What is happening when businesses send you an e-mail on a Saturday to tell you they are going out of business? This Saturday, it happened to us twice. Should they be enjoying the weekend and leave reality for weekdays?
First, we received a notice from Jajah, a telephone service we have been using for years. They are shutting down operations as of January 31, 2014. If we had a cash credit, we had to request it be refunded. The service was great, but my guess is that Skype did them in. The concept was similar, but the execution was different.
You signed up for free with Jajah, but there was nothing to download or install on your computer. You registered your phone number or numbers.
When you wanted to call someone you signed into your Jajah account and placed your call for very inexpensive rates to anywhere in the world. The funds were deducted from your credit that you added with a credit card. It was on a 'when you chose' time frame and not automatically recharging your account, though you could opt for that too.
There were no monthly fees or service charges. If your calling recipient also had Jajah, the call was free. Besides not having any software on the computer, you were not tethered to one either. With Jajah, when you called someone, your telephone would ring. You would then hear "Please wait while Jajah completes your call." This gave full mobility if you were on a cordless phone, something Ron loved. He calls his family on a regular basis. It is going to be difficult getting him to sit still with a headphone on while using Skype.
The same day, I received another e-mail from NeoWorkx informing me that the individual who ran the company was calling it quits. He confessed that with so many free services, his business was shrinking to the point of not being able to pay the server fees any longer. The service NeoWorkx provided was a graphic site meter for our bed and breakfast website. Each time we had a visitor, it would show in a scroll bar on our website with the national flag based on their IP address. In addition, I would receive an e-mail with the city and country from which it came. This was a nice additional visual to show others of the popularity and where the visitors were coming from.
Two services that I will miss. Sorry to see them go!
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