Jajah’s new @Call service brings phone calls to Twitter
By
Mihir Patkar |
Updated on 17-Sep-2009
A new beta service being launched by Jajah – a telecom service provider in the US – could soon allow users to call each other over Twitter.
“Twitter popularity demonstrates that people are looking for simple, short ways to connect globally. Now in beta, JAJAH’s new @Call service allows you to tweet your way to a call,” wrote Jajah’s Hadara in a blog post.
To initiate a call, you simply tweet a reply to the person you want to talk with and add the @call. For example, if you would like to call @username, tweet: “@call @username ”. Make sure there is a space between the two user names and that no additional text is added to your message. JAJAH will call you and your friend and connect the call.
Here’s a demo video for the same:
The @Call service is currently restricted only to US numbers and requires users to be eligible for the Beta. To check if you’re one of them, log in to your Jajah account. Under ‘My Services’ in ‘My Account’ page, you will see ‘Twitter Calls’. If this doesn’t appear, and you would like an invitation, send an email to twitter@jajah.com.
And the company has taken Twitter’s ‘short message’ policy to heart, imposing a 2-minute talk limit on the @Call service.
The most important feature, though, is privacy. “Users can keep their phone numbers private, yet be able to have voice chats with just about anyone on Twitter. To be sure, since the calls are initiated by one person, the recipient may well not be online, or may choose to ignore the call if they don’t want to talk,” CNET reports.
Mashable went on to throw a few funny ‘worst case scenarios’ into the mix: “We can just envision the uncomfortable greetings now. Hello, I’m so and so, and I follow you on Twitter, my Twitter name is XXXX. Do you want to go out on a date sometime? Or, say for instance, you’re in the middle of a sentence and reach the 2 minute limit and you’re both cut off from each other.”
In any case, it’s a cool technology to advance one of the most popular services on the Web.