Jaxtr social network VoIP tool bows: Do you care?

I had an informative chat the other day with Konstantin Guericke, whom fans of the Social Web will recognize as one of the four founders of LinkedIn. Konstantin's running a new VoIP-related venture called Jaxtr, which started a private beta yesterday. Jaxtr is dedicated to the proposition that bloggers want to talk to their readers. Not exchange type with them. Talk. Jaxtr will let users put a widget on their Blogger, MySpace, Friendster, Xanga, Tagged, or Hi5 page. Readers will be able to click on the widget, which will bridge a call between the caller's phone and a VoIP-powered number assigned to the Jaxtr user.

Let's assume, because I'm not in the demographic, that people who are active in the Social Web really do want to talk to each other. Right now, there's no time-of-day control, so Lord only known when phones might ring. There's no screening beyond Caller ID. I don't know if there's any tracking of calls; if you think IM stalking is bad, just wait until it moves to the telephone. If Guericke knows what revenue stream he's planning on tapping, he's not telling beyond the obvious possibilities of ad support, incremental charges for incremental services, or subscription charges. There's a lot of merit to putting out a tool and letting the market tell you what it wants to use it for. But with the Gizmo Project putting VoIP service on LiveJournal's blogs and a social networking site called Speecho.com, Jaxtr looked like it was in danger of losing a first-mover advantage. Maybe investors (and Jaxtr is self-funded at this point, Guericke said) thought it was worth it to get the product out there, even if it's more a technology and less a product.

For more information about Jaxtr:
- check out the website
- read this article from The Blog Herald

Related Article:
Can VoIP save social networking? Report