Loopt makes sure its users never make friends again
Letting your friends know where you are is supposed to be the point of Loopt. The location-based app for the iPhone (and for some other mobile phones no one ever talks about) would work great, too, if you still have friends after you install the thing. After people who never signed up started getting "creepy" text messages inviting them to join, actual consenting users complained back that the app had sent unsolicited texts to their entire contact lists — and ohmigod, fanboy-favorite videoblonder iJustine was one of them! So what now, blog gang? How do you make Loopt's dirty poly-polo-shirted CEO pay?
Sam Altman, Loopt's CEO and chief popped-collars officer, apologized — "Sorry, everyone. My bad". This morning, Loopt had kept the offending friend-adding feature turned off, and promised a new release that would make sifting the real friends you want to track obsessively from the chaff you just keep on your contacts' list just so caller ID can help you avoid their calls. Those Loopt pre-launch test cases must have assumed we were all way tighter than that.
