Anonymize Your Phone Number with Jangl

Today I got a sneak peek at a new online service, now in beta, from a company called Jangl. It's a little tricky to explain, so bear with me, but basically it does for your telephone number what webmail services like Yahoo! Mail do for email.

Jangl knows you don't want to give out your real phone number to ever Tom, Dick, and Harry on the planet. So Jangl lets you make a temporary phone number that you can give out to those who you're a little suspicious of. Unfortunately it's not a permanent number (at least not in the current version of the software); rather, potential callers have to go to the Jangl website, enter in your Jangl user ID, and then receive a number they can use to call you. This number changes from caller to caller, but it works both ways: Once two people have a number created, they can use it to call each other, but neither person ever gets the actual number for the other person. When one party doesn't want to get calls any more, they just login to Jangl and delete the number.

How would you use such a system? The more I think about it, the more possibilities come up. Obviously Jangl is designed for casual use: Give out your Jangl ID at a bar instead of a phone number, or use it when you sell that couch on Craigslist so you don't have to post your landline number on the Internet. But there are business implications here as well: Jangl actually makes for a great impromptu party line for two-person conference calls. Since both sides of the call get a local number to call, the service can make long distance free.

It's important to note that, right now, Jangl is not a way to get a single phone number that you can give out to everyone. However I talked to Jangl staff member Tim Johnson and he noted that interest level from users who want to simplify the process this way has been very high, and Jangl is currently evaluating whether and how to incorporate this feature into its service. (Also note that Jangl has trouble with corporate phone systems right now and presumably for other numbers it can't validate via Caller ID.)

Where might Jangl go beyond that? Well, the door seems to be open for all kinds of services: voice messaging, conference calling (with more than two parties), one-time-use numbers... who knows? How this will be paid for (short advertisements? subscriptions?) is also a mystery at present.

But now the bad news: Jangl is currently in closed beta, which means you can't use it until the beta opens up again. Stay tuned to this post and I'll let you know when it does! UPDATE: Jangl says to go ahead and sign up (per the form on the home page) now and that accounts will be created in batches. It may take a few days, but you'll be anony-calling shortly!