Tuesday, September 05, 2006

PalTalk and an unfaithful husband

This morning I read the article ‘
PalTalk Launches PalTalk People’ by Dave Evans.

He writes: The question becomes why isn't PalTalk as popular as Skype or Userplane?
I'll tell you why. Product positioning, marketing and management. PalTalk always looked clumsy, like Windows 3.1 and the video windows were tiny. It was never marketed well enough in the MSM (main stream media). Management of PalTalk and their competitors like ICUII and ISPQ didn't think big enough, hence glacial user growth. Most of the users never wore clothing. This doesn't add up to a high-growth enterprise.


Like Dave I used PalTalk a few years ago and indeed, there weren’t many users on line. But at the time I only needed one. I wasn’t using PalTalk for myself but for a very dear friend.
Let me explain why. I seem to have a talent: finding people (e.g. an old friend of my father. They lost touch in 1952 and I found him back in 1992 which took me 10 minutes!).


One evening my friend in the UK told me the story of his unfaithful Brother In Law (lets call him Bil). Although no proof, friends sister just ‘knew’ Bil was unfaithful. She found out that her husband’s long business trips to the US were known to his office as ‘holidays’. Bil lied an awful lot at home but underestimated the sixth sense and the intelligence of his wife.
It put a lot of grieve on her and her children and of course my UK friend tried to help his sister uncovering the truth which she desperately wanted to know. They digged in to his computer and found a PalTal account but nothing more.


Listening to this story I offered to log on to PalTalk as a good looking young American lady to try to get in touch with Bil. I succeeded but only once and not for long. Definitely not long enough to find out more.
But I also found his PalTalk name on several dating sites and on Yahoo.
Via Yahoo (I am not going to reveal how) I found his US girlfriend. Where she was living, her age and I even spoke to her, telling I dialled the wrong number. So she did exists. But I found more girlfriends!! Bil was not only cheating on his wife but also his girlfriends!


I reported my findings to my friend who went to see his sister.
I don’t have to explain that she was hurt but also relieved. Bil left the house soon after and right now both are happily divorced and both are doing better then during the last few years of their marriage.


Would I have been as successful by using Skype? I doubt very much! At the other hand, don’t underestimate my detective skills… ;-)

2 comments:

  1. Perhaps you can hire me as an asistant in your Detective Business? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Of course Jean. I will ping you soon for the details :-)

    ReplyDelete