Jaxtr launches the public beta of the world’s first service that brings voice to social networks and blogs. The company also introduced a new VoiceBlastTM feature, which allows jaxtr users to record their own voice to automatically greet and update people who visit their profile or blog.

Everyone around the world can now sign up to receive a free jaxtr account that links their mobile or landline phones with their online network. By adding their jaxtr widget to their online profile or blog, users can hear from callers worldwide while keeping their existing phone numbers private. Jaxtr works with the world’s most popular social networks and communities, including MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Craigslist, eBay, LiveJournal, and Blogger.

Jaxtr’s recent milestones include the appointment of LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke as CEO as well as receiving funding from prominent angel investors and venture capitalists. The jaxtr investment was led by Mayfield Fund’s Chamath Palihapitiya, former VP/GM of AOL’s Instant Messenger division (AIM/ICQ) and David Ladd, former Octel CTO and early pioneer of voicemail. The funding also included:

• Howard Hartenbaum, general partner at Draper Richards, who led the founding investment in Skype
• Warren Packard, managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, investors in Skype, Baidu and HotMail
• Ken Howery, managing partner at The Founders Fund, investors in Facebook, Slide and Powerset
• Peter Kellner, managing director at Richmond Management, investor in Salesforce.com and Obopay
• Ron Conway, early investor in Google, Digg, Wikia, Plaxo and Snocap
• Rajeev Motwani, early investor in Google, Kaboodle, Zazzle and StumbleUpon
• Reid Hoffman, early investor in Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Last.fm, Technorati and SixApart

After a successful invitation-only private beta with thousands of users participating, anyone around the world can now sign up to receive a free jaxtr account by visiting www.jaxtr.com. Jaxtr is already in use by a wide variety of people in over 80 countries: college students, bloggers, real estate agents, lawyers, doctors, customer service agents, radio station hosts, religious groups and public service organizations.

The jaxtr service can be used with any mobile or landline phone. Jaxtr does not charge users for unlimited outbound international calls from their mobile phone and also provides users with unlimited voice mails. Australian businessman Russell Harrower likes jaxtr because “It removes all barriers of cost and inconvenience. Services like Skype made phone calls free, but at the price of inconvenience. Now with jaxtr, people around the world can call my mobile phone at local rates. They don’t even need to be near their computer to call me -- they just dial a local number from their phone. No downloads, no headset. That’s what I call VoIP 2.0.”

With the launch of the public beta, jaxtr is introducing a host of new features, including:

• VoiceBlast: lets users record their own voice to greet and update people who visit their profile or blog
• Voice and Text Messages: allows callers to send voice or text messages in addition to making phone calls
• Blog Widget: bloggers now have a widget specifically designed for adding into the sidebars of blogs
• Worldwide Support: jaxtr users can now receive calls from people in over 200 countries
• Local Numbers: adds thousands of direct-dial numbers in the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia

Jaxtr is easy to use. Jaxtr users simply place their jaxtr widget on their online profile or blog. By linking their phone to their online network, users can hear from callers worldwide while keeping their existing phone numbers private.

Jaxtr’s PrivacyShield enables users to control on a caller-by-caller basis whether a person can reach the jaxtr user directly or is only allowed to leave a voice mail. Jaxtr users can even block specific callers from leaving voice messages. They can also decide whether their home, work or mobile phone should ring when an approved person calls them. Additionally, jaxtr users get access to visual voicemail to manage voice messages just as they do with Web-based email accounts.

Callers can reach a jaxtr user without having a jaxtr account of their own. Once the first call is initiated, jaxtr provides the caller with a unique and permanent number, which can be used to phone the same person in the future, even when they’re not online or near their computer. Additionally, these calls can be made without incurring long distance charges on both domestic and international calls, including calls from a mobile phone.