According to the Toronto Star, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will apparently be signing a deal tomorrow to boost stem cell research. The event, which will include $30-million for the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, will happened at the MaRS Discovery District – which is also where mesh is happening. Who knows maybe “The Arnold” will catch one of the mesh keynotes – one of whom (Michael Arrington) lives and works in California.
What About Evite?
For all the talk about MySpace becoming irrelevant as Facebook starts to dominate the social networking market, does Evite have a future? Evite is a pretty much a one-trick pony: invitations to friends/family for social events. This is a market that Facebook could easily tackle, especially with Facebook Platform being launched last week.
Mark Jaquith Joins b5media
One of the most important elements of b5media is WordPress, which powers our entire blog network. When it comes to using/pushing forward/squeeing more out of the WordPress platform, we’re among the leading players in the world. So, we’re really excited about hiring Mark Jaquith, one of the top WordPress developers. It’s a real coup for us. For more on Mark’s hiring, check out Technosailor.com.
mesh’s 15 Minutes of Fame Presenters
It’s hard to believe that the mesh conference is happening in two days! As much as I was excited about last year’s line-up, I’m even more stoked about this year’s speakers, who include TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington and Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. I’m also really looking forward to 15 Minutes of Fame in three entrepreneurs on each day get five minutes in front of 400 people to talk about their companies and why their prospects for success are so exciting. We were inundated with applicants, which was extremely encouraging because it suggests there’s a lot of exciting things happening. This year’s 15MOF presenters include:
May 30 – 11:30 a.m. to noon
Octopz – online collaboration service for text, video and audio
DemoFuse – a service to quickly create interactive tools for your Web site
FiveLimes – a place to eco-friendly products and services
May 31, 11:30 a.m. to noon
Conceptshare – an online collaboration tool out based in Northern Ontario (Sudbury to be exact!)
SneakerPlay – a social network for sneaker enthusiasts, collectors, artists, designers, boutique owners, and photographers.
Wild Apricot – event and Web site management service for non-profits, clubs and associations.
More: By the way, you can join the mesh 2007 group on Facebook.
All Google, All the Time (Yikes!)
Over the past few years, I’ve adopted a non-Microsoft policy. Instead of IE, I use Firefox; instead of Outlook, I use Thunderbird; instead of Vista/XP, I use Mac; instead of Hotmail, I use GMail. The exception is Microsoft Office, which continues to be a staple despite some looks at Open Office. It’s not that I don’t like Microsoft or its products; it’s more a goal to support rival services.
As Microsoft has been shunted to the sidelines, Google has grabbed more of the spotlight. My Google applications include GMail, Google search (regular, images, news, blog), Google documents, Google Calendar and, most recently, Picasa. It’s gotten to the point where Google dominates my online landscape. The question is whether there’s a danger about not sharing the wealth. As someone who likes to support the little guy, is it time to explore some non-Google services?
One service I’ve started using again is Blogdigger, a blog search engine created by Greg Gershman. I used to be a big Blogdigger fan before Google Blog search emerged. I’ve been using Blogdigger again after getting an e-mail from Greg that he’s coming to the mesh conference this week in Toronto (I’m one of the five organizers). It wasn’t just Greg’s e-mail that got me on the Blogdigger bandwagon again but my disappointment recently with Google Blog search’s results, which appear to be far from current or comprehensive enough. As well, some blogs simply don’t appear in the ranking. My Nortel blog, for example, is non-existent despite the fact it’s probably the only blog focused entirely on Nortel.
Still, it’s hard to give up Google services because they’re good. For example, I’ve used a number of photo-editors, and really been impressed by Picasa. One quibble is it’s tied to other Google services so you can’t use it to link with a blog unless you’re a Blogger user.
In terms of the search market, clearly more people are Google believers. The latest Comscore numbers show that Google has 50% of the market while Yahoo has 27%, Microsoft 10% and AOL and Ask.com 5% each. Don Dodge estimates every point of search engine market share is worth at least $1-billion of market capitalization, and then provides some eye-opening number-crunching.
Manitoba Tel’s New Wireless Dreams
For all the talk about how Manitoba Telecom and Quebecor want to purchase spectrum so they can create Canada’s fourth wireless carrier is the reality that Manitoba Tel could have already been the fourth wireless carrier if ex-CEO Bill Fraser hasn’t made a major strategic mistake three years ago. In late-2003, Microcell Telecommunications was the Canadian wireless rebel with consumer-friendly (read: aggressive pricing) packages that incensed the Big Three: Rogers, Telus and Bell.
The Big Three made it perfectly clear that in an ideal world, Microcell would disappear so that rational pricing could return to the wireless landscape. And Telus CEO Darren Entwistle started the dominos falling when Telus put Microcell in play with an unsolicited takeover offer. Entwistle eventually got what he wanted when Rogers stepped into fray with a $1.4-billion purchase. The purchase was approved by the federal Competition Bureau with hardly a whimper from consumer, and disciplined pricing (read: no deals) has existed ever since – making analyst, investors and the wireless carriers happy as pie.
The entire landscape could have been totally different if Fraser had adopted a different strategic approach. Intent on making Manitoba Tel a national carrier, he bought Allstream for $1.8-billion. It was a major coup for Allstream’s senior management team, which had recently taken the company out of bankruptcy protection and got it publicly trading. Nevertheless, Allstream was a dog with declining revenue (including less business from its former major shareholder, AT&T) and a network consisting of different technologies.
What still puzzles many people is why Fraser went after a company operating in a highly-competitive, low-margin business rather than getting in the high-growth, high-margin wireless market where penetration rates were just 40%. If he had spent the $1.8-billion to acquire Microcell rather than Allstream, Manitoba Tel’s competitive position and the wireless market would have been completely different. Three years later, Manitoba Tel is trying to get back in the game – having missed out on a three-year period of huge growth and profits.
