Jajah direct calling, freedom from PC

Off late, Jajah is in the news for all the great features they are supporting. First it was free ad based calling , than came the jajah and jangl partnership and now it’s the jajah direct calling. Before even I venture further to talk about jajah direct, worthy of note is - as a company I think jajah is aggressive in their marketing and product strategy. These guys are up again after a lull period with some good offerings. When u construe something’s not working, u don’t sit and brood over it, u learn from it and move on with something new.

So what’s this new product all about, According to jajah-
“JAJAH Direct, an exciting new service which allows you to simply dial local to talk global. Access the JAJAH premium Internet calling system with any regular phone - no Internet or data access needed. It brings the best of Internet telephony to any regular phone with no change for the consumers existing ways of calling - one further step towards our vision of hassle-free global communication without barriers.”

Here are some benefits in using jajah direct
• Ultra-low rates for global calls
• International Internet calling without Internet access
• From any phone to anywhere in the world
• No monthly fees, no connection fees and no hidden costs
• Use what you have and get started in seconds
• No PIN codes, no pre-paid calling cards, no lengthy access numbers, no contract

It’s an interesting feature, but has been around for quite sometime now. Startups like Rebtel , TalkPlus, Mobivox have been providing such services. Nevertheless, the good thing about jajah is u don’t get different local numbers for each contact u call. So in order to initiate the call, u always use the single global number allocated for a particular country or city. Hopefully, they can come up with some kind of fast dialing option ( short dialing) that way user doesn't have to remember all his international contact numbers. Users can updade their profile with all their international contact numbers using the web interface.

Looks like most of the startups in the VOIP arena are targeting the international voice calling business, where the actual money is. It makes so much sense, since this is where companies can actualy make revenue. Alas, web 2.0 voip widgets are not going to generate any revenue for these startups. So more innovation in VOIP can happen only when there is a sustainable revenue model.

This feature should also help jajah reduce their termination charges that applies to web based callback model. In some countries including North America, for all outgoing calls, originator is charged only for his airtime minutes. So, giving a local access number for calling is in a way helping jajah avoid the termination charges that apply for both originator and terminator in case of web based call back model. I guess this should help them reduce per minute charges for some of the countries.