Time to milk the cow(users),J and J trying hard

Jaxtr wondered what to do with 10 million user base that was built by giving away free beers? It claims to have gained 10 million users in less than a year. Wow! what an achievement. Nonetheless, it makes me wonder if it is so difficult to get users hooked up to your service that is basically free. Everybody loves free stuff. From what I understand, the VC’s money is all spent giving freebies to all those tire kickers looking for cheap/free calling minutes. For those of you folks that have not heard about jaxtr, here is some info about them-- Jaxtr is a voip widget provider that can be used for anonymous calling. Similar to jangl and jajah

So at last jaxtr has realized that in order to survive in the market, need to generate some revenue to stay afloat. Not surprisingly, jaxtr café is born. I guess this is a very good move. So what is this café? Jaxtr café is a social networking for communication (voice and text). All the 10 million users of jaxtr can communicate with each other and discuss various topics of common interest. Jaxtr shall make money through advertisements. I’m still wary of two things here; already users are tired of so many social networking sites, jaxtr café adds to this ever-growing list. Not sure how are they going to monetize their service based on advertisements.

According to TechCrunch every user of Jaxtr is grandfathered in to Jaxtr Cafe’s profile database. You can search amongst these profiles based on interests and geography

Jangl, another anonymous calling web based voip widget is launching its own ad based calling partnering with pudding media. Jangl Mobile Media Initiative kicks off with Pudding Media and leading advertising and communications agency, Ogilvy’s Digital Innovation Group, to bring flexible mobile advertising solutions for today’s top brands. Compared to jaxtr, Jangl already has some revenue generating model. It has revenue sharing model with match.com and advertisement on PlentyOfFish. In Addition, they have partnered with Various, Inc., Justin.tv, Fubar and Revision3.

Stacey from gigaom has a very Good Article about jangl. More than the article, the comment section is set on fire by Om and jangl media.
According to Om

“ @ 10 CPM, you would need a million calls to make $10,000 “

Here is what Timothy Johnson () has to say about jangl-

“Jangl makes money two ways: one rev stream is subscription-based $ in dating/personals sites, and another is free, ad-supported voice and SMS services in social networks”

From a user standpoint, it is still good news. These startups are trying hard to keep the service free. I guess a small privacy intrusion is ok for free beer. Isn’t it folks!