Where's Canada's Web 2.0 Party?
Om Malik had a post (hat tip to Mathew Ingram) about a 24-period where he stumbled into a series of high-profile entrepreneurs and VCs, which, I guess, is just another day in Silicon Valley. It certainly seems like a great time to be there given the excitement about Web 2.0 and the return of the launch party (not to mention Michael Arrington's backyard bashes). What I want to know is when is Canada's Web 2.0 party going to start? When can I start writing about super-cool start-ups strutting around with a multi-million dollar VC deals? When do I get to attend parties with an open bar, a great band and a nice "loot bag" when you finally decide to leave? So far, it ain't happening and that's worrisome. In fact, Brightspark partner Mark Skapinker gave a speech recently in which he called the lack of start-ups in Ontario "troubling". If I had to guess, I would say Ontario - and Canada, for that matter - is not having a Web 2.0-like resurgence because we don't have a high enough risk profile. By nature, Canadians are conservative, which means not enough entrepreneurs go for it and there's not enough risk capital - VCs, angel investors, pensions funds, etc. - to encourage new ideas. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. Flickr, for example, came out of Vancouver, and Bubbleshare seems to be gettting some buzz. But, for the most part, Canada is missing out on the Web 2.0 phenomena even though we're the second-most penetrated broadband nation in the world behind South Korea. At least, we're still doing some interesting things in telecom where Nortel's financial and accounting woes could encourage refugees to create their own start-ups. Update: To check out the results of the Web 2.0 poll (right column), click here.
January 21st, 2006 at 11:36 am
I agree with your comment that Canada is missing the latest round of froth, but I disagree with your conclusion as to why. I don't think that money is the problem, though without a doubt, having lived in Seattle for a while (which, compared to the Bay Area, is downright conservative about financing new ventures), I know for a fact that Americans are just wired differently about this stuff. The “let's put on a show” mentality, and the assumptions around risk and reward are just fundamentally different. Plus, smart people working on smarth things beget more of the same — we are short on critical mass up here.
So why are we missing out? Well, as I say, it's not cash. Money is sloshing about, looking for a home, even in tight-fisted Toronto. However, it is predicated on one having a good, BIG, fundable idea *and* a strong team. The real problem is that the last two are not in great supply — or perhaps they are all over the place and the means of linking all the above are missing, but it sure doesn't feel that way to me.
I'd also say that missing out on the froth, while not cool or fun, isn't necessarily a bad thing — we won't know for sure for another couple of years. Fact is, much of the stuff being breathlessly blogged and hyped about don't feel awfully sustainable to me. Much will simply go away. I'd just as soon buy my own drinks and create something profitable, sustainable and important to customers for the long haul, if it's all the same to you.
– Stuart
January 21st, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Web 2.0 is characterized by “community, mobility, participation, useability and frugality” just to name a few.
Forget your fancy VC funded parties, splashy marketing campaigns and SuperBowl TV Launch Ads… in Canada or in the Valley.
Even though tech and telco markets are awash with institutional investment money right now VC's are freaked out 1) because of the GYM effect (Google, Yahoo!, MS) e.g.: the flicker [Ludicorp] buyout by Yahoo! and 2) the fact that many entrepreneurs can start a company with a Laptop and Skype account — totally skipping the VC process altogether. Without VC funding all a company needs is one or two paying customers to reach profitability.
Web 2.0 is happening in Canada — it's just under the press and blog radar… where it belongs.
-Jim Parsons
January 21st, 2006 at 1:02 pm
http://2006.northernvoice.ca/ Thats a blogging conference in Vancouver next month with a lot of A-list bloggers.
Vancouver is humming with internet startups. Lots of money flying around and lots of ideas. Vancouver startups are far better prepared to do it without funding and VC's. Vancouver is basically the SEO capital of north america. Not to mention many of the top people in porn, spyware, domainers etc live here.
January 21st, 2006 at 1:43 pm
I was just going to spring forth and defend Vancouver's Web 2.0ness. Coincidentally, I'm an organizer of Northern Voice. Vancouver's also hosting Canada's first Ruby on Rails conference: http://canadaonrails.com/.
Regardless, here's my short list of Vancouver-based Web 2.0 companies:
Sxip
Bryght
Yibuu
Qumana
Now Public
Flickr (formerly)
Raincity Studios (kinda)
That's what I've got off the top of my head. There's even a Vancouver Web 2.0 forum: http://www.van2.ca.
January 21st, 2006 at 5:15 pm
I don't much like the term, but I guess you could say we're building a Web 2.0 related company. Thus far, funding has not been easy! (If you know of anyone interested, send them my way!)
I read stories of how Google was bascially given $100,000 right at the beginning, or posts like Om's, and sometimes I long to be in California! On the other hand, the cost of living in Alberta is much lower, so that's a positive.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:39 am
Secveral VC's have contacted me to express their interest to invest in 2ndSite. Not one of them was Canadian. I live in Toronto.
Mike McDerment | 2ndSite
http://www.michaelmcderment.com/
January 24th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Sxip has sxore a blog spam prevention service, which scores well on the web 2.0 bingo board:
“social” something
feeds everywhere
public beta
integrates with Flicrk
big fonts
January 30th, 2006 at 11:30 am
It does seem like there is a shortage north of the border. Almost everyone I can think of has posted a comment except for the Shopify and Jaded Pixel in Ottawa.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:33 am
David, thanks for Jaded Pixel mention. In fact there is quite a bit of Web 2.0 stuff going on in Ottawa aside from what we are doing at jP. Here is a little rundown:
First I will mention is Craig Fitzpatrick's company Devshop.com, Craig is a former collegue who has been designing and developing an unbelievably useful project management application called Devshop. What makes it different is that it incorporates and corrects for human behaviour. This is ingenious stuff.
Craig also writes a super helpful blog called “Uncommon Sense for Software” which focuses on getting real about software development. Craig's posts read almost like whitepapers and are really worth looking at.
Derek Featherstone writes the very popular boxofchocolates.ca blog and is also located in Ottawa. Derek is a well respected usability expert who is a member of the Web Standards Project and has been a recent speaker at such amazing conferences as WebEssentials05 and SXSW Interactive 2005.
Although I dont know these guys, Market2World is a Web 2.0 marketing company in Ottawa that puts Web 2.0 tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis, and vcasts to work for their clients.
As well, Jaded Pixel's co-founder Tobias Lütke is a one man programming machine when it comes to Open Source Web 2.0 apps. If you dont know Tobias, he is a core member on the Ruby on Rails development team and is responsible for the creation of Typo and Hieraki. If you're not farmiliar with those apps, Typo is an open source blogging engine with thousands of installations worldwide and Hieraki is an open source web content management system that allows you to organize digital documents in a hierarchical tree structure. You can read about them all on Tobi's blog “Too-biased.”
At Jaded Pixel, Tobias, Daniel Weinand and Justin Palmer have been working/releasing some great Open Source tools to support Shopify but which can also be used with other Rails applications. Among them are “Vision†(to make life easy for designers), “Guidance†(our help system), “Opinion†(our community and discussion tool) and lastly “Liquid†(a templating engine for ruby). In case your wondering, Stikipad, the newly launched wiki service uses Liquid to render its pages. If your interested you can read all about what we are doing on the Jaded Pixel Blog.
Lastly, the Jaded Pixel crew has also been organizing the Ottawa Area Group of Ruby Enthusiasts (OGRE). We have had two meetings and both have been huge successes. When was the last time you went to a user group meeting that started 7pm and it broke up sometime after 11pm. Granted we have been holding the meetings bars. In any case, if you spend any time in Ottawa and would like to come to an OGRE meeting you can sign up for the mailing list here.
February 1st, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Ontario, does seem to be a quieter than the west coast. I am suprised that very little is coming out of Toronto.
New to me in Ontario are Favourville, from Toronto, and Otavo from St. Catherines who are in 'stealth mode'.
favourville feels similar to freecycle.org which is a cool concept.
February 20th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Sorry, I am a little “late to the party” on this one, but I just came across your “Where's Canada's Web 2.0 …” and it struck a cord with me, and I wanted to comment further.
First, I must agree that the fact things are a little quieter north of the border on the Web2.0 hype, is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I would expect nothing else given Canadian culture. I do, however, share Mark's concerns over the apparent lack of activity/energy that I am seeing. With some notable exceptions, mentioned in previous blog comments, we are not seeing the level of energy that I believe is going to be necessary to sustain any kind of leadership that we have had in telecom related industries in the past. The lack of activity in Silicon Valley North is particularly troublesome. In a 'town' where tens of thousands of people are still employed in technology development, we can only muster a handful of individuals that are participating in this important evolution of communication technology. As the value in the network continues to migrate away from the 'piping'/ infrastructure (whether wireline or wireless), the importance of smaller 'application' oriented companies to take up the slack left by the Nortel's of the world, will become increasingly important.
I would argue that innovation rarely happens in a vacumm, and that effective communities of inspired technologists can be the most important catylist for innovation. I believe that in Canada today we lack communities of critical mass necessary to be leaders. IMHO, there is a desperate need to strengthen the broader community of tech zealots in places like Ottawa. This wasn't as necessary in the past, given the size and dynamics of companies like Nortel (Bell-Northern Research) and former Newbridge. Unfortunately, a number of factors contributed to the loss of that sense of community and dynamic. It is important that the community not be based narrowly on some specific technology, but rather on the broad set of technologies related to computing and telecommunications. This, in turn, can help create a crucible for product and business innovation.
I am encouraged by initiatives like OGRE, being organized by the folks at Jaded Pixel. In addition to this type of technology focused group, I believe that a broader based tech community is also required. Isn't this an opportunity to effectively exploit the technologies that represent Web2.0? Afterall, isn't Web2.0 in large part about social networks and community?
I am interested in knowing whether others see the need/benefit for a community initiative of this sort, or if they feel that something already exists that meets the needs.