Borrowing from the playbook of mentor Brian Clark and the wise Doc Searls, who both recognized the wisdom of the 2M2C ages ago I decided to brighten up Scoble’s day given his disdain over linkedin. A system I find useful at times, annoying at others, but really a system I want to turn into a game- much like TYMBI ( a game played with spam).

I’ll fire up the RSS and AJAX it into a widget-driven Moshpit- and we will have LinkedIN poker, where you can play your best hand of “human contacts” in an attempt to win a soul or two….while LI is kind of dry- I will talk to about anyone- all conversations are fascinating and valuable to me. Today while checking out the pesky port crawling, AES enterprise counfounding skype 3.0 beta I talked to a fascinating lady in China-an accountant, about censorship- a call Steve Rosenbaum would have enjoyed given our recent discussions over video and censorship.

I hope she is ok. She likes the Eagles, and some German pop music and she wants to learn English better. Mostly she works and she doesn’t make a lot of money but she likes to communicate- that really is what the Net is about.

back to Prophet Doc…

Hearing is disbelieving
Are we gonna lose @Home but keep the Monkey Phone Call service? Details: Monkeyphonecall.com is a SM2C (simulated monkey to consumer) new media business specializing in monkey phone call solutions for its customers.

Dead on Doc- I think @home went home or transformed into some second-tier portal or a transformer or a Pokemon- who knows…but the MonkeyPhoneCall remains to this day…why? Didn’t take on too much VC? Maybe it has something to do with Chip and Zines….or the long tail thing, or it is a guy who has carved out a unique niche and does quite well at what he does best- calling people up and pretending to be a monkey and there is a DEMAND for this. I know Clark and I have sent out many to executives….picture this on the phone…

“Man he really *needs* a MonkeyPhoneCall”
“Yeah he does”
“Split it?”
“I think it is your turn”
“Ok”

Demands are satisfied, needs met, and this fellow makes his beer money- actually maybe alot more than that.

For the sake of honesty this was not a “trick played out of spite”, but merely a test of the “Emergency A-list blogger humor response system”. A-listers do have my real compassion, really they do. You get under people’s scrutiny all day long and hacked at, etc. No matter what you do- you will have followers and those who are pissed off. Such is the nature of dialogue and progress- I hack at folks myself and get hacked at. I am in that whole “markets are conversations” -connecting with people in unusual ways sort of thing. I don’t hate it- I enjoy it.

Scoble Response

I did give Scobel a call back to see what he thought, afterall I did bushwhack him. He told me he tried to leave a comment here, but i required registration on the personal blog so he left or maybe I had comments off- don’t recall. (Scoble was that you that hit my cell with the private number yesterday- sorry I missed it- i was hoping you would retaliate with something- like parking a rusted trailer in my driveway.)

I asked him if it was “ok” to divulge his reaction and he was a good sport and said sure- it was something like: “I hung up on it”. He didn’t find it amusing, and a waste of his time- so he missed the incredible tip I left at the end. I didn’t bother discussing the Long Tail (yes Mark most might need OPM but not all.) and all that although I mentioned that Doc Searls has been up on SM2C technology for about five years now- still working sans RSS! Robert if I could somehow integrate RSS into the thing would it have been better? How about on demand? Streamed into Second Life? I could do that. Heck- it should be a part of the Cluetrain Manifesto- in spirit it is.

Dio Sense

You would think a guy who would wear viking horns and flash the “Ronnie James Dio” sign in his wikipedia shot would like- get it. But to each his own.

Well you know how we “B-listers” can be (actually as I explained to Robert I was an A-lister in my categorie(s)- thankfully not in his position of receiving a ton of interruptions a day or pranks- although I bet this was his first MPC and probably not his last.

Actually I receive about the same, but most of the drama is russian pron mobs, malware gangs, middle eastern botnets, Kmeth worms, that sort of thing…I do need to slow the career down.) My kids like MPCs- I wonder if his son would? Robert- tell you what I don’t know your son’s age- but if he is young I’ll spring for one and let’s see what the youth, who usually aren’t too busy not to appreciate small things, might say?

Steve Rubel- Forgiven Him

I asked him if the he thought Steve Rubel would like one- given the whole Wal-Mart thing, but he didn’t seem to think so and I didn’t pry for the number. I think he would. I think Steve Rubel could use a damn laugh- everyone makes mistakes. One MPC puts it all into perspective. Life, family, living, being alive- that’s what matters. Corporations are only shells made up of people. Mistakes are forgotten and we go on. It is humanity.

Wal-Mart Needs Them

Actually I think if Wal-Mart offered people MonkeyPhoneCalls the world would be a brighter place…Imagine that campaign Steve… Set up a system in the stores where people can send MPCs or funny dialogue and I bet they would like it. Heck- just belt one out at every Wal-mart at a random hour and I guarantee you would get BUZZ- good buzz. Wal-mart wouldn’t seem like such a overwhelming corporation, but actually joining the conversation of the folks that shop for stuff there- regular people, joe shmoes, john does and janes that see spot run. I talk to them- I think they would like it if you told them what was coming up. They would smile even.

When you think about it- most people really want to be entertained, laugh, have fun and experience something different, honest and earnest. Something unusual, because most people’s lives aren’t full of botnets and tech smack.

So who is next on the MPC phone list? Arrington? Doc Searls? Steve? Man how about Mark Cuban? He would get the novelty of it and probably franchise it. wporter @ gmail.com write in with your votes. I am going with an offer to Rubel I think- only I am making it via LinkedIn because Scoble hates it and this story, this brief saga, this flair of conversation, would not be complete without irony….like laughter- we need irony too. It is that mineral and vitamins kind of thing that make the conversation enriching.

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