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Ever wondered why Toronto is the Facebook capital of the world? The Toronto Star explores this phenomena. Meanwhile, Mark Andreessen predicts in another one of his information but lengthy posts that Facebook traffic and applications will sky-rocket again when school starts in September.
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Despite the long line-ups and staggering amount of hype about the iPhone’s launch, I’m still taking a wait-and-see approach before I jump on the bandwagon. Here’s why:
1. It’s expensive: With a starting price of $499, the iPhone ain’t cheap. Then you add on another $50 to $100/month for data/phone service, and you’re talking about another $1000 to $2500 over the course of a two-year contract.
2. AT&T’s Edge network: Truth be told, Edge isn’t fast enough to do all the wonderful things the iPhone can offer such as a real Web surfing experience and high-quality streaming videos.
3. You’re locked in (or locked out depending on our perspective): Even though AT&T operates a GSM network, you can’t take the SIM card out of the iPhone and then put one in from another carrier. What a nice way to lock out a huge audience of potential users.
4. The Walled Garden: If you’re looking to personalize the iPhone with applications that don’t come with as standard features, you’re out of luck.
5. Supply and demand: With so much pent-up demand, Apple will have to do an amazing job to ramp up production quickly or manage consumer expectations.
6. The Blackberry is Better: If Research in Motion can introduce an even more consumer-friendly device that includes a better MP3 player and Web browser, then the iPhone will have a serious rival in the market.
Update: Robert Scoble has a iPhone. He’s clearly impressed: “when you open your box you’ll realize that Apple has changed the way we all will look at mobile phones forever”. TUAW, which provides a fairly extensive first-impressions reviews, calls the iPhone wonderful. Meanwhile, my friend and Talking Tech partner, Kevin Restivo, is hoping to pick up an iPhone this weekend. Good luck, Kevin!
Update: Scott Karp believes Apple will take over the wireless industry. He contends the iPhone will get cheaper and that Apple really wants to sell an unlocked version.
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The NHL may not want Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie as a franchise owner but consumers clearly want/need the Blackberry.
The company announced a 73% jump in fiscal first-quarter profits to $223.2-million while revenue soared 76% to $1.08. The results blew away the expectations of analysts, which prompted RIM shares to soar 17% in after-hours trading. “The numbers were absolutely awesome,” said Peter Misek, an analyst at Canaccord Capital Corp., told Bloomberg. “Technologically, nothing compares to their devices.” RIM shipped 2.4 million devices in the quarter and added another 1.2 million users.
The results are obviously stunning, and demonstrate the Blackberry and its newest iterations such as the Pearl and 8800. And, at the very least, it shows that the Blackberry has a very solid foothold in the market with the iPhone poised to hit the market today.
Speaking the iPod, a must-see video is the NYT’s David Pogue. It’s not only funny but it makes you want an iPod even if you’re one of those fence-sitters like me. As well, here’s a video interview with the guy who’s the first line at the Apple store in NYC. And if you want more iPhone stuff, here’s an interview that USA Today did with Steve Jobs and AT&T’s Randall Stephenson.
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There are many different ways to burn data, audio and video these days so it’s challenge for any piece of software to impress these days. That said, Fireman 3.0 stands out. It’s loaded with features but perhaps what is most compelling about Fireman 3.0 is its user-friendliness. In fact, this is the reason why I loaded the software on my wife’s laptop, which should met her need to burn all those family photos onto a CD so we can print them out one day. For a more extensive review, check out Max Arnold.
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If you’re a gadget developer or a gadget-related business, it’s your lucky day. Using some of its billions and billions of dollars cash sitting on the balance sheet, Google has launched Google Gadget Ventures to provide grants and seed money.
There are two options: you can apply for a $5,000 grant for further development provided you have more than 250,000 pageviews/week. The second program is $100,000 seed investments that will start as a Google Gadget (I guess that’s a trademark now!) to be a major part of a Google Gadget. To get the seed money, you need to have received the $5,000 grant.
Couple of thoughts: obviously we’re living in a gadget/widget world where customization and personalized will run rampant to give every Web user a different view of the world. Second, it’s nice to see Google find new ways to spend its money. When you’re making billions of AdSense dollars, it’s gotta be tough to find ways to do something with it other than letting it collect dust in the Google Vault. Of course Sergey Brin and Larry Page could ask Bill Gates about how to sit on billions of dollars for years!
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There’s lots and lots (and lots) of user-generated content such as blogs, Wikis, videos and personal Web sites being consumed and created these days but how big are both communities?
According to eMarketer, the number of user-generated content users will climb from 128-million in 2006 to 147.5-million in 2007 and 253.6-million by 2011.
Meanwhile, the number of content creators will jump from 117.9-million 2006 to 136.5-milllion in 2007 to 237.7-million by 2011.
In an interview with eMarketer, John Horrigan of the Pew Internet & American Life Project said the Web “shifting now to user-generated content; it shows people engaging with the Internet in a number of different ways in their lives. It shows that people are pretty interested in using the technology to put something of themselves on the Internet, not just pull down information from the Internet.”
Here’s a couple of charts for those who believe a picture tells a 1,000 words:
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The Wall St. Journal runs a story on the iPhone and the blogosphere jumps hard on the bandwagon. 
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In the last week, two of the potential suitors for BCE have been dropping like flies. The latest is Telus, which issued a short two-sentence statement yesterday that the “inadequacies of BCE’s bid process did not make it possible for Telus to submit an offer”. Couple of comments: first, I have no idea what that statement actually means; and second, some lawyer somewhere made a lot of money crafting the process to say something and nothing at the same time.
Truth be told, Telus is blowing smoke and everyone knows it - or should know it. It’s a bald-face negotiating tactic to get the federal Competition Bureau to approve a potential Telus-BCE merger/deal before private equity investors swoop in for the kill. You’ve got Telus CEO Darren Entwistle running around Toronto earlier this week talking about how a Telus-BCE deal would be “good for Canada” while lobbying the Competition Bureau to get its collective ass in gear.
Truth be told, Telus wants BCE because the deal makes sense for Telus. In fact, it makes a lot more sense for Telus and Canada than having some U.S. private equity investors take “control” of BCE. But, hey this Canada where regulation and bureaucracy rule the roost.
One final point, if the Competition Bureau was so interested in maintaining competition, why did it approve Rogers’ purchase of Microcell, which reduced the number of wireless players to three from four. It seems like a strange decision given there’s so much talk these days about a fourth national carriers being allowed to enter the wireless market.
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If you want to see - and hear - what the future of Internet radio could soon be like, check out LAUNCHcast, Pandora or hundreds of other online stations today. What you’ll hear is nothing. The fledgling industry, which has provided millions of people with a new and exciting way to listen and discover new music is holding a day of silence to protest what it sees as new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board in the U.S. The online radio industry believes these rates will drive many players out of business simply because they won’t be able to afford the fees, which are being tripled under the new regime.
Obviously, it’s a complex issue but it’s just another example of how there’s a puzzling disconnect between consumers and the music industry. The biggest problem, challenge and opportunity is discovery. You give consumers the tools to discover new music, and there’s a good chance they’ll spend money to access it - be it a CD, digital downloading, streaming radio service, etc.
Right now, the music world is suffering from a terrible case of discovery blues. Conglomerates such as Clear Channel are forcing a cookie-cutter programming down the throats of millions of radio listeners all in the name of we know what’s best for consumers. Well, that might have worked before the Web emerged as a powerful medium but it’s a dumb strategy now given consumers are more aware than ever about what’s available around the world, and they’re hungry to discover, listen and consume it.
It’s been almost a decade since Napster disrupted the music industry’s party, and the business is still no closing to figuring out what’s going to work and how it’s going to survive and thrive.
Note: TechCrunch points out that Last.fm is not part of the day of silence - maybe being part of a media conglomerate, CBS, has already caused Last.fm to forget where it came from.
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Will Pate, who just agreed to come on board as the editor for b5’s new Internet rockstar channel, provides a lengthy - and colourful - explanation about the channel’s focus. My favourite sentence is this: “An internet rockstar is someone who doesn’t surf the series of tubes, they shred it. They have street cred. Their posse is def and their peeps roll deep.” Of course, someone needs to explain what “def” and “their peeps roll deep” mean but it seems pretty impressive.
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