Just six weeks ago a I read about Chatroulette, the new site that asks you to turn on your web cam then presents  you at random to folks all over the world who have turned on their web cams too. You can choose to chat, or not.  A diabolically simple idea. And it has taken off like wildfire:

The genre makes Youtube feel absolutely ossified. It is completely spontaneous and giddy because the next person could be interesting, or not.

I am sure it was more exciting a few weeks ago when relatively sane curiosity seekers were the majority there. Today, unfortunately, Chatroulette is over populated with guys doing in front of their webcam what they would be arrested for if they did the same thing in the park down the street. Chatroulette is an assault on the senses: it gets pretty awful, pretty fast.

Just the same the genre is compelling and I braved the assault to find a couple of interesting people to chat with. The massive uptick in traffic is unprecedented for one site. But the phenomena is not dissimilar to that of chat rooms in the 90s. Compelling, intriguing, they too, were quickly overrun by pervs. Still the concept of a chat room persisted and when corralled into topic areas and policed by moderators and users alike the pervs found other haunts on the web. I believe that this genre will follow the same path. It is just too giddy not to.

YELLLLLP! BusinessWeek is reporting a law suit against Yelp that demonstrates just how nasty the terrain has become for small businesses on the Web:

Yelp routinely highlights negative customer reviews unless business owners agree to advertise on Yelp.

“Lady Justice needs a lawsuit filter,” writes Yelp Co-founder Jeremy Stoppleman. PUHLEASE. The arrogance! Yo, Stoppleman: you are supposed to be the champion of small businesses. How about answering the way a small business has to answer: “Gee, that’s terrible. We are looking into it immediately. If anyone is doing this heads will roll, we promise you that.” He is nothing but tone deaf. (The tone deafness only a $100 Million in VC funding can bring!)

Small business people know that there will always be wing nuts who sashè into their shop with an ax to grind.  AND consumers know that there are businesses out there who are schysters.  Traditionally the Better Business Bureau served as the wing nut/schyster filter. Overall, they did a pretty decent job of it. Beyond being tone-deaf,  Yelp needs a wing nut/shyster filter, but being a free-wheeling open forum, Yelp simply cannot provide that on the scale required by the millions of small businesses.

Yelp is  most likely, voraciously burning through its $100 million. I can hear the VCs, putting pressure on Yelp to deliver.  And why would small businesses pay for what Yelp is offering – which is essentially bupkus? Their businesses are listed on Yelp already. I have no doubt Yelp resorted to shaking down small businesses, because that is the only “value” they can offer.

If it happened to you, join the suit. Make it a class action. They deserve it!

The last week of radio silence has been a result of our impending product launch, the excitement is brewing here at Camarès! Our new offering is for small and mid-sized businesses and will address this issue head on:

SMBs whether selling B-to-B or B-to-C find themselves confronting two voracious converging online trends:

1. Intense flattening of our markets: regional enterprises go online to find they are now competing with other regional enterprises around the nation – and the world. Price wars ensue, in a race to the bottom.
2. Ever increasing customer expectations: first it was web 1.0, then web 2.0 filled with engagement mechanisms and video. Mobile is on the horizon, if not already here. With each iteration, SMBs find themselves having to spend more to keep up. Even though programming development costs are going down, the average cost of a full-featured web site has not changed much since 1995 – it costs to stay in the game.

An environment this chaotic is unforgiving. SMBs find themselves in the challenging position of having to out smart the web to succeed. Our new offering will help them do that. Stay Tuned!