TECH CRUNCH – Feb 1 – Vumber lets you spawn a multitude of phone numbers to be used and discarded at your leisure. The service has been around for four years, but it was originally marketed exclusively toward people on dating sites. The use case is obvious: instead of handing out your real phone number to strangers, Vumber lets you spin up a new phone number, which you then redirect to your real phone. ~30-40% of the service still caters to online dating, but Vumber can be used for other things. Co-founder Cliff Wener says that some of Vumber’s biggest customers are advertising agencies that use it to assign different phone numbers to regional ad placements in print media, so that they can track the response rate. Vumber raised $2.5M in private capital before the company was acquired by video chat community Paltalk in November 2009 for an undisclosed sum. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Category: Vumber
Internet Dating 2.0
TIME — Jan 19 — HonestyOnline takes the lie out of online. "It's an extra layer of protection to determine if a guy is Jack the Ripper with three wives," said William Bollinger, EVP National Background Data, a database used by HonestyOnline. At iDate 2007, vendors demonstrate ways to meet, court, virtual date and even marry without ever leaving home. OmniDate can place you in a virtual restaurant with an animated date. On Mobilove, I scrolled through profiles and sent text messages. Already 500,000 Americans have posted their pictures and mini profiles on their cell phones, and users are growing by 20% every month, according to Mobilove VP Nils Knagenhjelm. Thanks to Vumber you can get many numbers with only one phone. If the person dialing one of the numbers turns out to be a less than desirable caller, poof! the number disappears with a few keystrokes. "You can vanish without a trace," said Geoff Schneider, Vumber's EVP. Plenty of Fish, with 400,000 hits a day, was created by Markus Frind, who still runs it out of his apartment. He figured out people essentially exaggerate on profile answers. He follows a more sensible creed: actions speak louder than words. For example, Susie says she wants a solid, stable man who earns $100,000-plus but keeps clicking on profiles of muscle-bound bad boys. Plenty of Fish makes sure she meets plenty of underemployed weightlifters, and some of the stable ones she ignores. "People don't even realize we do this. They just know they are getting results," said Frind. Chris Walker is experimenting with behavioral matchmaking. An early innovator, he started in the 1960s with punch card computer dating. After years of matching people, he now focuses on how people choose to spend their time. "The personal touch still blows away everything else out there," says Paul Falzone, CEO of The Right One and Together, an old-school matchmaking dating service.
The full article was originally published at Time, but is no longer available.
Internet Dating 2.0
TIME — Jan 19 — HonestyOnline takes the lie out of online. "It's an extra layer of protection to determine if a guy is Jack the Ripper with three wives," said William Bollinger, EVP National Background Data, a database used by HonestyOnline. At iDate 2007, vendors demonstrate ways to meet, court, virtual date and even marry without ever leaving home. OmniDate can place you in a virtual restaurant with an animated date. On Mobilove, I scrolled through profiles and sent text messages. Already 500,000 Americans have posted their pictures and mini profiles on their cell phones, and users are growing by 20% every month, according to Mobilove VP Nils Knagenhjelm. Thanks to Vumber you can get many numbers with only one phone. If the person dialing one of the numbers turns out to be a less than desirable caller, poof! the number disappears with a few keystrokes. "You can vanish without a trace," said Geoff Schneider, Vumber's EVP. Plenty of Fish, with 400,000 hits a day, was created by Markus Frind, who still runs it out of his apartment. He figured out people essentially exaggerate on profile answers. He follows a more sensible creed: actions speak louder than words. For example, Susie says she wants a solid, stable man who earns $100,000-plus but keeps clicking on profiles of muscle-bound bad boys. Plenty of Fish makes sure she meets plenty of underemployed weightlifters, and some of the stable ones she ignores. "People don't even realize we do this. They just know they are getting results," said Frind. Chris Walker is experimenting with behavioral matchmaking. An early innovator, he started in the 1960s with punch card computer dating. After years of matching people, he now focuses on how people choose to spend their time. "The personal touch still blows away everything else out there," says Paul Falzone, CEO of The Right One and Together, an old-school matchmaking dating service.
The full article was originally published at Time, but is no longer available.
Vumber President & CEO, Cliff Wener and Jodd Readick
OPW INTERVIEW — Nov 17, 2006 — Do singles really want to spend their evenings tapping on a keyboard in front of their computers or would they rather be talking on the phone or in front of each other, to see if they have chemistry? Match just launched matchTalk which is powered by Jangl. I’m advising a new service, Vumber, which is designed specifically for dating sites to help their customers connect by phone (any phone, any where), without divulging their real phone number. Here’s my interview with the President and CEO of Vumber, which is due for launch shortly – Mark Brooks
What are your backgrounds?
Jodd: I founded several telecom companies, common carriers for Hispanic and niche marketplaces, and have been a consultant on very large telecom projects for companies like Wells Fargo, CompuServe, and AT & T. I live both in the technical world and the marketing world.
Cliff: I founded and headed up the Computer Telephony Integration Lab for Williams Communications. We developed software applications that are used by many of the industry’s largest call centers.
What is a Vumber?
Cliff: A Vumber is an anonymous, disposable phone number that can be associated with any phone that you have. It could be your cell phone, your land line or even your fax! It’s completely anonymous and disposable. You can manage it via the internet or through the phone.
Who uses a Vumber?
Cliff: A Vumber can be used by any person needing to protect their identity. What makes our service unique is that not only can you receive calls on your new number but that you can call them from that same number. So, say if someone calls you on your Vumber;. You’ll actually receive the call at your number. But, you’ll also be able to dial out and show the on the caller-id display of whoever you’re calling. Vumber is a true, two way anonymous calling service. This is the only solution that works in both directions on any phone.
How does it work for internet dating companies?
Jodd: Email is somewhat anonymous but being able to talk to someone, in an anonymous fashion, is very important to people at the beginning of a dating relationship. A lot of people would like to be able to use their regular phone to talk with people they’re interested in dating. Especially women. Women, particularly, prefer to connect by phone to hear someone’s voice, before going on a date.
We expect to be able to use this as a driver for new revenues for internet dating services. The Vumber service offerings will be designed specifically for internet daters. We will partner with internet dating sites by offering them CPA based distribution or, if they prefer, their own white label offering. So, they’ll be able to brand the Vumber service as fully their own, and create member packages that will give their users their own unique Vumbers, under their own preferred brand.
So Vumber is essentially a throw-away number for singles?
Jodd: It can be a throw away number or you can keep it for a long period. It doesn’t have to be used just for dating. It can be used any time or any place when you would want a secondary number. It can be disposed of at will and you can have multiple numbers. You can also change those numbers if you wish. You may change how each call is treated in real time, so if you want all calls to go to voice mail or given a busy tone, you can do that too.
The major use is protecting identity and being secure. In the beginning of a relationship, singles shouldn’t give out personally identifying information like their home number or cell number. Once they’ve given out their number to someone it can lead to a lot of discomfort and insecurity if a person they’re interested in turns out later to be someone they’re actually not interested in at all. This can turn people off their whole internet dating experience.
Who’s your competition?
Cliff: We have not seen any company offer a similar product in which you can get an anonymous, two way, disposable number that works on any phone. Some companies offer complex anonymous scenarios that require either a special cell phone or the use of sign-in codes No-one offers a two way anonymous phone number like Vumber.
Tell me more about your patent..
Jodd: We filed a complex technology patent which covers the basis of the Vumber operation. We’ve been told after a significant amount of work that this is may be a landmark patent in the telephony arena and we feel quite comfortable that other people, while they may have various pieces of what we’re doing, won’t be able to offer a total solution for inbound and outbound calling and telephone number management.
What are your plans for 2006 and 2007?
Jodd: We’ll complete the Vumber system for Q4 and show it to selective potential partners. We’re currently talking to users and beginning beta trials. All the feedback so far has been very positive. We want to start to show it to selected companies and then partner with them to make it work for their specific needs and niches.
Match.com to Use Anonymous Voice Chat
CDT — Oct 31 — Online dating services may be convenient, but they're not the most personable way to meet a potential mate. What's been lacking, Match CEO Jim Safka believes, is a way for would-be couples to hear each other talk. Free for basic subscribers beginning Thursday, matchTalk will let users go online and signal if they're interested in speaking to each other anonymously, and securely, over their telephones. The system uses new computer-based phone technology that allows each person to call in to a central conference call of sorts, Safka said. The matchTalk system assigns the couple a unique number that they can use to talk to each other without fear of giving away their real telephone number or other personal details. Safka said such features are important to the future growth of Internet dating services. "Voice is really critical in determining whether you have chemistry with someone."
Mark Brooks: We'll see more online dating sites add voice connection services soon. I'm working with Vumber.com on a service designed for internet dating sites to offer voice connections and anonymous calling. A super simple, and higher converting service. Past services have been too complicated. I'm adding MatchTalk to my (CEO's eyes only) 45 point review of 17 other competing services (Grand Central, Jangl, Jajah, Useplane) right now. The most amusing service I came across recently was Getmooh.com.