Jajah VOIP powers Dating giant eHarmony

What happens when a creative, innovative VoIP provider like Jajah meets Internet dating giant eHarmony? No, it’s not a case of love at first sight (This is not When-Harry-Met-Sally, It’s When-Jajah-Met-eHarmony remember?). it’s a case of the addition of one more service feather in Jajah’s cap – Click-to-Call.

Jajah is going beyond the scope of being a pure VoIP phone calls provider, and is expanding its domain to include commercial applications like Click-to-Call, which lets eHarmony members talk to each other anonymously over the phone simply by clicking the other member’s name.

In times when pure VoIP companies are experiencing catastrophes, Jajah’s move comes as a smart one. Pure VoIP providers like Vonage are facing dire financial strains, while Vonage’s biggest competitor till yesterday, SunRocket is now officially out of business . Interestingly, SunRocket retrenched about a quarter of its workforce only one week ago in an effort then dubbed by the analyst world (and by me) as “efficiency spree.”. SunRocket was considered as a robust, steady provider of VoIP services, having the second largest customer base after Vonage. If a company like SunRocket officially shuts down just days after claiming how good they were going to be in the near future, then things certainly look weak for the small, startup VoIP providers.

There are way too many players in the market now for VoIP companies to survive purely on phone calls by end users (SunRocket is a living example. Well… dead, actually), and identifying and grabbing opportunities like Jajah just did is the only way to survive. It’s pretty much Darwin’s theory of natural selection – only the most innovative and most responsive to change will survive. Backing up this theory is the American Venture Capital Market, which has invested about US $ 1 billion in diversified VoIP firms. The operative word here is ‘diversified.’

Commenting on the deal, Greg Waldorf, CEO of eHarmony, stated that telephone calls through Click-to-Call would never compromise the anonymity eHarmony offered.
“Until today, you lost anonymity once you went to the voice stage,” He said. “But this (Click-to-Call) keeps you as much in control of your information disclosure as you are when you use email.” Great! Now I can claim to be Elvis over the phone too!

This article is written by Samarth Chandola, our full time VOIP news editor.