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Now, this is interesting. A paper-based magazine called Blogger and Podcaster about the blogging market. Here’s why they intend to charge a subscription fee amid a world everything else Web 2.0-related seems to be free. I wonder how long it will take before they call b5media to advertise?
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Jason Calacanis is pissed because a Wired writer took a pass after Calacanis asked if he be could be interviewed via e-mail. Jason, you’re absolutely right - and my perspective comes from more than 15 years as a daily newspaper reporter. One thing reporters take for granted is people are obligated to talk to them just because you’re deemed to be an interesting/necessary source. Truth be told, if you don’t want to talk to a reporter, you can ignore them/not return their phone calls/e-mails. Of course, many people find it difficult, if not impossible to resist the siren’s call of the media for some strange reason that I’ve never been able to figure out. Maybe it’s because talking to a reporter is seen as a ego-stroking exercise.
In terms of Calacanis; if it wants to conduct an interview by e-mail, that’s his prerogative, and if the reporter doesn’t like it, tough. In many ways, e-mail is a better tool than a phone call because you can take your time to answer questions and you have a record of what exactly you said. If your quotes are misinterpreted or misconstrued, you have a way to go right back at the journalist. It is interesting that more people such as Calacanis and Mark Cuban prefer to do e-mail interviews. As far as I can tell, Cuban rarely does voice interviews, although he’s extremely accessible if you ping him via e-mail.
Update: Dan Gillmor, another ex-journalist, makes some excellent points, including the fact journalists often make mistakes - albeit little ones. Meanwhile, Mathew Ingram - a working journalist until we lure him to the dark, entrepreneurial side - says he loves e-mail interviews.
Technorati Tags: Jason Calcanis
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One of the dirty little secrets within the telecom industry, particularly in the wireless and Internet access markets, is the growing fear of Wi-Fi. No one talks about it but the last thing the telecom industry wants to see is ubiquitous Wi-Fi. Why? If Wi-Fi was widely available at no or little cost, people would be able to jump on a Wi-Fi network, and bypass all those expensive 3G and Wi-Max networks being rolled out by carriers. This explains why the carriers are freaked about the rapid growth of municipal Wi-Fi, and why so many wireless devices have their Wi-Fi turned off or emasculated when they’re launched in North America. A good example is the Blackberry 8800, which has been criticized for not having Wi-Fi.
Another threat to carriers is Wi-Fi advocates such as FON, which encourages people to share their Internet access. (FON, by the way, has received venture capital from Skype’s Niklass Zennstrom and Google.) So, you have to sit up and notice about a deal between FON and Time Warner Cable, which will let its 6.6 million high-speed customers share their networks. This is a major development given FON has made little progress so far in North America, and it could provide people with a cheap or no-cost alternative to the outrageous fees charged by wireless carriers for Wi-Fi access.
Without being too over the top, the FON-Time Warner deal is yet another sign the cablecos have telecom carriers on their heels. Other than analysts such as National Bank’s Greg MacDonald, few people are talking about the fact the cablecos have a superior plant than most carriers (other than perhaps Verizon, which is spending billions on fiber-to-the-curb). And now they’re starting to aggressive leverage it in market such as high-definition TV and Internet access.
Of course, the cablecos aren’t going to be totally user-friendly. While Time Warner is happy to let FON into its network eco-system, you can expect to see bandwidth caps to keep things in control. Rogers, for example, recently a survey to users in Canada asking them what they thought about a bandwidth limit of five gigabytes/month to “limit excessive user of the Rogers Internet network”.
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I went to see “Helvetica” at the Toronto Hot Docs festival yesterday. It’s a terrific documentary looking at the Helvetica font and why it’s so widely used by marketers and advertisers. If you didn’t already think the MacBook is on a huge roll before seeing Helvetica, you definitely thought so afterwards given the Mac is clearly the machine of choice within the design world. It reminded me a little of “You’ve Got Mail”, which was as much a commercial for AOL’s e-mail service as it was a film about how a small, independent book store owner (Meg Ryan) gets involved with the owner of a mega-book store retailer (Tom Hanks). At least, You’ve Got Mail had a better plot than “One Fine Day” (starring Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney), was a two-hour video for Motorola phones wrapped around a romance featuring two attract actors.
Technorati Tags: Helvetica
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With green suddenly becoming sexy, my friend, Tyler Hamilton, must be feeling a little smug these days given he’s been writing a terrific renewable energy blog for the past couple of years. It would be interesting to see whether his readership has increased as the world gets on the green bandwagon (I mean, even the humble plastic bag is under attack!).
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For all the excitement about Earth Day, does anyone think the high-tech industry is doing all it can to become more environmentally-friendly? Does recycling or reusing mean anything within the high-tech industry where success is measured in the number of units sold? Sure, some computer makers offer some sort of recycling if you are willing to mail back components but it’s not like a lot of people are taking them up on the offer given the number of PCs and monitors left on the curb during garbage day.
If the computer industry, for example, was serious about getting green, it would embrace a more modular approach by making easier for consumers to swap out old parts such as hard drives, video cards and even CPUs to upgrade machines. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in being green - other than pushing energy-efficient machines - so all those junked computer parts ended in landfill or rural towns in China.
Update: For for on the problem with tech trash, check out this CTV.ca story looking at Canada lags behind Europe when it comes to disposing of electronic waste. San Diego.com has a story looking at HP’s efforts to recycle computer components, and noted that 133,000 PCs are thrown out a day in the U.S.
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In theory, the ability to look back at all the places you’ve been on the Web is a fascinating concept. It’s like look at a digital album showing every place you’ve been over the years, and how your surfing habits have changed. If this is something you’re curious about, check out Google History. While I can see the benefit of having easy access to you Web history, somehow the idea that Google has a database of everywhere I’ve been seems very 1984/Big Brother-ish. To get Google History, you need to sign on, have the Google toolbar on your browser and PageRank enabled. For more details, check out Ars Technica and the Google Blog.
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The Financial Post takes a minor stab today at what BCE needs to do to re-invent itself strategically. Unfortunately, the story barely scratches the surface by suggesting BCE needs to scrap its two beaver characters from its advertising campaigns, get its wireless business growing again, and investing in IP-TV. To be honest, the beavers are the least of BCE’s problems. If you really want to offer insight into what BCE must do, give us some meat on exactly how you get the wireless business going again other than offering new, cool phones. Is Bell Mobility really willing to do a GSM overlay? Can it afford to do it if a leveraged buy-out happens. And what pushing fibre to the home. How much would it cost to get 50Mbps or 100Mbps to consumers? What hasn’t Bell been more aggressive on a $1.4-billion fibre push it announced in 2004 if it was really serious about offering Web-based services to 12 million households in Ontario and Quebec. That’s what I want to know.
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So a thought about eBay’s apparent acquisition of StumbleUpon: what if eBay plans to expand the Skype platform so it has a bunch of other features beyond making free telephone calls and instant-message. What if eBay wants Skype to an application that you have open all day and use for all kinds of things - search, eBay auctions, phone calls, instant messaging, surf the Web, etc. Don’t get me wrong, Skype is becoming a pretty good business as reflected by the fact first-quarter revenue climbed 123% to $79-million from $35-million a year ago. Then again, eBay paid $3.1-billion for Skype so maybe it has a loftier strategic plans than a $300-million to $500-million telecom business.
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After a brief hiatus, we’re back with another Talking Tech podcast. We spent a lot of time talking about the Blackberry service outage, probably because all three of have mobile e-mail. An intriguing issue that Duncan raised is whether RIM is falling victim to its success, and whether there is a scaling problem with the company’s software and network architecture.
We couldn’t resist weighing into the takeover frenzy surrounding BCE Inc., which has put itself into play, and could fetch $30-billion from private equity investors. Another scenario being bandied about is BCE merging with Telus to create “Belus”. Kevin doesn’t think Telus wants to be taken over. The board is happy with the team and the company has just got over the hump of challenges that BCE is now facing.
Finally, we chat about eBay’s $40-million to $45-million acquisition, which I use as a way to rail against the Canadian VC market.
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