After launching their public beta last month, Yoomba is claiming their service has reached over 500,000 people. Of course, numbers can be construed to mean just about anything. For all I know, 500,000 people tried it once and thought it was lame.

On the surface, Yoomba reminds me quite a of with Jangl, who allows you to connect with someone via voice by only knowing their email address. The difference with Jangl is that voice connection occurs over the traditional telephone network, though there is VoIP on the backend. Joomba uses some browser plugins to accomplish the communication-browser plugins that aren't supported on a Mac, I might add.

Using one's email address to connect thru voice is a nifty idea, but it seems too dependent on the Windows platform to be widely useful. Convince me otherwise by leaving a comment.

Yoomba's press release after the jump.

Yoomba Reaches 500,000 User Base In Less Than One Month

Yoomba's peer-to-peer email calling and email chat reaches milestone in record time

San Francisco, CA - August 14, 2007 - Yoomba Ltd. today announced that its new open communications experience has reached the landmark user base of 500,000 people since the official launch of Yoomba (www.yoomba.com) less than one month ago. Yoomba opened up its first beta version to the public on July 12th, 2007.

"We are very pleased with such rapid growth, accompanied by such positive user feedback. There is nothing else out there like Yoomba, and more and more people are discovering us every day." said Elad Hemar, Co-founder and CEO of Yoomba. "Yoomba's email calling and email chat features are now being used to reach half a million users all over the world. We haven't seen a communications network grow this quickly since Skype."

Yoomba's open peer-to-peer application sits on top of every email network and turns any email address into a phone or instant messenger at the touch of a button. Once Yoomba is activated buttons appear inside a user's chosen email application, providing one-click access to talk to friends, family or colleagues around the world and on any network for free.

Before Yoomba, online communications offerings existed as part of closed networks. To communicate with friends, family or colleagues, users were required to join the network, register, create a new online identity, then search and add contacts one by one to each individual network.

"We have seen through this rapid growth in our user base that the old closed networks are no longer an acceptable communications format," said Hemar. "We have broken down the walls of the old networks and are proud to be making free, instant and open communications a reality for anyone with an email address."