Vumber, Paltalk Marry Privacy-Protected Phone Calls to Video Chat

As we've noted before, adding video to voice communication greatly increases the power and attractiveness of Voice 2 services. OoVoo, for one, lets you call PSTN numbers from within Web-based video conferences. Now Vumber has tied up with interactive video site Paltalk. That service already offers standard, voice and video chats. And with the Vumber tie-up, it can offer the ultimate interactivity: talking on the phone.

Vumber is in the business of providing virtual phone numbers to protect privacy. You can give casual acquaintances your Vumber instead of your real phone number if you're not sure you want things to become more permanent. You can discard Vumbers and get new ones as many times as you like, in case you hit a string of bad luck relationship-wise. Most important, you can call those acquaintances without revealing your real number. The Vumber, not your permanent number, shows up as your outbound caller ID.

The deal illustrates yet again the natural fit between Voice 2 services and social networks. Voice 2 provides the kind of control that online networkers need. Like traditional Internet communications such as IM chat, it lets them decide not just who they communicate with but when and how. It also, though, lets them maintain that control when they're away from the Internet yet still want to talk. As such, the new tie-up represents yet another step towards the merger of Web and traditional communications.