In the history of this blog I don’t think I’ve ever published a press release — from anyone. Why make an exception now? Because this isn’t an ordinary press release.

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.