Jangl is finally turning on a revenue stream across its network of social calling widgets, which reach a potential 80 million social networking profiles (the company hasn’t announced actual active users). People generally use Jangl to place calls or SMSs to other web surfers without exchanging your real number. The new advertising initiative is called Mobile Media Platform and provides a set of APIs for publishers and ad units for advertisers. The strategy is similar to steps other widget providers have taken to finally make some money off their network by tying in advertisements.
Through the APIs, developers can integrate bits of Jangl’s SMS and VOIP calling functionality into their applications. In exchange, Jangl expands its advertising reach a bit further. The monetization side is being handled in partnership with Pudding Media, and Ogilvy’s Digital Innovation Group. Jangl will have several different types of ad units for advertisers, such as SMS ads tacked on to messages users send and pre-roll audio ads that play during the time you’d normally spend listening to the phone ring. Advertisers can target the ads by keyword, category, location, and demographics. Jangl’s been running tests of the SMS and pre-roll format on Facebook and Bebo with Pudding Media earlier this quarter and feels confident enough that they won’t turn users off to the service.
The market for audio ads prior or during calls is limited since it is too intrusive.
There are better mobile advertising-supported models out there.
Blyk in the UK makes a much better job by giving away free voice minutes and SMS in return of customers opting-in to receive SMS/MMS ads.
They started in Sept 07 and they already have about 30,000 customers.
All the “watch/listen to ads in return for X” stuff is dumb. As an advertiser, do you really want to advertise to someone who won’t pay for:
a) Software - there’s some lame VC funded startup that you featured before that lets you download things from Download.com for free if you do a credit check from Experian or something
b) International calling - well what will you buy then? Food? You probably don’t pay attention to ads anyway if you use Jangl.
Moreover, once the ads become intrusive, someone else with a ton of VC money comes along and does it for free and you’re f-ed.
Good work Jangl. Please blow some more VC money.
this is the first tyoe of ‘ad’ based calling that i would consider using. but i would actually prefer if it worked more like a calling card. i would call, listen to an ad, and than get a dial tone. if companies like brring that have people calling me listen to ads think i would use there service they are absolutely crazy; and i would likely break off any friend ship with someone who gave me a brring number to call them. i also would never use a service like globe7 that does not present ads but rather collect information through surveys, etc. in exchange for call credit.
i am pretty sure advertisers are not interested in me. but the absolute only chance they have of getting me as a ‘customer’ is if the ads target me(not those calling me) and are ads in the traditional sense not ‘data mining’ operations.
I find audio ads too annoying to have my time wasted on
Same question i ask everytime a post like this is made:
1) How many calls are you processing a day?
And none of the Js have ever answered the question.
Why is this relevant? Because they’re consuming telephony/bandwidth, and are paying someone for transport. There’s NO getting around that.
The ad supported model is valid, but one must have millions of calls DAILY before its possible to be interesting to advertisers.
Will this Jangl work for India?