Valleywag: jajah

Tech's worst workspace: Mozilla

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:20:00 PDT

What's so bad about Mozilla's Toronto workspace? Besides the fluorescent lighting, the colorless white walls and the folding tables, the worst thing about Mozilla's Toronto workspace is how we're sure management would improve it. With corporate graffiti, company logos and too many colors. That was management's trick at Facebook and look where readers ranked it in our poll on tech's ten worst workspaces — as tech's second-worst workspace, just after Mozilla. Check out the full list, below.

Rank tech's 10 worst workspaces

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:00:00 PDT

After reviewing our post "The 10 worst workspaces in tech," commenter AdmNaismith described Facebook's office, pictured above, as "foggy, dank, dim, and utterly depressing." Commenter mothra1 hated Yahoo's New York offices more: "They suck! Lifeless and impersonal. Kinda like the douchebags who still actually work there." Meanwhile, Adobe apologist BlairHapjo told us we "clearly didn't get past Adobe's lobby," and the rest of the office features "Aeron chairs, real offices (with doors!), big picture windows." For us, the worst offices we found on Office Snapshots and elsewhere were the the ones that try too hard to seem Internet-hip, like Jajah and Google. Now it's time to settle the disputes. Below, vote for your least favorite and help us rank tech's 10 most dismal places to work:

The 10 worst workspaces in tech

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:00:00 PDT

We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.

Yahoo hands the phone to Jajah

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:00:00 PDT

Mountain View-based Internet phone company Jajah will soon provide the technology, billing and customer care for phone features in Yahoo's instant-messaging service Yahoo Messenger, the AP reports. The deal is part of Yahoo management's cost-cutting plans to turn much of its feature development over to third parties. Yahoo Messenger has 97 million users, but Yahoo won't say how many actually use its Internet phone service — probably because the number isn't nearly as impressive.

If Facebook were an energy drink

Mary Jane Irwin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:00:38 PDT

Have you ever wanted to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit that generates multibillion-dollar valuations? Do you dream of becoming a Silicon Valley icon? Crave the street cred that lets you get away with wearing Adidas Adissage sandals to formal events, to nicely complement your suit? Well, sirs and madams, you can't. But wouldn't it be awesome if you could pretend to do all that while drinking sugar water laced with caffeine? Telephony company Jajah already has its own energy drink — as do celebrities as shameless as Steven Segal. Obviously there's a market that Web entrepreneurs aren't capitalizing on — and it's too bad for them we're beating them to it.

Facefuel — Monetize Your Thirst!!! Sipping a beverage without any returns? Grab hold of a Facefuel, the only way to add a Super Poke to your day. It's guaranteed to blur the line between your friends and enemies, and prep you for a day's worth of negotiations with heavy hitters like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. Mark Zuckerberg's secret formula — which for you busybodies is markedly different from ConnectU's recipe — boils down all those worthless applications into liquid hope, seasons them with remnant banner impressions, adds a few drops of Zuckerberg sandal sweat, and stirs in nine fragments of source code to create a refreshing beverage that is more than 100 percent compatible with the API of your thirst. With this kind of ecosystem, how can you afford not to Monetize Your Thirst?

Jajah adds to eBay's click-to-call nightmare

Jordan Golson — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:56:47 PDT

We'd hardly blame Meg Whitman if, after this week, she decided to hang up on the phone business altogether. On Monday eBay said they were taking a $1.4 billion charge related to their acquisition of VOIP startup Skype. On Tuesday, we noted that one of Whitman's major goals in buying Skype, bolstering its auction business in China, where rivals were using click-to-call features on their auctions to close sales, has turned into a complete failure. And then, yesterday, things somehow managed to get worse.

Skype competitor Jajah launched click-to-call buttons that connect potential buyers and eBay sellers, accomplishing an integration into the auction site that Skype hasn't. In response to this affront, eBay last night deleted all auctions with Jajah buttons on them. Reportedly, eBay and Jajah had reached some sort of tentative agreement giving Jajah users the go-ahead to put Jajah buttons on their auctions — but that deal is now clearly dead.

So where does that leave things? eBay screwed up so badly with Skype that some in the Valley say the botched acquisition could burst Facebook's ridiculous valuation bubble. Stifled by eBay's bureaucratic inertia, Skype let a rival beat it on its own home turf.

It's high time for eBay to sell Skype to someone who cares. eBay succeeded with PayPal because it was a natural fit with eBay's customers, both buyers and sellers. But now, the only thing that makes less sense than buying Skype for $2.6 billion is continuing to hang onto it. (Photo by Ryan Fanshaw Photography)