I presented this new company to my fellow Convergence Journalism friends last week and they were shocked… as am I. PuddingMedia promises free phonecalls (VOIP for now, cellphones in the future) if you’re willing to let them ‘listen’ to your conversations and serve-up relevant ads based on what you’re saying. Imagine if you’re making dinner plans in Miami with a friend and you then hear a beep and then a 30 second ad for a hot new club on the strip… and in exchange, your airtime was free.
Now, I’m sure I’m not the only person who this is worrisome for, and my colleagues were flabergasted. However, we live in a world where so many of our actions are already being recorded, is this all that much worse? Is this crossing the line? I’m not sure yet.
I do know that I’ve been using GOOG-411 lately, the free info service from Google to get ‘operator’ like intel on businesses, movies, weather and more… and I’m willing to bet they’re tracking my and my information requests!
I’ll be watching this company very closely, I’ve signed up for a beta-code but haven’t started testing. Rest assured loyal readers, I’ll have a detailed write-up very soon.
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