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Have you ever been in a situation where you wished your cell phone would ring? Maybe you wanted to look extra important or popular on that hot date. Or maybe you just needed an excuse to escape from an unpleasant meeting.

With "The Popularity Dialer", you can plan ahead. Via a web interface, you can choose to have your phone called at a particular time (or several times). At the elected time, your phone will be dialed and you will hear a prerecorded message that's one half of a conversation. Thus, you will be prompted to have a fake conversation and will easily fool those around you.

Click on the options below to listen to the call you will receive when you use the dialer:

1)The original popularity call (male voice)
2)The popularity call II (female voice)
3)The affirmation call
4)The boss call
5)The cousin in need call

Like the popularity dialer? Want to keep it alive? Send us a donation!

November 28, 2007

Dear Friends,

Many of you have asked us about the "down for maintenance" banner we posted on the website on September 26th. The real issue, which we initially hoped to sort out quickly, is that the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission) served us with a citation stating that we violated section "227(b)(1)(A)" of the Communications of 1934 and section "64.1200(a)(1)" of the Commission's rules. Thus, we've taken the functionality of the site down until we hear back regarding our appeal.

The citation arose when a senior attorney for the FCC received an unrequested popularitydialer call on her cell phone and then filed a complaint. The main issue at hand is that people in the US pay for their incoming cell minutes so if they receive calls they don't request, they still have to pay for them. We've talked to a few lawyers who said the real issue is finding out what the FCC considers "express consent" regarding agreeing to incoming cell phones calls from a website.

Interestingly, there isn't much a precedent in this context because there are relatively few projects/companies that use web-to-phone as their method of execution. We do not verify phone numbers on our site before we make the call, but neither do the other venues that have similar services. When we initially contacted the FCC to see if we could work things out they sent the following:

"Mr. Forsyth,
I don't see how a website falls within the jurisdiction of the FCC or how it would cause TCPA violations. We would not give any advice on how to legally continue the operation of your business. That would have to come from your own attorney. "

Apparently, the FCC has no idea why our website should have resulted in the citation they handed us.

Also a weird twist, the phone call upon which the citation was based was requested from an FAA (Federal Aviation Administation) IP address. Thus, the call was both elected and received by employees of goverment agencies. It seems a little strange.

Why the FCC doesn't have better things to do with its time than shut down a student-founded project is beyond our understanding. In the meantime, standby and keep your fingers crossed.

If you're interested in viewing the citation, click on the image below:

We delivered our appeal to the FCC weeks ago. Hopefully, we'll get some news soon.

Thanks to the various members of the telephony community and the lawyers that have helped out with the appeal.

Love and Popularity,

Jenny and Cory