In nearly three years on Twitter, rarely have I seen such widespread, rapid and uniform response to anything having to do with politics, security or terrorism. The complaints and jokes came on rapid fire this afternoon, filling my screen with everything TSA and terrorism. It was a slow Twitter day, but perhaps 10% of the tweets I saw over a few hours were on a single topic — that’s unprecedented.

After a failed terrorist attempt yesterday, the TSA has responded with the next escalation after their previous high-water mark of stupidity (no pun intended), the no-liquids rule. Now: no more electronics in flight, nothing in your lap, only one carry on, and no movement in the last hour of flight. Many of those I follow on Twitter are frequent travelers, most are highly intelligent. All who’ve commented seem pissed (and not just that they won’t be able to pee).

They know the real impact of what security expert Bruce Schneier calls Security Theater (if you don’t like that link to his blog, try this one to 60 Minutes, even if they haven’t read his latest reaction.

My first reaction was When I stop flying, it doesn’t mean the terrorists have won, it means the TSA has! Continue reading →

Great news for business models that monitize by charging users: new competition in the payments space is heating up.

The iPhone AppStore capitalizes on 75 million iTunes accounts attached to credit cards to make buying cheap apps frictionless for users. I still want to extend it to paying for web and desktop apps and add flexibility for content and subscriptions.

PayPal powers payments on EBay (where the payments are larger), but doesn’t have quite the same easy single-click power and hasn’t been widely applied to the application/content space. Others, such as Google Checkout have never reached critical mass.

Yesterday, Amazon.com launched its Flexible Payments Service (previously in limited beta), touting it as “the first payments service designed from the ground up for developers.” They clearly intend it to work for e-commerce, digital goods, donations and online services, including digital music and online storage, and provide for subscriptions and recurring payments. Customers pay using the same login credentials, shipping address and payment information they already have on file with Amazon. In other words, it looks like it could compete with both of the above.

Sounds like a great foundation for the service I want to create…

A friend of mine, Michael Blacksburg, represents defendant Christopher Norberg in a case where a chiropractor has sued over a negative review on Yelp. They’re in mediation today, trial in March if it doesn’t settle.

The case raises complex issues for everyone such as:

• where are the lines between fact and opinion
• how much should that legal distinction apply to consumer review sites?
• how should online review sites be structured to be fair to both sides?
• how should they handle negative comments?
• how should reviewer reputation and identity contribute?
• what about anonymous reviews?

The Chron has a good story (and an editorial), and I liked PC World’s review of the lawsuit and they had a lively discussion on NPR’s Forum this morning with an attorney from the EFF (who threw one hell of a great birthday party earlier this week).

How should businesses participate in the process and respond to negative comments online?

I’m in the camp that says the lawsuit does chiropractor Steven Biegel far more harm than good (no matter what the outcome). Everyone would be better off to handle these issues conversationally than legally.

I like the suggestion ‘from Sharemarketing’: Don’t sue your way out of a bad review on Yelp:

Suing is the exact wrong thing to do. Why not go onto Yelp and respond. Say something like this:

“I respect the opinion of Mr. Norberg, a client of mine from date to date. But I think his characterization of me is wrong. I’m honest and hard working, and I’ll work hard to solve the issue you have. Also, my rates are public and agreed upon before treatement. I’m not sure what specific disagreement Mr. Norberg had with me, but I wish he would have talked to me directly instead of using Yelp. Call me anytime, night or day and I’ll happily explain how my treatment works, and I’ll let you know the rates.”

UPDATE 2:36pm 9-Jan-09 Blackie texted to tell me that the case settled to the mutual satisfaction of both parties. (The issues raised, however, remain for all of us as we move forward online!) Elinor Mills at CNet provides great coverage of the settlement.