Jangl Jingles No More - Is Voice 2.0 Headed for Trouble?

May 20, 2008

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The much hyped Jangl jingles no more.  Jangl was a company that we followed form the beginning, it offered a bright new way to integrate voice with social networking sites by offering anonymous free calling without needing to give your phone number to strangers.  It was a seemingly winning strategy.  They parlayed their increasing attention into deals with most of the top social networking sites, like Facebook.  The future looked bright, as long as you overlooked the lack of revenue in their “Free” calling business model. 

With Venture Capital money drying up across the web space and no substantial incoming revenues, Jangle was forced into finding a buyer by their board of directors.  When buyout talks with whitepages.com fell through, founders Michael Cerda and Ben Dean called it quits and resigned.  Both have signed on with Jajah (another of the voice 2.0 darlings and a Jangl partner).  And what of the rest of Jangl?  Live Universe, the operators of several web 2.0 sites (Video, Social Networking, and Music related) has picked up the assets and employees.  Though what Live Universe intends to do with Jangle or it’s partnerships with social networking sites like Facebook remains to be seen.  Perhaps they’ll continue to run the service at a loss or change the business model.

VoIP services seem to have lost their buzz.  Skype created a huge write-down for Amazon, Vonnage faced a series of patent infringement cases and was on perpetual death watch, SunRocket flared then fizzled, and a quick look at the VoIP Graveyard shows well over 100 failed carriers.  But Voice 2.0 was supposed to be different than just plain VoIP - edgier, web integrated, more social.

Is Jangl a case for trouble in the Voice 2.0 Space?  A recipe for disaster for all young Web 2.0 companies who have been living on borrowed money (and time) from VCs?  Is the Internet bubble 2.0 about to burst again?  Or is this just a case of the mismanagement and lack of a quality business plan on the part of Jangle?

We’d like to hear your thoughts.

Written by Todd · Filed Under Featured 

Comments

2 Responses to “Jangl Jingles No More - Is Voice 2.0 Headed for Trouble?”

  1. Ben G. on May 20th, 2008 12:40 pm

    I never really understood Jangl, or Jajah for that matter. They call you to complete the call? What the #%@*. If I want to call someone, I’ll pick up the phone and call them! Hell, my cell phone gives me 2000 minutes a month. More if I call on nights and weekends. Why do I need a complicated voip service?

  2. FredP on August 5th, 2008 8:05 am

    Hold on there, Partner! Calling YOU is the only way to make sure it’s a totally free call. It is also a great way to verify you are a real person and not a crank.

    You need a complicated voip service to keep things simple.

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