Thanks for summarizing the problem so nicely, Phil. And a tip ‘o the hat too to Cory Doctorow, whose talk on the subject Phil credits as well.

Incidentally, Phil’s point that we don’t need new laws governing technology, we need to enforce existing laws about harmful behaviour, explains why Connect.Me created the Respect Trust Framework. It is the legal fabric of a “purposeful network” where the incentives are so strong not to violate the trust of others that we will not have the kinds of rights violations that SOPA and PIPA are trying, misguidedly, to address.

My experience with routinely dropped calls has been just as bad as anyone else’s, so ever since Verizon got the iPhone I was convinced I’d switch when I upgraded (the rest of my family has been on Verizon for years).

But in the end, my grandfathered data plan plus the convenience of being able to use voice and data at the same time plus the investment AT&T is making in 4G made me decide to stick it out another 2 years.

So I really, really wanted to believe AT&T is at last getting its act together.

And then I receive this post-sale email from AT&T with the subject line Let’s Talk about your new iPhone. In the body they offered links to a host of helpful tools:

Thinking it would be wise to watch a tutorial (just to see if there’s anything else I should know about my new 4S that my 16-year-old son — or the wonderful Siri — hasn’t already showed me), I clicked the first link.

The result was not the iPhone tutorial I expected, but a generic web page titled Cell Phone and Interactive Device Tutorials. I think to myself, “That’s dumb – why not just link directly to the iPhone tutorial like the link said?” But what the hell, maybe AT&T’s websites are so poorly designed that they didn’t allow internal linking. So I dutifully clicked the Manufacturer drop down to choose Apple, and…

…WTF??? NO APPLE!!!!!!!

Poof. There went the tiny puff of faith I had left in the AT&T turnaround.

I mean, COME ON, AT&T, DO YOU HONESTLY EMPLOY NO PROOFREADERS FOR AN EMAIL YOU SEND TO ALL NEW IPHONE CUSTOMERS WITH A LINK TO AN IPHONE TUTORIAL THAT DOESN’T EXIST???

Please tell me what happened here. I invite anyone from AT&T to reply as a comment to this post so I and anyone else reading this will have some clue what’s going on with you.

Sincerely,

– A Customer Who Really Wants to Believe He Didn’t Just Throw Away 2 More Years of Service

It’s a must-read for any founder who wonders what it’s really going to be like running a startup.

It’s a wild ride. Bring your zeal.

I first met Dan Marovitz when we were speakers together in the Innotribe track at Sibos, the worldwide banking conference, in Toronto in September. Dan gave a talk on the essence of money that was an immediate hit — it instantly became known as the “mackerel talk”.

The next day was the first time he’d seen a demo of Connect.Me, and he could not wait to dive into it with me. The reason was he saw a perfect fit with buzzumi, his new Internet video/audio/text chat service that — get this — requires NO client and NO signup.

That’s right. Free video/audio/text chat from any modern browser – all it requires is a link.

And his business model is equally clean: the host of any buzzumi session can charge, by the session or by the minute, and for paid sessions, buzzumi gets a 10% fee.

It’s knowledge commerce, stripped down to its essence: pure pay-per-thought.

Which is why there’s such an obvious fit with Connect.Me: helping people know the reputation in advance of who they want to buzzumi with, whether free or paid.

What’s really cool is what he’s announcing today: a Twitter bot that lets you start a buzzumi session with as many attendees as you can fit Twitter names in a tweet (right now buzzumi can do video chat for up to 6 people).

Details of the buzzumibot are in the release below, which is why I’m passing it on wholesale rather than retyping it. But the bottom line is: buzzumi rocks — I’ve used it a half dozen times now and it’s as addictive as Skype but less hassle and more flexible.

Go Dan! Let’s make this knowledge commerce thing happen!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London, England December 6, 2011

buzzumi announces the ability for Twitter users to launch real-time video, audio, and text chat with their friends and followers, straight from Twitter.

This innovation has been created by buzzumi.com, the recently launched London-based video chat and webinar start-up. Entering a public beta in November this year, buzzumi.com offers users extremely light-weight yet powerful video chat rooms and large-scale webinars. The company was founded by Daniel Marovitz, a former senior executive of Deutsche Bank in London, and previously, iVillage.com in New York.  The company is about to close its first outside round of funding. buzzumi can be used for debates, chats, interviews, or webinars.  Hosts can start a chat for free or decide to charge for a session or a webinar using the integrated payments capability. If users decide to charge for a webinar or online consultation, buzzumi takes a 10% commission on the ticket price.

How it works: Twitter users simply send a public tweet to @buzzumibot, and include the Twitter handles of the individuals with whom they would like to chat in the tweet. @buzzumibot will immediately respond with a link to an instantly created video chat room. No additional log-ins or sign-ups are required. The users can get chatting with audio, video, and lightning-fast text in seconds, all in a platform and browser-agnostic chat room.

“The functionality to launch a video chat directly from Twitter is significant, as buzzumi allows users to extend Twitter discussions and debates into a more interactive environment, while staying in the “Twitterverse,” says CEO, Marovitz. buzzumi brings a whole new world to Twitter, allowing a range of highly interactive discussions that were never possible in the text-only service.

The buzzumi chat technology is 100% browser-based and requires no additional software downloads or installations.  The Twitter video chat platform is a direct result of buzzumi’s commitment to making online video chat easier, hassle-free and quicker to set-up than ever before. Frictionless communication.

To find out more about buzzumi, please visit buzzumi.com. For press enquiries please send an email to info@buzzumi.com.

Which is what makes the Connect.Me private beta so interesting and exciting.

When we opened it up the first small group of users on our beta signup list a month ago today, we could hardly wait to see how they would proceed with real social vouching across their real social networks. At first it started slowly, with lots of hand-holding, but then after about 10 days something kicked in, and last weekend we passed 100,000 vouches. Some users (particularly those active on social media) have made hundreds of vouches. As just one example, UC Davis microbiology professor Jonathan Eisen has vouched for 172 people and received 42 vouches.

As you might expect, some people receiving notifications of those vouches on LinkedIn or Facebook assumed it was a new type of social spam. After all, who on the social web has not experienced a site or app trying to trick you into automatically inviting all your friends?

It’s like every user has to be constantly asking every site: “Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch?”

To make matters worse, the first week we had a few bugs in the notification system, and the UI controls over notification were not clear enough. To users who tripped on those bugs, we must certainly have looked like a bad witch.

But as we fixed those issues, we started seeing the magic that happens when those same users begin looking under the hood to find out what’s really going on with this new network. They visit our trust page, take a glance at the Respect Trust Framework, and start understanding how the game dynamic of the network builds escalating levels of trust. Suddenly a lightbulb goes on. “Hey, this is different. Nobody’s trying to steal my data here. In fact they are actually trying to help me protect it.”

Bingo. We’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re on the other side of the rainbow of user-generated trust. And while no one’s promising a yellow brick road to the land of Oz, this is going to be one helluva journey.

If you’re intrigued and can’t wait for your beta invite, see this article on the Connect.Me blog. You can also watch this video interview Buzzumi CEO Dan Marovitz did with me yesterday. To learn more about the next features coming in the Connect.Me private beta, see this new blog post by CEO Joe Johnston.

And if you’re really passionate about user-generated trust, we invite you to contact us about becoming a Founding Trust Anchor. Instructions are in this short paper on the Connect.Me blog.

1. Watch Dan’s 5 minute video introducing Hypothes.is (at the top of the Kickstarter project page).
2. Give whatever you can – even $5 – to the project.

It’s this simple: Hypothes.is stands to do for annotations across the Web what Wikipedia did for a global community-managed encyclopedia.

It won’t be easy, but with the team Dan’s assembled, it can be done, and the results can be as transformative as Wikipedia.

Please help get it started by making a contribution to meet the Kickstarter goal. Don’t delay – there are only 6 days left.

The first is a passionate rave for Crazy, Stupid, Love. I saw it with my wife in August but still laugh just thinking about it. And cry. In a word, it’s the best romantic comedy in at least a decade. It’s as funny, if not funnier, than Little Miss Sunshine. But it’s also heartwarming in a way that does that overused term proud. Most of all, it is so brilliantly written, directed, and acted by every single cast member that you leave the theatre just tingling with joy.

I saw one review in the New York Times that said Crazy, Stupid, Love proves they still know how to make romantic comedies. Wrong. This one proves they know how to make them even better.

P.S. Don’t waste the chance — see it with your sweetie.

I expect this will be a major topic at Internet Identity Workshop next week – I plan to be all over it.

From the Apple website, 2011-10-05