Verizon Responds: Tells You and I To Go Pound Sand

Verizon Wireless has responded to my post and subsequent executive email about their very inappropriate appendage stuck on to every image or video message. By the way, to see how many messages are already out there, look here at Technorati and here on Google’s blog search. Again, this currently is less than 20,000 posts which is a nit in terms of the millions of blog posts (and the number of emails sent with this appendage are unknown) but mark my words: this will create a hue-and-cry amongst bloggers within the next six months as it renders the smartphone’s camera and video capability undesirable.

Take a look at the letter and see for yourself, but basically Verizon Wireless said “we’ll try” during a system upgrade “next year.” Remember, Verizon is interested in maximizing revenue and don’t care what you and I want to do with their service as long as people keep buying and using minutes. For example, the appendage they stick on that message is roughly 4 kilobytes. There’s undoubtedly some spreadsheet jockey that’s plugged in that 4kb times the number of messages and has worked out the revenue possibilities of that extra payload attached to every multimedia message. So until people get pissed and make it known how upset they are, Verizon Wireless has no incentive to change.

It should be noted that I fully expected this outcome when contacted by Verizon Wireless Executive Relations as I’ve played executive roles myself. This is standard operating procedure by executive staff’s to have people to “just handle it” and placate the voices in the wilderness. The kicker? Based on all the feedback I’ve received on these posts, there are alot of people as Verizon customers who have exactly the same thoughts and, unfortunately for Verizon, they’ll wait until the negative buzz reaches a crescendo before putting a spin on it and handling it further. Also, the blogosphere is materially changing conversational marketing and these things don’t just dissolve into the ether.

I should also note that SixApart (owners of my blog host Typepad) has acquired Splashblog and they strip out the offending code which is a workaround for blog posting (but not email). Unfortunately they offer ZERO support for Splashblog and I can’t get the “Post to Remote Blog” to work.