Cerdafied - VoIP, Mobile, Web and People

your privacy/our policy

As a company works up toward an open beta, it's refining a lot of things...user interface and experience, marketing, and its own internal operations. All are geared toward generating the best possible customer experience.

For a company like jangl, a big priority is the privacy policy. It's huge. Why is it huge? Is it because a vast majority of online customers read privacy policies from front to back before clicking the "I Accept" button? No.

It's huge to us because it is our statement to our customers and potential customers about the degree to which we value their information and respect their desires to not get spammed, marketed to, etc. Those are genuine requests. After all, I've got a "bulk mail" folder that is jammed to the gills. I get spam, weird pop-ups kinda related to my hobbies and sites I've visited, and (used to) get random phone calls from marketing firms and other losers, too.

So we spent time with lawyers -- a necessary part of the process -- to formulate one. And then, with help, we tried to put a human voice to it, as well.

Is it perfect? Probably not. Will it evolve? Very, very likely. And hopefully your input, too. Could we possibly ever cater to every interest? No way. But we're open.

The lawyers might kill for me this, but here are some basic tenets that guide our policies:

* Yes, we collect a lot of information from you. Lots of privacy policies tend to say stuff about the use of cookies to make the service better, etc. Well, in our case, since we're a mobile phone-oriented service, we need to take on the fact that we know other information about our users, too. For example, we must know a jangl user's real number, in order to forward calls there. We also ultimately know the phone numbers of the people they're jangling with. We need to know all this in order to route calls properly. But we won't use people's phone numbers for anything other than operating the service. Period.

* We have certain partners we work with to help operate the service. We've chosen our partners because, in our view, they are trustworthy. We hold our partners to the same privacy standards to which we hold ourselves.

* We're real people, with children, mortgages, email accounts, phones, etc. Our own Golden Rule is: We, as individuals, are not interested in doing anything that is going to compromise our own personal privacy, and we wouldn't expect anyone else to do the same.

Those are the "core values" when it comes to privacy at jangl. Simply put, we've worked here to combine both the necessary legalese and this plainspeak. If it doesn't make sense to you, please comment.

That was for the regular people who just wanna live their lives with a little more freedom and control that they're accustomed to with an always-on, "you can find me anywhere on the internet" lifestyle.

There is more to say, however, about the bad guys.

You know who you are.

"Immoral" is one thing. That's a value judgement. What's immoral to me, or you, or anyone else, might not jibe with someone else's idea.

"Illegal" is another. Drugs. People preying on kids. Terrorists. Those are just a few.

So what's our message to you? Five simple words.

"This is not your place."

And in fact, that's not a value judgement at all -- it's a technology judgement. Lemme explain.

When people start doing anything illegal, people catch on. People are interviewed. Email exchanges and message board postings are examined, shared. Online profiles are cached forever and shared with authorities.

And if you're using jangl for illegal things, your jangl number will be caught. (We have access to the same types of data that your phone company does). And then we'll be subpoened. And if it is a legal request, we'll honor it. If we feel it is illegal, we'll speak up and fight -- and that's a whole other subject, for now.

But our principal here is, "If you're up to illegal activities here, this is not your place."

There are better choices out there for you, and you know all about them. Private voicemail drop-boxes, JPEG encoding, etc. Jangl isn't one of them.

When we say "freedom" in "freedom rings" we're talking about the regular people -- students, soccers moms, daters, buyers and sellers, etc. -- people who just want to impose a little more control and enjoy a little more freedom, without the hassle of spam or the worry that they're dealing with sickos.

-mc

what is jangl?

n1. jangl is a company that provides phone 2.0 services. These are services that haven’t been offered before, and represent a new and improved way of doing things, leveraging patent pending technology. Usage: I got a job at jangl.

n2. jangl is a service that provides a new way to manage your lifestyle through your phone. jangl offers a confidential alternative to conventional phone number swapping and calling. jangl gives you control over who you talk to and when, introducing a new level of freedom to your life. Usage: I have jangl.

adj1. a jangl ID is a user name or handle you provide people you meet, either by writing it down on a napkin, in IM, in an e-mail, in an ad, on a business card, or anywhere else it makes sense. People that have your jangl ID use that to obtain a jangl number. Usage: Here’s my jangl ID.

adj2. a jangl number is a special phone number used by people who obtain your jangl ID. People call you on a jangl number and it forwards to your real phone. When you want to call them back, you use that jangl number. Usage: I have a jangl number for her.

adj3. a jangl widget is fancy shrink-wrap for a jangl ID, and is used on social networking profiles, blogs, etc. Usage: Did you know you can put a jangl widget on your website?

v1. jangl is something you do when you make or receive calls on a jangl number. Usage: I jangl’d her.

v2. jangl is something done when someone clicks your janglme button. Usage: Go to my blog and jangl me.

-mc

fun with video

See how Josh jangls

we love a challenge

Om posted this morning and announced our funding among other things. It's always interesting to see what resonates with whom. Most early
stage company coverage must have a contemplating question (like is this going to work?) otherwise it wouldn't be early stage. Om posed three challenges to jangl, which I'd like to riff on for a sec:

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1. The Jangl system doesn't make much sense unless it gets massive user adoption.

2. The system, which I have only viewed, not used is far from friction less. Despite all the good work, it could be a lot simpler.

3. Skype, Skype, Skype.

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We love a good challenge, otherwise we wouldn't be here. Here are
some thoughts to the challenges Om poses...

#1: Getting massive user adoption is one obvious measuring stick we have. Of course, we're swinging for the fences. However, getting massive user adoption for us isn't the same as it was for Skype, for example. At first Skype only worked at all if the people you wanted to talk to had Skype. jangl is about enabling new relationships. There is not a required network effect before jangl “makes sense”. We need two people with cell phones (or any other kind of phone) to add our value. That value we add does not change significantly whether we have 100k or 100 mm users. Of course, the more people using it the more people know what a handl is.

#2: I think Om is referring to the first-time use of jangl, as containing friction. Certainly, once it's set up for the first time, there is zero friction. You add that person's jangl # into your contacts as you would any 10-digit number, and call that number every time. In the set up process, you're giving someone your jangl "handl" and they either call the main jangl # and submit that handl, or else go to jangl.com and enter that handl. In return they get a number that's used on an ongoing basis for you. We like this approach because it's viral, which helps with #1. Of course, a lot of this is simplified with the jangl widget. Oh, another thing I think Om experienced when he called my jangl #, was a caller screening feature I have turned on. It required him to introduce himself before connecting to me; that's an option/feature, not a requirement. Finally, I'll say that all other VoIP based solutions are tied to
VoIP access; rendering them full of friction, i.e. headsets or ATAs. We don't have either.

#3: Skype a challenge for jangl? Well they got the ebay deal so that's certainly a challenge-but I'd argue that we are more of a partner potential to Skype than a competitor. Skype is about free or
cheap talking. jangl is about being a social utility on any phone, but likely your mobile phone. Will Skype eventually do the kind of thing we are doing? Perhaps, but they are client software that the
consumer has to download. We don't have any client software or hardware and work on any phone. In any case, Skype has done great things and paved lots of way in the first gen of consumer VoIP. I think the next gen of consumer VoIP is more about lifestyle.

-mc

funding and thai food

jangl spent the past month fund raising. It wasn't nearly as painful as it was in the past, but some moments were packed with angst. See, when you go out and raise venture capital, you're selling a piece of your company, as you probably know. When we did our first round last Fall, we were selling an idea, the promise that two guys were worthy, the promise of a go-to-market partner, hope and prayers that we could do something that would create value.

Well, just seven months later, we were at it again, raising a second round. . .this time selling a bigger and more proven team, real market traction, the completion of two consumer beta rounds, and imminent plans for a wide launch.

We went out on this extended pitch over the past several weeks, while we still had plenty of runway, mostly because we didn't want to find ourselves in the dead of Sand Hill Summer trying to rally.

While Douglas and the crew were busy getting the wheels up at the ranch, Ben, Pradeep and I were out pedaling. The downside to fund raising is certainly the time it takes from focusing on executing. Driving in the Prius with XM helps, but it really is like crossing seven seas for us. Plus you're up all night revising slide decks and praying the demo gods are on your side.

The upside is the great Thai place on University (the one around the 400 block), the time-killer shopping spree at Stanford Shopping Center (too bad the closed Luomo)... I always end up with some new duds. The other upside is that if you're meant to do this, you thrive on every bit of it.

I must say though, fund raising is like a sport anymore. You're going to get in front of all kinds of folks...folks that are genuinely nice and fun to talk to, folks who can't stay awake, folks that only get a portion of the story, folks that give you confidence that you're really onto something, folks that keep their face in their lunch, folks that ask good and tough questions and folks that ask totally irrelevant questions. It's a delicate balancing act. You have to have your act together and truly anticipate the questions VCs will ask.

You have to remember that no one knows more about your business than you.

At the same time, you have to illustrate an open mind, entertaining their thoughts and musings. If you don't ebb and flow on this, it can cost you. In a first meeting, VCs will often bring another partner and/or an associate to begin. This way they can deliberate in real time and, fundamentally, decide: invest more time to learn, or kill the deal quickly.

We always punted quickly when we weren't feeling the love. "You got to know when the hold 'em, know when to fold 'em," per Kenny Rogers.

There is of course the handful of meetings you have, where the real good partners/firms lend some great insight or provide a great intro.

At the end of the day, a good fund raise rally leaves you tired, relieved, accomplished, a little bit smarter.

After all was said and done during this latest round, one firm stood out for us, and we, apparently, stood out to them.

And that makes three.

Now I just need some of that Thai food.

-mc

mobilecrunch talking privacy

MobileCrunch posted an article recently about a company that provides a widget for users to post in a MySpace profile. This widget allows visitors to send a text message to the user from the web, without incurring a fee on the sender's end. Oliver at MobileCrunch, along with many of his commentators, pointed out several security flaws in the service from this company. These issues relate to both the person sending and receiving the SMS message.

As you may know by now, jangl is going to be offering a service that bridges a gap between the online modality of communicating to the offline (read phone) modality. In doing so, one might expect a widget approach as one piece of functionality. In our implementation and others we have planned, we have absolutely built in ways to keep both the sender and receiver of our services secure, private, and with strong abilities to evade abuse. Stay tuned for more.

-MC