Jajah, one of the many callback service providers, is slowly trying to transform itself into a voice platform, offering others the ability to use its network and back-end billing and fulfillment infrastructure. It struck up a partnership with Jangl back in November 2007. This managed services focus seems to have gotten a big boost, thanks to a deal with Yahoo. Yahoo and Jajah share a common investor: Sequoia Capital.

Jajah co-founder Daniel Mattes tells our friend Alec Saunders that Yahoo will outsource voice services for their 97 million Yahoo IM users to Jajah. Mattes says it now has 10 million users, about 8 million of them joining Jajah over the past 12 months. I guess if you include widget users and people using services on other networks, the 8 million additional Jajah users starts to make sense.

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Mobile VoIP is going to become a major force over the next five years, rapidly outpacing voice over Wi-Fi, according to a recently released report by research firm Disruptive Analysis. The report predicts that the number of VoIP over 3G users will top 250 million by the end of 2012 — from virtually zero in 2007. The caveat, of course, is if carriers allow it. If T-Mobile’s recent fracas with Truphone is any indication, the carriers are worried about VoIP over 3G.

* mig33, a mobile communications service provider, is adding over 20,000 users a day and now has eight million subscribers. The company is adding new features and slowly becoming a mobile social network. And as they get their makeover, Jajah is adding a new service that reminds me of the old mig33, Rebtel and Talkplus.

* Jajah’s new service, called Jajah Direct, will allow you to make international calls for free or at local rates. Go to the their Local Access Number web site, enter the international number you want to call and get connected. After your first call, you will receive a unique local number for each of your contacts that you can store in your phone or address book for future dialing.

Jajah’s Frederik Hermann just emailed and said that “you never have to be online to sign up for JAJAH Direct, you can sign up over the phone and manage your account from there. We will give out the local access number to our premier target groups, immigrants and expats on a flyer and they can go from there, no Internet access needed.”

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Back in 2006 a whole crop of VoIP app companies cropped up, each one trying to figure out how they can make a business out of voice, including in-fashion, if pointless forays such as embeddable widgets for social networks. One had to look really hard to find any difference. Their record so far is no different than that of baseball team, Tampa Bay Rays.Things are no different for those who are chasing Facebook elixir.

At least two of the companies are coming to their senses, and teaming up to focus on what they are good at: Jajah on its telephony platform and Jangl on social apps. As part of the deal, Jangl will start using Jajah’s telephony infrastructure, long distance and click-to-call features. Jangl, on the other hand will focus on developing social apps using voice, including some new services for its customers in the online dating business.

“We were going to build a click-to-call service, but since they already have that, and a billing infrastructure, it makes sense to partner with them,” said Michael Cerda, CEO of Jangl. He was candid and admitted that focusing “on stuff that a company is not good at can prove to be distracting and counterproductive.”

Related Posts:

* Will dirty talk boost VoIP apps.
* Jangl Coverage
* Jajah Coverage

Disclosure: Jangl is an advertiser on The GigaOM Show.

Jajah, the VoIP callback service provider that shifted from paid to “free” and was dreaming of an initial public offering in 2007, has pushed back its IPO plans until the second or third quarter of 2008, co-founder Roman Scharf told Reuters. The timing seems about right — the way everyone is going nuts here in the Valley, profitless IPOs could make a solid return by the middle of next year. (Too bad eBay already made its play with Skype.) Scharf said that it would take between $100 million and $200 million to attract 50 to 80 million Jajah users. “When something crashes in the Valley, it crashes really hard,” he said. Yeah, like the dreams of an IPO. Jajah has received funding from Sequoia Capital, Intel Capital and Globespan Partners.