2005 August | Mark Evans

Skype Not for Sale?

August 31st, 2005 | 3 Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition/Skype

Is Skype for sale or not? Is it considering an IPO or not? It's hard to tell what's what given the speculation about talks with Rupert Murdoch and the hiring of Morgan Stanley as a financial advisor. According to TechWeb News, the company is now claiming it is not for sale. How should this claim be taken? Does it mean Skype didn't get anywhere near the $3-billion is was apparently seeking? Is an IPO the preferred route because it will provide Skype's VCs with liquidity while allowing Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis to maintain control of the company? Questions, questions, questions! One thing we do know is Skype has signed up more than two million subscribers for its premium services, which include SkypeIn and SkypeOut. Of course, we don't know how often they actually use these services or ARPU. As for SkypeIn and SkypeOut, I wonder when/whether they will be coming to Canada.
By the way, any interested in VOIP and its future should check out Om Malik's post on the long-term impact of voice over instant-messaging applications.

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Blogger Beware?

August 31st, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Blog Services, Main Page

The Wall St. Journal and some other publications are reporting on an interesting story about a blogger, Aaron Wall, being sued for comments made on his blog, SEOBook.com. Apparently, some of Wall's readers had unkind things to say about Traffic-Power.com. In response, Traffic-Power decided to file a lawsuit in a Nevada court, which lists several unnamed users of the blog. The WSJ said Wall could have some legal protection because the courts have ruled in the past that people who run computer message boards and mailing lists can't be held liable for comments posted by other people. It's an intriguing issue given there are so many blogs out there and most comments are made by anonymous users. But until this case is addressed by the courts, it's difficult to say whether bloggers should be worried.

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Skype's Secret Weapon

August 31st, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition/Skype

For all the buzz about Google Talk, Skype should continue to be a strong player for several reasons. Among them is the developer community, which has reportedly created more than 400 applications since Skype opened its API last November. Skype recently held a competition for its developers, which was won by the Jyve Plugin. The Jyve plug-in adds Skype functionality to Web pages. Khaos Labs, Columbus CRM, Iskoot, Audiomatic and SalesForce.com were also cited. The growth of the Skype software community has been interesting because there are now dozens of companies generating revenue from Skype users. At the same time, Skype is working to get its own revenue and business model to the next level. In some cases, this pits Skype against its developer eco-system but Skype's future depends on its appeal to as many as users as possible, which means the more third-party apps the better. Skype's also got a new version of its software, which was released last week.
Speaking of applications, Andy Abramson has a good post on how it's the applications, not the price of minutes, that will drive VOIP. “The use of price will still attract some, but the real money will be made with the invention and deployment of the next voice mail, three way calling and call waiting types of apps hit the market,” according to Andy.

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Opera Turns 10

August 30th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Browsers, Main Page

Opera, the alternative Web browser showing good momentum in the wireless and set-top box markets, is celebrating its 10th birthday - coming shortly after the same anniversary as Windows 95. Opera is marking the occasion by giving away free registration codes for 24 hours. To get one, click here. Opera roots go back to its days as a research project at Norwegian carrier Telenor. According to an interview Om Malik did in last month's Business 2.0 with CEO Jon von Tetzchner, Opera sells about 100K copies of its $39 software a year but only one-third of its revenue comes from the desktop market where it has 10 million to 15 million active users - most of them using the free ad-supported version. On the non-PC side of the house, von Tetzchner said Opera sold 8.8 million copies of its software last year. These customers include Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Casio, BenQ and Kyocera.

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The Outlook For Canada's VOIP Market

August 30th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition

The Seaboard Group have put together another insightful and entertaining report on the Canadian VOIP market called “Top of the First – the VoIP battle begins”. So what's the bottom line? Seaboard expects there will be 4.02 million VOIP lines by 2008, compared with 418K by the end of 2005. In terms of dollars, the market in three years will be worth about $1 billion, or 5% of the total voice business, as intense competition drives down prices. So what should carriers do stay vibrant in the voice market? Seaboard advises them to “fight fire with fire” by rolling out VOIP services that exploit the weaknesses of cablecos products. Seaboard points out that a vulnerable area for the cablecos is the lack of value-added features. Videotron Ltee, for example, has attracted 62K customers in the past six months even though it is offering a low-frills service. Then again, selling VOIP for as low as $15.95 a month helps the sales effort, and Seaboard expects the cableco to have 125K customers by the end of 2005. The research firm suggests the cablecos stay on the offensive as it will be more difficult for Bell/Telus to win back customers than it will be for the cablecos to win them in the first place. As for the independents such as Vonage and Primus, Seaboard believes it will be more difficult for them to compete. As a result, they need to keep on the marketing warpath and show consumers they can be innovative, flexible and adaptible.

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Google's ISP Plans?

August 30th, 2005 | 2 Comments | Posted in Google, Main Page, Uncategorized

With Google Talk and Google Desktop released into the wild, the question on the minds of many people is what's next for Google strategically? Broadband Reports suggests a Google portal featuring Mozilla tools that would be used by ISPs through a marketing agreement - rather than Google running a Wi-Fi network or traditional ISP service. While it's an interesting idea, Google has shown tepid interest in the portal market - at least so far. I dabbled with the Google homepage earlier this year but haven't used it much since or heard anything from Google in terms of an upgrade. Perhaps the portal strategy will unfold after Google Talk and Google Desktop gain some momentum and/or market share. As for relationships with ISPs, who's Google going to partner with? Given Yahoo has made strong inroads with the telcos, does Google pursue the cable market? Does Google strike deals with dial-up ISPs, which are still vibrant and need no-frills tools to maintain customers? Or does Google simply launch its own stand-alone portal? With more than $6-billion in the bank - assuming Google completes its $4.2-billion secondary offering - the company has the financial clout to do pretty much what it likes.

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Labour-Sponsored VCs Lose Their Edge

August 29th, 2005 | 1 Comment | Posted in Main Page, Venture Capital

Just like that, the Ontario government has decided to eliminate the 15% tax credit given to investors who participate in labour-sponsored funds. The decision, which takes effect before the end of the year, was made because the government believes the venture capital market is healthy and there is no longer any need for tax incentives. This will be a huge blow to VCs such as VenGrowth and GrowthWorks that have used tax credits as a key selling point. At the same time, traditional VCs such as Ventures West, Jefferson Partners and J.L. Albright will toast the fact the playing field just a lot more level. If the Ontario government is looking for new ways to encourage investment in technology, particularly start-ups, it should look into providing investors with larger capital gains limits. This might direct more money into the hands of fledgling entrepreneurs, who are desperately looking for growth capital.

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My New Blog Project: The Best Blogs

August 29th, 2005 | 1 Comment | Posted in Blog Services, Main Page

My wife shakes her head sometimes over the torrid affair I'm having with blogs. First, it was a technology blog. Then I needed a blog to rant about Toronto, and now my newest time-consuming creation: The Best Blogs blog. The concept, which stems from my frustration with blog search engines, is focused on building a database of the best blogs - something along the lines of the early days of Yahoo when a team of editors manually created a Web site library. I haven't nailed down the exact methodology yet but The Best Blogs won't be based on the most links or most hits but rather their quality. How do I define “quality”? I'm not sure but hopefully you know it when you see it. I'd like to make it a community-based effort so if you've got suggestions, head over The Best Blogs and post a comment.

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Bitoves Works to "Save" Satellite Radio in Canada

August 29th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, Telecom Regulation

John Bitove certainly knows how to work it. With Canada's federal government looking at reversing a decision to grant satellite-radio licenses to XM and Sirus, Bitove has gone on the media offensive. He claims his firm, Canadian Satellite Radio, which will operate XM Canada, will be out $8-million if the CRTC reverses its decision. For Bitove, this isn't a lot of cash given CSR could be worth about $700 million in a couple years if subscriber growth meets expectations. The bigger issue is the federal government's willingness to make the satellite-radio decision a political process. With an election later this year, the Liberal Party is looking for all the support it can get. If this means pandering to voters in Quebec, who are upset with the satellite-radio decision because it doesn't include enough French-language stations, the Liberals will do what it takes to ensure their future support. Everyone knows the CRTC is a plagued by political pressure but it's troubling that the Liberal Party's is willing to interfere with well-considered decision involving an industry potentially worth $2-billion that has proven to be a smash-hit in the U.S. Bitove, who stands to become even richer from satellite radio, has every right to go on the warpath.

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Music Industry Still Doesn't Get It

August 28th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Apple/iPod, Main Page

According to yesterday's New York Times, Apple is headed for a showdown with the music industry over the price of downloading a song using iTunes. Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants to keep it at 99¢ while the music industry is anxious to sell top hits for $1.49, or 50% higher than current prices. If the music industry wants to drive consumers, particularly younger ones, back to Kazaa, BitTorrent and other P2P services, higher prices are an excellent way to do it. The music industry's bid for higher prices is a strange strategic gambit given online music sales seem to be gaining momentum while there appears to be a growing shift away from “stealing” music using Kazaa, et al. Then again, the music industry has continually fumbled the online ball every since Napster appeared on the scene in 1999. Whether it's being slow to selling songs online or using lawsuits and court action to go after downloaders, the music industry's strategy to corral downloading has been, at best, incoherent. It still amazes me, for example, that music.com hasn't been adopted by the music industry as the place online to explore and buy music. The Web site, owned by Los Angeles-based MDC Partners LLC, lets people search for 16.2 million songs but it only has 49K members. If the music industry is looking for a constructive way to embrace consumers, they should check out Pandora, which is developing an online recommendation/guidance service to help people discover new music. An off-shoot of the Music Genome Project, the service has its faults but it's a huge step in right direction to get people excited about new music, which is getting more difficult to do as goliaths such as Clear Channel commoditize the radio industry. Pandora is just coming out of beta and will apparently cost $36 a year or $3 a month, which is a small cost for a cool service. The Scobleizer and The Corante's Sandy McMurray like Pandora as well.
For another take on the “conflict” between Apple and the Big Four music labels, check out Jim Freeman's blog.