Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Jajah Launches Ad-Supported Calling


Jajah is launching an in-call advertising platform that turns the inventory of the world's telephone calls into an advertising market place. The idea is to insert messages into the "ringing" stream, which is user dead time, rather than into the conversation stream, which most people will find is intrusive, even if a user is interested in defraying the cost of a call.

"We spend more time on the phone than consuming all other types of media, TV, reading papers and radio included," says Roman Scharf, Jajah co-founder. "Phones haven't been considered as a viable channel yet. We are going to change that."

"In tests over the past months we have identified a method to overlay advertising content on phone calls in a way that users find acceptable," he says.

Whereas in-call advertising would normally interrupt a call and disturb the caller, Jajah simply overlays the messages above the ring tone right before the call starts. "Businesses get guaranteed caller attention, whilst at the same time not alienating the consumer with intrusive messages that break the rhythm of a telephone call," says Scharf.

Think of it as the phone inventory equivalent of Google AdWords, says Daniel Mattes, Jahah co-founder.

The opt-in solution, available soon, will give users who agree to hear ads monthly credit to their accounts.

"In a next step we will allow telecommunications partners to use our platform to monetize their inventory as well", says Trevor Healy, Jajah's CEO.

Small, local companies can target their messages to the local Jajah users.

Jajah also has partnered with Oridian Online Media Solutions, Ltd., the largest privately-owned advertising network, to gain access to a base of business advertisers.

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