FaceTime on the 2011 MacBook Air 13"

Like quite a number of people, I had problems getting FaceTime to work. First off, it complained about problems with the server. Then it sent a confirmation email to verify my AppleID email address. Problems with verification in FaceTime persisted even after I had followed the link in the confirmation email. I finally got past the verification stage after multiple attempts only to get stuck at the dialog asking for the preferred email to associate with FaceTime. The "Next" button remained greyed out.

It turns out to be a common issue. One workaround is to disable wifi, and connect to the internet using a wired Ethernet cable (I happened to have ordered the USB Ethernet adaptor) instead. Fire up FaceTime again and login. It works. I found this method while Googling for the problem. Apparently switching back to wifi will work fine after the initial successful connection.