TalkPlus

Founded: 2004

Status: Quietly died May 2008

What did it do: Multiple identities for your mobile phone

Website: www.talkplus.com 

TalkPlus led with cheap minutes, but it couldn't quite get average consumers to buy into the real value of "mirror numbers" - being able to make a call through your cell phone, but with the caller ID showing up as either your home phone or office phone or any other phone. For the guy with five brides in five different cities, this was probably a great tool, but there weren't enough lawyers and doctors latching onto it to make a big difference. 

Otherwise, you had the same me-too VoIP tricks of lower/cheaper minutes, visual voice mail, multi-line ring, call screening, call transfer and the like.

TalkPlus raised an initial round of $5.5 million and, like Jangl, was strangled due to lack of second round funding. Unlike Jangl, there was no public hug and cry, or embarrassing moments like the founders walking out to the next-best competitor. Don't cry for founder Jeff Black; we're betting he's already deep into his next start-up; his resume includes hotels.com, resorts.com, and iAtlas. [Full disclosure notice: The author knew Jeff when he was a punk working at DEC]