international calls. Looks like this is a very lucrative market and everybody wants a piece of it. Operators wake up!
I guess their business model is to get as many users as possible and start the premium service or sell more minutes for a cheaper prize. Currently, you get 100 minutes every month. Man that’s a pretty good deal. Not sure if I can use these minutes for international calling. Also, with email signature and voice widget support for most of the social networking, they will be play a key role web telephony space.
I have been following Jaxtr for a long time now; they are growing at a phenomenal pace. I would like to see Jaxtr mobile support sometime in future. Also, their international calling using local number concept reminds me of another startup company called rebtel.