Bored? Lonely? Talk to other bored, lonely souls on Cafe Jaxtr
Lonely venture capitalist seeks chat with willing entrepreneurs.
I'm having a hard time appreciating Jaxtr's latest service, Cafe Jaxtr. It's a "talk network," where you can find people who are interested in certain topics, and then phone them to chat. If you have hobbies, and like people calling you out of the blue to talk about them, you can set up your own profile page so they can reach you.
The thing I don't get is why anyone would want this, but apparently I'm either too old or too antisocial to dig it. Konstantin Guericke, Jaxtr's chief executive officer, says his 10-million-strong user base is going to eat this feature up like candy.
All phone numbers are proxied through Jaxtr so you never know the other person's real phone number, nor do you have to give yours out. It also includes configurable privacy settings: You can have the system ring your phone whenever someone is trying to reach you, or it can send all incoming calls to voice mail, or you can let through only approved contacts.
Users get 100 minutes per month for free in the U.S. (it's different elsewhere). Premium accounts will have more talk time.
Jaxtr widgets can easily be added to social network pages, but Cafe Jaxtr is a person-to-person communications channel. For truly social chat, see the new Equals, which lets you set up a five-person voice chat via a Facebook application.
Previous Jaxtr story: Startle your friends with Jaxtr's new tools.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
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