I have to admit, this caught me off-guard. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

Jangl has focused on enabling telephony within social networks, or anywhere else for that matter. While not collecting revenue directly from end users, Jangl has been profitable thanks to partnerships with a number of social networking sites.

JAJAH has taken a somewhat more traditional route: offer cheap calling. They've done a variety of things to make this "cheap calling" more accessible, including widgets you can place anywhere. They've also developed a strong telephone backend to support it.

Jangl and Jajah are going to be cooperating on a number of fronts. While there are plenty of announcements to come, the more immediate impact will be that Jangl will use JAJAH's telephony infrastructure to process calls. Also, Jangl will begin to utilize JAJAH's recently announced in-call advertising feature.

Jangl can increase their revenue and JAJAH will get some additional calls to run ads on. Sounds like a win-win to me. Personally, I wonder if this "alliance" won't turn into some kind of merger later on. Who knows.

Full press release after the jump.

JAJAH and Jangl Partner to Offer the Best of Voice 2.0

First Alliance in Emerging Marketplace to Generate New Services and Initiatives
as Brand, Platform Leaders Collaborate On Multiple Fronts


MOUNTAIN VIEW and PLEASANTON, Calif. - Nov. 15, 2007 - JAJAH, the global telephony 2.0 company and platform, and Jangl, the company connecting millions of online profiles and mobile phones, safely and privately, today announced a strategic partnership designed to expand and improve communications options worldwide.

The partnership combines the respective strengths of the two companies and promises consumers the most innovative, relevant and reliable products, at the lowest possible costs, both now and for years to come. The agreement also delivers significant advantages to both companies as they expand voice and text messaging services for consumers, further bridge the web and the phone, and monetize a variety of services in the media channel.

"The goal of this partnership is to create several natural synergies for both JAJAH and Jangl, and has the potential to strengthen both companies' positions going forward," said Rebecca Swensen, Research Analyst, VoIP Services for IDC, Inc. "Anytime two companies collaborate at an integral level - on product development, marketing and more - additional opportunities invariably arise. This is one of the first major collaborations we've seen in the 'Voice 2.0' market and, to the extent that both companies execute well, this could have some very interesting ramifications for others in this space, as well."

Today's news comes as both companies work on significant new initiatives. As JAJAH increasingly becomes the industry's platform of choice worldwide, Jangl is developing services for several new partners, as well as Google's OpenSocial. Both companies expect to make more detailed statements soon.

Under the terms of the agreement, Jangl and JAJAH will collaborate on strategic development and emerging products, which will be announced as they become available. More immediately:

• Jangl will leverage JAJAH's telephony infrastructure to deliver phone services in 122 countries, further speeding Jangl's growth as it continues to forge partnerships with top online personals and social networking communities, where it already powers in-context calling capabilities in more than 40 million online profiles.
• Jangl and JAJAH will collaborate in serving voice advertising for mobile and landline calls. Jangl will become a publisher and begin to further monetize its traffic with audio advertising. JAJAH will supply its in-call advertising appliance to overlay audio advertising on Jangl calls.

"More and more, JAJAH is becoming the platform of choice, and we are delighted to work with Jangl," said Trevor Healy, JAJAH CEO. "It shows the great leaps we have made since opening our platform. Thanks to Jangl's position within the online community and JAJAH's new advertising services, both companies significantly expand our advertising capabilities and monetization potential." "Jangl has always been about bridging the phone and the web," said Cerda. "By giving people the same level of control with their phones, as they have with IM and email, we're proving out our strategy. By contrast, JAJAH has excelled at providing low-priced, high-quality international phone calling, and they've established a stellar back end operation along the way. Our partnership is about leveraging our complements and strengths, which will manifest in new initiatives and products in the very near future." The partnership between Jangl and JAJAH underscores the complementary strengths of both companies, as well as their product and market differences. Jangl's voice services bridge the web and phone, and it distributes those services in social networks and online personals communities as it leverages the immense penetration and overlap of mobile devices, social networking and personal computers. Jangl now powers calling capability in more than 40 million online profiles, and has been generating revenue via partnerships and licensing for nearly a year. Jangl expects to announce significant news distribution partnerships in coming weeks. JAJAH has built a global telephony platform that lets consumers, enterprises and telephony companies use and deploy new services whether on mobile, landline or IP based networks. First developed for the consumer and now deployed as an open platform, JAJAH's open telephony 2.0 platform combines the best of the Internet with the best of the existing telephony infrastructure, while embracing a partnership approach with the telecommunications industry. About JAJAH JAJAH, the world's most innovative global communications company, is dedicated to bringing consumers, enterprises and telecommunications companies vastly improved telephony solutions to allow them to embrace the next generation of IP communications. JAJAH's open telephony 2.0 platform, combines the best of the Internet with the best of the existing telephony infrastructure, to remove the barriers to communication and makes it easier for people everywhere to stay in touch. JAJAH was founded in 2005 by Roman Scharf and Daniel Mattes, who are driven by their vision of global communication without barriers in terms of devices, rates, location or functionality. JAJAH is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information, please visit http://www.jajah.com About Jangl Jangl™ is the social communications leader connecting phones and online identities for millions who socialize, share and create online. Through direct and partnered distribution, Jangl is provisioned and marketed to more than 40 million people with online profiles. Some of the Jangl service brands include MatchTalk for Match, Phonebook for Facebook, Call Anyone for Tagged, TrueTalk for True, PrivateTalk for FriendFinder, and Jangl CallMe for Fubar. Jangl's investors include Cardinal Venture Capital, Labrador Ventures and Storm Ventures, which together have invested $9 million. Jangl is headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif., and is available on the web at http://www.jangl.com Jangl is a trademark of Jangl, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.