Private Phone is NO More

Well, my favorite free product is officially dead. In the book, and in real life, I use Private Phone by NetZero as a great example of protecting your identity and staving off weirdoes and stalkers. The concept was fantastic... you sign up for a free remote voicemail box, get a number in your desired area code, and you can give that number to anyone and everyone without worrying they'll figure out where you live. The number never rang anywhere, and wouldn't appear in directories. Your voicemails were emailed to you in .wav. Did I mention it was free? Well, apparently giving away a great service for nothing didn't work out for NetZero (hmmm... I wonder why).

So kids, no more Private Phone. It's going away as of Dec. 31, 2007. I haven't located another service that is totally free and offered the same level of features. There ARE disposable numbers out there, but they mostly last for a short period of time, then expire, making them ideal for classified ads, but not for inclusion in a MySpace page.

I tried Jangl, which lets you place a little widget on your profile. People enter their email address, then are given a special phone number and passcode to call you. They never see your real number. I found it too cumbersome and when I tested it out by entering one of my email addresses, it signed up that email address for service as well. Not cool.

OneBox.com is a business option that also offers faxes. It's not free, but at $12.95 a month, it won't break the bank either. The nice thing is you get a toll free number that people can call and when they leave a voicemail, you get a notification on any phone you specify (such as your cell). Or you can get the voicemails emailed to you. And you can send and receive faxes.

For all you VOIPers out there, check if your provider offers virtual numbers. Vonage allows subscribers to add a virtual phone number for an additional $4.99 a month. I love this idea because you can create that "giveaway" number, post it everywhere, give it to drunk guys at the bar. Your virtual number rings your main Vonage number and no one will be the wiser. If you want to get rid of it, just tell Vonage to cancel the virtual line and that's that. To keep your number concealed, be sure to employ *67 when you call back said drunk guys and stalker fans.

Post any other recommendations for a "concealable" phone number that you can use on your profile or Web page in comments. =)

New Orleans Loves MySpace for Musicians

LA and NY readers have emailed me to tell me they've seen the book prominently in Barnes and Noble stores. But it was great to receive a pic from a reader in Marrero, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. Thanks to Greg Hart for sending it in!