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.
My New Blog Project: The Best Blogs
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.
Bitoves Works to "Save" Satellite Radio in Canada
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.
Music Industry Still Doesn't Get It
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.
UBS – Ultimate Blog Showdown
Randy Charles Morin (a.k.a. iBLOGthere4iM) has decided to spice up the end of summer by running a series of “showdowns” between the top 64 blogs (kind of the NCAA basketball tournament for Web-heads) on the Feedster 500. The idea is you run two blogs against each other every day and whoever gets the most votes from visitors wins. Here's the schedule. While Randy insists it's all for fun, you have to somehow know that ego will raise its ugly head somewhere along the line given all the fuss (Jason Calacanis, et al) recently about the Feedster 500 and the Technorati 100. Anyway, good on Randy for trying something different and perhaps driving people to blogs they haven't checked out before.
Tech Help When You Need It
Aside from Blogware going down for a big chunk of yesterday, my technical woes also included the ultimate ignominy: spilling beer on my laptop. Fortunately, help is close to home as Bob, who operates BC-PC Technology Systems in downtown Toronto (Bathurst & Bloor) was quickly able to help. If you're looking for technical support and/or someone to build custom-made PCs, Bob provides excellent service at a reasonable price. You can reach him at 416-537-0754. For home service, including networking help, in the Greater Toronto Area call Don Foreman at 416-540-0234.
