Chattered!
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:23 pm
What happens when you launch a product that does not work?
Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, the two former wunderkinds behind the revolutionary music sharing service Napster, just found out.
The two took had picked a hip event space in Chelsea, New York to launch their latest venture: Airtime, a video chatting service that aims to allow friends and strangers to easily connect with each other in real time.
It was an event that had looked to be almost depressing in its slickness. Bespectacled tech press sat in the glow of their Macs, tan celebrities strutted about in five-inch heels, and soul-crushing mini-containers of Chinese food were laid out on tables.
Surrounded by the likes of chatshow host Jimmy Fallon and movie star Jim Carrey, Mr Parker stood on stage and asked grandiose questions like "Why is the internet so boring?" and made proclamations about changing the social web.
But change, it seems, was slow in coming.
"We're going to restart this computer and then find someone to blame this on," said Parker, whose face froze into a semi-blank mask as his first demonstration of the chat service with actress Olivia Munn fell apart.
What seemed to be an errant technical glitch quickly turned into a nightmare, as each successive celebrity - Ed Helms, Alicia Keys, even Snoop Dogg - struggled to deal with the endless parade of frozen screens and dropped connections that continued for an excruciatingly long time.
"Sean, you want to yell at your staff?" asked comedian Ed Helms, as his attempts to connect with Airtime's offices failed.
"I swear it worked last night," pleaded Ms Munn, as the stars shuffled uncomfortably on stage while two helpless Airtime techs tried to get the demo version back online.
Airtime launch The launch of Airtime was plagued by a series of technical problems
"We can't even get the microphones to work," Parker muttered.
Those were eventually fixed.