Slashdot Mirror
How To Make Your Friends Call You More
B0bReader writes, "Simply sign up to something called jajah (a VOIP service that connects real telephones) using your friend's number (mobiles included), then log in and dial your own number. Your friend's phone will ring and after they hear a brief 'Jajah is connecting your call' they will be calling you and incur all charges. As an added bonus you will quite probably receive your friend's latest voice-mail message as your own (at least on Irish networks), which you may or may not wish to hear. There is even a Jajah Firefox extension — which at the time of writing is the Firefox featured add-on — so you can do it right from your browser. This is about the best example of a bad idea, with terrible implementation, that I have seen all day. And with the wonderful publicity the Firefox page offers it should reach a wide audience in no time."
The makers of Jajah are hoping that it is as popular as Drinkdrink. Drinkdrink worked where you simply signed up using your friend's credit card number, then logged in and ordered booze. Your friend would receive the bill and then they would hear a brief 'Your friend is drinking your alcohol.' They would usually be calling you and rushing to find you. As an added bonus you could quite probably receive a specialized form of your friend's affection (at least in Irish cities), which you may or may not wish to experience.
Irish police are still investigating any correlation between the popularity of Drinkdrink and a sudden spike in Irish homicides where in most cases the victim new their assailant prior to the fatal encounter. Similar incidents are on the rise--possibly due to Jajah.
Seriously, if I tried this on one of my friends, not even a surgeon would be able to locate my cell phone.
My work here is dung.
Instead of "How To Make Your Friends Call You More", we need "How To Make Friends".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Oh. My. God.
How retarded is this idea? Now all the telemarketers can call you on your dime (or is it a quarter nowadays - being from the Antipodes I have no idea what an American phone call costs).
How does someone come up with such idiocy? Did they lock the people in a room after removing and pickling their brains, and tell them not to come out until they could prove that people are dumber than slugs?
Your friend's phone will ring and after they hear a brief 'Jajah is connecting your call' they will be calling you and incur all charges.
I'm thinking that's a good way to get your friends to call you less, not more.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I'll just get rid of all my friends.
Obviously the Irish voicemail system you refer too is poorly designed in these days of confrence calls...
This service however does not cause your friends phone to call you, thats rediculous. The service calls you localy, and calls them localy, and then links your calls with VOIP, saving any long distance calls. Thats about it.
The rates they are offering are much lower than any other service I know of. The only concern I have is privacy. They say privacy is guarenteed, but how I can know for sure?
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
Except the featured Firefox addon of the moment is "Sage", using the search box on the Firefox addons page for "jahjah" gets nothing, and jahjah.com doesn't seem to exist.
Although Googling for "jahjah voip" does return hits, so whatever.
egypt urnash minimal art.
I consult with VPS VOIP solutions for LyliX.net, and let me tell you, if one of our customers wanted to set up something like this, I think we'd refer them to someone else :)
This idea is bad on so many levels - not only are you introducing a third party unnecessarily, but it's just a rehash of collect calling, but even more annoying! If you want your friends to call you, how about texting them? A lot less akward and more convenient.
Hey Jackass have you ever used Jahjah? The call is _free_ for both sides. Are you a shill for some competitor? How does this shit get on slashdot unverified?
Joke: -===>
You: O
>-<
|
/ \
If this seems pointless to Americans, it's because it is. In the US, the holder of a cell phone is always responsible for the charges, no matter who places the call. In Europe, if you make a call to a cell phone YOU pick up the charges. They have special exchanges just for cell phones, so most Europeans rarely get hit with charges accidentally. Neither system is as bad as it seems from the other side :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Remember SMS spam? When you paid per message for their advertising?
Same thing, different name.
I've searched Google already.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hey, lets make some people we don't like call 911 (emergency in the states)! Or... anything we want! you just put two numbers in the form and it just makes the first person call the second one, even if they're not you!
lovely implementation....
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
If someone is stupid enough to actually do something like this, the concept of using this one friends is going to result in a less number of friends.
Alas... girls I give my number to never call me. At least now I just what to do! Ladies - watch out, Jajah's got my back, hear?
Assuming this is true - well, I've always felt I should become friends with Darl McBride...
It sounds like it is completely worthless but Slashdot just made it ingenious. It is worthless for the end user but it is great for novelty value. Just think how many slashdotters are going to use this service after Slashdot gave it free advertising points. Jajah is going to make LOTS of money from just an average person using it as a joke.
"Get G-G-G-Girls To Call You"
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
This not a completely worthless service- in fact I think it's quite clever- certainly too clever for the writer of this article to grasp. This service allows international calls to be made for the price of two local rate calls. Sounds pretty fucking good to me.
I just used the service to connect my Irish landline here to my parent's phone at home in N.Ireland, and it worked perfectly; whatever rate the two calls cost (local calls are free in the UK at certain times), it's certainly cheaper than the 40 cents a minute I'd normally pay for such a call.
It's a tricky concept to grasp, but if people 'get' it, then this service is of at leas *some* value for the time being.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
The way that they work is that they call both you and your party and connect the call via VOIP. However, you foot the bill with a credit card. I tried many other calling-card companies, Skype, and whatnot. So far, Jajah is pretty good, and darn cheap.
Sure, you could sign up and put your friends number, but it will not charge any money to them. My only complaint is that you can only change your phone numbers 3 times so if you move often (as I have over the last few months) you might have to open a new account.
They even give you a few $$$ to spend BEFORE they ask for your credit card number! so you can try them out for "free".
yfarjoun.
Which is the worse idea, Jahjah or Jar Jar Binks?
This is a hypothetical situation that only occurs if you purposely use the system wrong. Normally, if you enter your number for your number, and their number for their number, everything is charged as it should be... and nothing AT ALL is charged unless you get charged for you cell airtime. If someone was actually abusing this their friends would get right pissed off in no time, if a company was abusing this they would get in so much legal trouble... this is a non-issue.
Jajah call works by making 2 two local calls to to the participants and then
connecting these two local calls over the internet (voip). The advantage for
international calling should be obvious.
In normal use jajah requires you to credit your account (visa,mastercard etc) and then charges
for calls. And although you could use it for prank calls by registering someone else
phone number then connecting them to someone else (the queen or whoever) you would have to
pay.
There is a free trail where you could set up a prank call for free but your friends wouldn't pay,
it would be jajah that would pick up the bill.
Unless in the US or somewhere you have to pay to *receive* calls but even
then it wouldnt cost your friend anymore than if you phoned him/her normally.
Well, the day ain't over yet, so why not cause as much trouble as possible by publicizing this on a slow news day? I blame the editor for letting this one through.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is pathetic. How many people are so stupid that they are going to miss understand what JaJah does and then trash it for being a dumb idea.
Good Work.
Sure, in the US the receiver of a mobile call has to use his minutes. But even if I exchange the source and destination numbers in Jajah, how is this different to just calling my friend on his mobile *without* Jajah? It seems like a sensible service to me. However, you could use it to make prank calls; that doesn't seem like a groundbreaking loophole - you can make prank calls already - although in this case you could write a script to DOS someone's phone vua the Jajah website.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
This has Ex-Girlfriends written all over it.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Be descended from this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More.
.sig withheld by request
So the way it works on the American system is cell phone users are always responsible for airtime charges. This means that any time you are on a call on your cellphone, it is counted against your minutes, or billed per minute if you've exceeded your monthly allotment. However any other charges are the responsibility of the caller. So if it is long distance between the two parties, the initiator of the call pays those charges, if applicable, regardless of the type of phone on either endpoint.
There are plenty of plans that make airtime charges more complicated, such as no airtime charges nights and weekends, no charges to people on the same network and so on but the basis is that the owner of the phone pays for the time it's actually on the air. However they don't pay for other charges on received calls. You can call from Germany and you'll pick up the long distance tab, I'll just be responsible for airtime. However if I call Germany I am responsible for both the airtime and the LD.
I prefere VoipBuster.
http://www.voipbuster.com/
http://www.voipstunt.com/
http://www.netappel.fr/
http://www.sipdiscount.com/
etc...
10 euros and you can call in many countries for *free* during 120 days
after theses 120 days, these countries cost 1 euro-cent/min
When you are low in credit, you just need to add 10 euros to your account and you have 120 free days again.
You can also enter the phone number where you are (mobile phone, landline, work phone number, friend phone number, etc) and the number where you want to call. This cost only 5 euro-cents (not by minutes... only 5 cents).
This way, you can make long distance from work (if you have a direct number... or if you correspondant know your company and extension number...) even if you are not authorised for long-distance call. With this, you only need the computer with internet to make the connection, after that, you can close the browser.
You need to install their software to subscribe to their service.
After that, you can use any softphone or hardphone compatible SIP.
So you can use x-lite, sjphone or whatever else to make the calls.
Personnally, I use this service only for the phone-to-phone connection at 5... you have more flexibility and it's cheap!
I've read their website and I watched their demo, and I'm just sure there is some kind of catch. Could someone who has been using this service for a while report if there have been any unexpected surprises on their phone bill? Is the quality like Skype i.e. is it sometimes cackly and doesn't handle bidirectional speech well?
Sidenote: It doesn't help either that I speak Spanish and keep reading the name of their service as "Hah Hah". You know like, "Ha hah, the joke's on you when we bill you three dollars a minute 18 months from now..."
Inform me, please.
...you insensitive clod!
Btw. in soviet russia, you call friends.. no wait.
Ok. I don't like this idea at all and plan to push to have this service turned off!
I've (since this posting) have received 4 calls from porn sites. How do you block your own phone from calling you?
So No I have to manage getting spam in my snailmail, in my email, spam in text messages to my phone, and NOW I have to get spam on my Cellphone in the form of phone calls?!?!
Oh... AND IT's anonymous?
Hellz no!
If something isn't done about this, you'll be hearing my pain months from now...
So to make things clear, before others keep posting about how stupid this thing is:
Jajah is basically similar to Skype, except that instead of using your laptop to talk, you use your phone. The end result is the same, that is you are connecting over IP to the other person.
So, you go ahead and schedule a call, your phone rings, you pick up, and you're connected to your friend. In Europe, you don't pay for incoming calls, so this makes phone calls free.
Now you're thinking, so what's the point of using this in the U.S.?
Suppose I want to call my family in Sweden, but I'm in New Hampshire. I don't want to pay a fortune for that call. I could use Skype, but I want to take a walk without dragging my laptop around (and I don't have a PocketPC). With Jajah, I pay to receive a local call, they connect me over IP (for free, or else a very low charge, like 2 cents/minute). I've used this a few times, and though it's not completely reliable, and doesn't work every time, on average it works very well. And I expect it to get better.
This space up for sale.
This is the second story today that is just plain WRONG. The service doesn't charge your friends it charges the CALLERS account voip credits.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I for one welcome our tiny, non-joke-getting lobster stick men overlords!
With Halloween being two days away, this is so cool I figure out how to call someone and make it seem like it is coming from their own phone. The first number input into the JaJah call thing, gets a call from jajah, with its own number showing up on caller ID...which could easily be interpreted as someone is calling you from within your own house..muhahahaha Devils Day will never be the same...
worst idea. ever. (well it was till I RTFA)
Hee Hee The drinking bird does all the work!
Hey Jackass have you ever used Jahjah? The call is _free_ for both sides. Are you a shill for some competitor? How does this shit get on slashdot unverified?
The call is not free for either side if you have to pay for airtime. If your friends pay for airtime and you have a free incoming calls deal....
Better yet, call them using 1-866-460-SECS, and enjoy the call later at for60secs.
Use the service to get two pizza places to call each other.
There are big advantages to the U.S. system as well. With number portability, you can take your landline number, with its same exchange, and move it to a mobile phone, and use it as your primary number without making everyone who wants to call you pay extra.
The area code of where you transfer the number from (the original geographic exchange) will determine which people pay for it as a "long distance" call, but that's far less expensive for most people than European mobile airtime is, I think.
I wouldn't be willing to keep a mobile phone as my only phone number, if doing so required everyone who wanted to call me pay extra. That just seems rude. I'm quite content to pay for people's incoming calls to me, since I'm the one deciding to attach the number to a mobile, rather than fixed phone.
From the caller's perspective, the U.S. system puts land and mobile numbers on equal footing, which seems more logical to me.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Not long after I got the internet (back in 1996, but it was AOL so that hardly counts), I envisioned a future where you'd get your TV, radio, phone, movies, music, email and web access all through the same data line. Of course looking back on it now, it's obvious that it was going to happen, but back then not that many people were talking about that kind of convergence.
:)
It's amazing to me to see that what I had thought would require a fiber connection is now totally feasible with a standard cable modem. I get all of that (and some things I never dreampt of back then) though a little box on the wall. A lot of people talk about how there's a lack of innovation in the computer industry, but I say it's mostly been focussed on these kinds of things, and the WWW, rather than just making some silicon faster or fancy schamcy "artifically intelligent" computer programs. The future is here, and it's pretty cool, as long as you don't get sued for using it
is in basic C++: A friend is somebody that has access to your private parts
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Dang.
Disclaimer: If you figure out how, please don't tell me or mention my name during the interrogation.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
If you use someones mobile number to call you and their phone is off or can't get a signal, their voicemail will call you and you will be instantly connected to their mailbox without the requirement of a password. Not sure how long this will last... i guess make sure you check/delete your voicemails quicly for the time being. ANYONE WHO KNOWS YOUR NUMBER CAN LISTEN TO THEM!
As far as I can see Jajah is Callback plus an application.
Such applications have been around for ages. There are already a number of companies around who offer web or wap based dialers.
None of them have taken off in a major way because it requires that the user utilizes a computer or some wap application (which again incurs costs).
In any case, a typical VoIP company should be able to make calls at half the price because they only need to cover the costs for one call-leg. Callback/Jajah requires two legs.
So JaJah cannot compete with straight VoIP.
The advantage of these callback applications versus straight callback is that the leg to the caller needs only to be established after the callee has picked up the phone.
However that advantage can only be realised when the user has a computer - and if he has a computer he might as well use VoIP.
So Jajahs potential customers are mainly those who sit at home, want to talk through a normal phone (not computer) and dont have a VoIP analog adapter.
Is there a business ?
Cheers
GeeJay
If someone forced a collect call on me with no more warning than "someone is connecting your call", I _might_ call free() or delete() on their private parts.
And this, kids, is why you should use getters and (if needed) setters instead of making an Orkut-inspired design where everyone is "friends" with everyone they ever heard of. If anyone needs your private parts, they can ask nicely and you can give it to them in a civilized manner.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
1. Made most of my former friends call me twice.
2. Listened to the rest of my former friends' personal voice-mails (because their phones were turned off when they "called me" so this is only fair, right?).
3. Gotten my parents talking to each other after so many years (although my Father wasn't best pleased that he had to pay for the call).
I know how to make your friend call you more. You fix their goddamn computer....
but I think there is a good chance that global phone traffic that is routed through Israeli servers or handled with Israeli software is monitored by the Mossad in some way.
HA HA HA! That's so funny on so many levels that I wish I had some mod points.
do old people get the joke.
I talk about stuff.
"Friends are just enemies who don't have the guts to kill you." Judy Tenuta
Jajah is actually quite a usefull service. Personally, my internet connection is too unstable for sustaining VoIP connections, and using jajah's VoIP infrastructure is as cheap as SkypeOUT, plus you get around 1000 minutes a week for free. The main difference is jajah is not mainstream yet, so there are some potential issues such as privacy, or dependability... Anyhow, dont knock it till you try it. Peace.
Firefox is advertising this product?
Maybe microsoft is evil in not sharing anything and not letting anyone attach stuff to there software but at least they dont put crap on their website or send you publicity about crappy software.
So much for "do no evil" i would change that to "Do nothing"
Friends love presents. Offer your prospective friend a fruitcake, or, even better, two!
????????? Fruitcake???
Call me more? I want them to care enough to call at all...
I have some "friends" that literally live about a block away. I have known these people over 10 years. I would go over to their house fairly regularly (in many cases, to help with some electronic work or other, in other cases, just to chat). One day I thought about it a little, and I wondered: Why am I always over at their house? Why am I helping them with things (one time I cleaned their kitchen for a party being held that night - the kitchen was nasty), but not getting anything back (a hello, how are you doing, that kind of thing)?
One year I even went out of my way to think what each of them might like for a Christmas gift (not expecting anything in return, mind you), and I went out and purchased these items. I took them over a couple of days before Christmas, and gave the gifts to them. A few thank-you's, some chatting, then I left. I never heard from any of them how they liked the gifts, what they thought, whether they even cared.
Another time I invited them to a party I was having at my house - this was after going to several of their parties, and helping out setting things up, and cleaning up afterward. Not a single one of them showed up, nor did any appologize or offer an explanation.
I was fed up, so I asked one of them: "You know where I live, you know my phone number, why don't you call?". I didn't get a good answer, just one excuse or another. So, I decided to do an experiment: I would no longer go over, call, or email any of them. I felt I had done my part as a friend for long enough, and I had done my best. If they cared at all, they would notice the absence.
So far, it has been over two years. I don't consider them "friends" any more than I consider my neighbors my "friends" (and these self-same neighbors have helped me and my wife out more than these other slobs I was actually friendly with!). These people that I know are nothing but lazy, good-for-nothing, narcissists who seem to care more about their insular world than they do about people who actually want to care for them.
Fuck them.
Currently I don't have any friends, and I am not sure I want to know people if this is the way they are going to treat me. I have my wife, my dog, my family, and most importantly, myself. Maybe it is best not to have any friends - they would only want you to fix things and borrow your tools...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I've been having a field day with this site.
Ever wondered what would happen if you had a bartenders cellphone call the bar phone ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I have been getting calls recently from a long distance number, when i answer the phone it is a spanish speaking voice recording.. it seems to be saying something about rates and calling (from the little espanol I understand).
Could they be using this service to rack up charges to their phone number much like the pervious oversees number scams (where they would call you and tell you to dial an 900 number claiming you won a prize) or is it just spanish speaking telemarketing spam?
I had been thinking about this a lot lately and then I saw this article... anyone else seen or experienced anything like this?
Check out http://www.dagruk.com/. They allow you to assign great pictures to people in your contact list. Your friends become instant comics because you'll be choking laughing when you see these people show on your phone when your friends call.