So, you’re one of the 1.7 million people who went out and got that brand new iPhone right off the line, but you still don’t have any friends to try out Apple’s much lauded video chat with? Never mind the company’s Facetime introduction service , which lets you call up and Apple representative, try the app out and find out about all of its features – the video sex chat services are already on the way. While Apple may be able to control the App Store and maintain its “moral responsibility” , it looks like porn has found another avenue onto the iPhone and may, yet again, lead the way for other services. Sponsor According to the article in the Silicon Valley Insider , there’s already an ad on Craigslist for “iPhone 4 FaceTime Video Sex Line Chat” that offers a salary and a free iPhone 4 to potential employees. Starting an online interactive pornography firm where woman will use the iphone 4 to video chat with potential customers on a pay as you go basis. Hours are flexible, pay will increase as the business builds. Woman will receive a free iphone 4 to use as personal time when not working. Woman will talk to potential clients and chat with them and perform various acts as desired by clients. All information will be confidential. Payment will be based on percentage of sales volume and performance. Potential launch date of the company is 9/1/2010 or based on feedback received. Woman will receive, as before mentioned, a free cell phone and a very competitive salary. Please send information and pictures – we would like to launch sooner than 9/1/2010. It’s often the case that porn leads the way in technology and we can only wonder what other innovative services using mobile video chat will follow. The utilitarian opportunities are endless, from remote diagnosis of automotive issues to assistance with assembling that pesky Ikea desk. Perhaps video chat will offer a more personalized customer service for special cases by taking advantage of the extra “bandwidth” of being able to see someone when we speak to them. Having done DSL tech support for a while, I could tell you that being able to see what someone on the other end of the line was trying to describe could have turned an hour long ordeal into a five minute chat. And when it comes to sending someone out into the field, why waste the gas when you can look from afar? Whatever other innovative uses we see next of , it sure the iPhone’s two-way, face-to-face video chat, it doesn’t seem like this particular use of FaceTime will see a lot of, well, “face” time. Discuss

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Services like Foursquare , Gowalla and others make it easy to post your physical location to the web – but what makes people want to do that at all? Fifteen-month old Foursquare is adding 100,000 new users every week and Facebook has made it clear that location is a feature it is preparing to offer soon . What’s the motivation for users to register online where in the off-line world they are? We asked some users of these services and found that they had varied and interesting answers. Sponsor Service May Vary Of course location services vary widely in nature. Nick Bicanic’s startup EchoEcho , for example, is a very discrete service for letting one friend know where you are at a time, emphasizing extreme ease of use. OK Magazine’s new celebrity stalking location app might represent the other end of the spectrum. Most people who shared their experiences with us were using one of the big social location apps: Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Latitude or BrightKite. Real world businesses are starting to make interesting use of these services (here’s one list of twenty one different examples ). The types of places users check in to are somewhat diverse, too. Though the stereotype of Foursquare users as youthful bar-hoppers is largely confirmed by the numbers. According to a data visualization by the independent group BitsyBot Labs , bar check-ins on the service beat out check-ins at places of education and parks almost all last week. Bars were about equal with the arts and entertainment category. Food and shopping reign supreme, but on most days travel tops drinking, too. Those numbers tell you something about aggregate activities, but why do individuals participate in this in the first place? It’s emotional – and it’s different for different people. Will location apps become far more popular once mobile coupons become ubiquitous and people can save money by using such services? Maybe, but there are clearly other types of incentives already available. Serendipity and Connection San Francisco entrepreneur Pat Diven uses location based social networks for probably the best-known reason, and in the types of circumstances you might expect. He’s checked in on Foursquare more than four hundred times, including at the bloggers’ event WordCamp, more than three times at an Apple store and at more than twenty different pizza places. His Plancast account, where he records not where he is – but where he will be – indicates that he’s the kind of guy who likes both big tech conferences and things like camping in Big Sur or beer and music parties in the countryside. “I use location for chance meetups with people I know in the city,” he said last Friday afternoon, via a Twitter client on his phone. “It’s worked a few times.” Diven also raised a common concern, articulated as a sophisticated social network user might: “Hoping for more granular control soon!” He’s a good example of an active person, who both exposes a lot of their activity publicly and has entirely private accounts on other services. Diven exposes enough, though, that I was able to see a lot of information about what he likes to do just by looking around online – I didn’t speak to him for this article beyond trading a single Tweet. He’s been doing this for long enough (his Twitter account is more than three years old) that he’s sure to have decided that a certain amount of public exposure was worth it to him. Cambridge-based experimental tech CEO Shava Nerad is on the other side of the country and has a different take on the use of location apps to connect with other people. She says for her it’s simple. “I have friends who work in coffee shops and we like to spontaneously clump to co-work,” she said by iPhone early Saturday evening. “The rest doesn’t matter to me.” Nerad’s public Foursquare history is much tamer than many peoples’ – though she did once win a badge for checking in after 3am on a week night, so apparently it’s not all about working. Portland, Oregon consultant Mike M. says he uses location services to track people more than to meet them. His son works in Emergency Medical Services and he keeps an eye on him using Google’s service Latitude , “hoping he stays safe.” (I called him Mr. M. just because I don’t want to see his kid get in trouble.) Location apps for tracking people around medical matters? That kind of thing makes many people take pause. Some of the same types of tracking technology is being incorporated into medicine and is in many cases causing a substantial reconsideration of patient privacy. In the consumer world, it’s different. I showed my dental hygienist last week who else was checked in to the dentist’s office on Foursquare at the same time I was and her first reaction was concern about HIPPA. She decided that no one could stop the patients themselves from exposing their own location, she just couldn’t confirm to me whether or not she actually knew who those people were. Much more straight-forward, in the people connection department, was my wife’s comment left on Facebook last week when she got home and I was gone. I had checked in to a coffee shop, pushed the update from Foursquare to Facebook and she commented “there you are! I was wondering where you went.” Be it for chance or as an exercise in caution, the uses of location services for tracking other people are just beginning to become clear. For the Win Many of the popular location based social networks present themselves as games. They give points to users for going to new or multiple places, then tally the points up against the user’s friends. Does that really motivate people to check in? Does it motivate people to go more or different places? Apparently, it does. New York City author, social media consultant and mom Tamar Weinberg says “people disagree with the concept of badges, but I think it’s fun to chase after new opportunity & status.” Hutch Carpenter, almost Weinberg’s exact opposite as an enterprise engineering platform executive in San Francisco, and a dad, says he sees it that way too. “I second that,” he said of Weinberg’s explanation. That ethos of location-based public achievement may go trans-generational, too. Carpenter checked in on Foursquare at Toy Story 3 this Saturday, said it was his six year old son’s first trip to a movie theatre, and pushed the update to Twitter . This game play isn’t necessarily about narcissism. Virginia-based developer Alex Stone , who says he’s made several friends because of Foursquare, says of competing service Gowalla that “[its] quest for items and trip pins has led me to discover some really cool spots in my own small town.” As a Personal History The thing that surprised me most when I asked people why they use location based social networks is how many of them say they use it primarily for their own tracking of their personal history. It’s a lazy diary, people say. I thought, naively, that I was the only one who felt that way. Some people say they use it to help with their expense tracking on business travels. Buffalo, NY web developer Adrian Roselli told me Friday that he started using BrightKite “so I could post photos in real-time while traveling and associating each with locations on maps.” He says he publishes the RSS feed of his check-in history to a map he can view later, to trace his route. That’s really geeky, but according to his check-ins Roselli spent Friday night having desert with a woman and Saturday morning on a charity bike ride. So apparently – you can push a check-in feed to a map and still maintain some connection to the kinds of things that normal people do. Several people told me they are doing technical things like that with their check-in histories, for self-awareness. When I went to New York with my wife earlier this month, she grew very tired of me pulling out my phone to check-in everywhere we went. But once we got home she admitted it was nice to be able to scroll back through the updates to Facebook I published and remember all the places we had been. Or, as Palo Alto’s Spencer Schoeben told me this week-end, “I love looking back at my check-in history and remembering the awesome things I’ve done.” Schoeben is a 16-year old founder of one startup company and CEO of another, so he’s recording a busy young man’s history with those check ins. Schoeben has reason to be proud of his accomplishments – and maybe we all do. The one rational for checking in that no one I talked to claimed for themselves – but that one very perceptive person quietly told me was probably more common than not – was showing off. “To non-explicitly brag about your coolness and/or importance, based on where you eat, drink, work, and travel.” That makes sense to me. Heck, I’ll own it myself, to some degree. Did I feel a little cool when I checked in at Manhattan’s underground ping pong venue and bar called SpinNY and wrote “Crazy place, ping pong balls flying everywhere, hitting me while I drink beer and blog.” Yeah, I did. Was I aware of what I was doing the next weekend when I checked in to two Mid Century Modern furniture stores in a row? Yes, throw me to the type of piranhas that eat people like me! I was aware of what I was doing. There are clearly many different reasons people use location based social networks. Many of us use them for several different reasons ourselves, at different times. There are of course other sides of the story, ranging from the very serious to the somewhat serious – Dan Tynan wrote this weekend at IT World about why you should consider not participating in these kinds of services. Tynan writes a blog called Thank You For Not Sharing , which says it includes “a fair amount of whining.” (It’s really quite funny.) Presuming you’re fully informed (though that’s another matter) then whether these services are for you comes down largely to your circumstances and your attitude. They aren’t for everyone. But they are a good experience for some people, as the stories above illustrate. If you’ve ever wondered why on earth someone would use a service like this – that’s why. Discuss

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Entrepreneurs gearing up for their first meeting with potential investors are sure to have a million different things on their mind that are stressing them out. Is the pitch the right length? Is it filled with jargon or ridiculous assumptions? Is the font on the slides the right size? But there is one other that’s often overlooked: Am I dressed appropriately? Sponsor This post is brought to you by Gillette. When you pitch a venture capitalist, you aren’t so much selling your product as you are selling yourself, your team and you business plan. There are thousands of variables that can influence the way VCs respond to your pitch, and dressing appropriately – while completely unrelated to your product, team or business – will have a subconscious effect on their opinions. Don’t Distract the VCs The point of dressing appropriately is to not only convey that you have the wherewithal to make the simplest of decisions, but also to keep the VCs focused on what’s important – your product and your business. If there is any question in what you’ve decided to wear to a pitch, this will ultimately distract the VCs, preventing them from being sold on your idea. New York VC Steve Brotman, co-founder of Greenhill SAVP , gave The Wall Street Journal an example of very distracting clothing worn by an entrepreneur pitching him an Internet startup during the dot-com era. According to his story, a woman dressed in a strange green outfit entered his office unannounced and offered up a business plan. “You lost me at hello,” Brotman told her. The woman was selling a product with “avocado” in the name, and was attempting to dress like an avocado. “I’m not about to do a deal with a lady dressed like an avocado,” said Brotman. The lesson here? Don’t let your product influence how you dress; VCs don’t enjoy gimmicks. Safe Bet: Business Casual A general rule of thumb for appropriate dress when speaking with VCs seems to be “business casual.” Here’s a sample outfit that fits this profile, starting from the ground up: black dress shoes or boots (no sneakers, flip-flops or Crocs), a nice pair or jeans or dress slacks (no rips, darker shades work better, in my opinion), solid color t-shirt or polo (collared shirt with no tie could work also), and a black casual sport coat. Plus or Minus 20% While your appearance should not be distracting or influenced by gimmicky product promotion, if done right you can use it to your advantage. Boulder’s Andrew Hyde of TechStars suggests entrepreneurs use the “20% rule” when deciding what to wear. “You want to look 20% better or worse than your actual position,” he says. “The key is to either look good enough to make them think you’re trendy, or bad enough to make them think you’re hungry.” I would recommend going the safe route, but more confident entrepreneurs could use this tactic to their advantage. Hyde, who also co-founded a clothing line of humorous T-shirts for venture capitalists , says whatever you do, “Don’t wear a blue shirt, or they will think you are mocking them.” Unsure? Just Ask But what does a seasoned venture capitalist think after being pitched hundreds, if not thousands of times? Silicon Valley investor Guy Kawasaki says deciding what to wear can vary from company to company, and investor to investor. While his advice is geared toward interviewing at a startup, it still applies to VCs as well. “A good rule of thumb is to dress one level above the company norm: for example, for a T-shirt-style company, wear a collared polo shirt,” he says. “If in doubt, ask what’s appropriate for the interview.” This is probably the best advice on the issue. Ask. Try finding other entrepreneurs who have pitched your potential investors first before you ask the actual VCs you are pitching about what to wear – it could convey a lack of experience. Or it could convey an attention to detail and maturity. What About Women? Ah yes, women. Seeing as I am a male, I focused this article on the male entrepreneurs out there (who are statistically more common than women, at least in Internet startups). I don’t want to leave women out completely, however, so I will offer this bit advice to the female entrepreneurs out there. It’s actually quite similar to the rules of thumb for men – business casual, don’t over think it, and don’t be distracting. What determines “business casual” and “distracting” are different for women than for men, but I defer to our female readers to provide some helpful examples in the comments below! Be Smart The truth is, there is no right answer to the question of what to wear when pitching VCs. Each situation is different, and different VCs care more or less than others about how entrepreneurs look. The best practice is not to over think it, and just rely on what is most likely to work – business casual. No suits, no ties, no problem. Most VCs are pretty laid back, at least in traditional startup cities like San Francisco, New York and Boulder. If you fail to spend your time working out the more important aspects of your pitch, what you wear will be the least of the VCs’ worries. Discuss

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Beware, all you out there in the Twitterverse – it looks like a new vulnerability has hit the troubled microblogging site and this time it has nothing to do with a man howling “Goooooaaaaaaaal!” or a vuvuzela. Information security blog Praetorian Prefect has dug deep into what looks like a new persistent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Twitter that could have spelled even more trouble for the site if it didn’t get taken care of soon. Sponsor The hack was originally pointed out by an Indonesian Twitter user who created the account 0wn3d_5ys to show off the hole. We won’t link the account here, because while it appears to be a benign demonstration of the vulnerability, it has the potential to inject malicious code. As opposed to the most recent Twitter scam, where users spread a phishing scam by clicking on a link sent in a Direct Message that said “Is this you?”, an XSS attack requires no action on the user’s part and could be entirely self-propagating. This particular hack takes advantage of a vulnerability in the Application Registration page, where a shortened link referring to a JavaScript snippet can be inserted, allowing the hack to occur. According to the article at Praetorian Prefect, the vulnerability has been public knowledge for days and Twitter has already been notified. At the moment, the hack still appears to be fully functional. Twitter said that they “are aware of the issue, have fixed it for new applications and are working to fix it for all applications.” Luckily, this seems to be another case where a security hole was found, reported, and fixed before any havoc could be wrecked across the Internet. Discuss

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The music and movie industries have been on a quest to place blame ever since they realized they were losing sales to Internet piracy. The RIAA in the United States went as far as to sue and fine individual users for downloading songs on peer-to-peer services like Napster and Limewire , or websites like The Pirate Bay or SendSpace . Others went after the services themselves, and in most cases were successful, though many others still exist. Now, BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) , the U.K.’s version of the RIAA, is going after the middle man, Google , by serving the search giant with a DMCA take-down notice. Sponsor “We have identified the following links that are available via Google’s search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members.” – BPI’s DMCA Notice Essentially, BPI is serving Google because it provides links to sites like MegaUpload, Zippyshare and Hotfile – all places where copyrighted content can allegedly be downloaded for free. A quote from the official DMCA notice courtesy of the site Chilling Effects spells out BPI’s complaint. “Part of our work involves monitoring the internet and taking action against persons that use, facilitate, enable and/or authorise the use of material in a manner that infringes the rights of the members of BPI and [Phonographic Performance Limited]. We have identified the following links that are available via Google’s search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members,” the notice says. The BPI identified 38 links to 17 songs that they found from Google links to various file sharing services, including works from Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Michael Bublee, Usher, Ke$ha and the cast of Glee to name a few. They even went as far as to identify the 38 various search terms that could lead one to find these files, including phrases like “lady gaga alejandro zippyshare,” and “the pretty reckless make me wanna die free download.” Google has been quick to remove copyrighted material from services like YouTube where it hosts the content, but it has not been so quick to remove infringing sites entirely from its search index. Google has, however, removed the 38 requested links at the behest of BPI, but many other file sharing site links remain among the results. In the image above, the third page of results for “dizzee rascal dirtee disco” shows Google’s notice that the requested results have been removed. This, of course, is displayed directly below results where the song can be found at other sites. In section 4 of the DMCA notice, BPI lists 9 different sites that contain these copyrighted files. BPI should have sent 9 different DMCA notices to these sites, not to Google. For better or for worse, Google has become a launch pad from which many people surf the Web. We learned this the hard (and amusing) way earlier this year when a story of ours displaced the typical top result for “Facebook login” on Google, sending wayward Web surfers to our article . When Googling something is the equivalent of entering the URL in an address bar for many people, you can’t place the blame for illegal content on Google. If BPI wants to sue someone over illegal access to music, it should be the sites providing that service, not those simply linking to it. Discuss

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