The emergence of more wireless players in Canada will lead to “lower prices for consumers, more choice and better service”.
- Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice after the federal government decided to set aside spectrum to let new competitors enter the $11-billion market.
Prediction: There will be more choice and perhaps better service but don’t hold your breath for lower prices. And why is the federal government trying to influence free market dynamics?
I received a Google Alert yesterday (see below) that finally put the proverbial nail in the “2.0″ coffin for me.
Isn’t it about time that the use of 2.0 to describe something evolving, improving, moving forward, etc. stops being used? It’s, frankly, tiresome and a sign of laziness. Can’t figure out a way to describe that something’s different? Why not take the easy way out by slapping 2.0 at the end.
And don’t get me started about “3.0″
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0
Big news from the Great White North after the federal government carved out some wireless spectrum for new players.
“Our conclusion is that a more competitive wireless market is in the best interests of Canadians,” Industry Minister Jim Prentice proclaimed yesterday at a press conference.
The initial reaction seems to be: Hallelujah, we’ll now have new national players, who will shake up the market so that penetration rates will increase and prices will decline.
Before anyone gets too carried away, my concern is things may return to “normal” after the new player(s) have been in business for awhile.
Why? It may come down to simple economics. To run a viable business, you need to make enough money to cover your costs, make a profit and increase shareholder value. If your prices are too low, you’ll probably attract lots of customers but could end up making little or no profits (see Microcell). If your prices are too high, you won’t attract many customers unless you have fantastic services, great phones and a brand that truly resonates with consumers. (Virgin Canada?)
Granted, the rules set out by Industry Canada such as forcing the incumbents to share towers with new rivals will reduce costs but it’s still going to be an expensive proposition to play.
My prediction is the new players – Quebecor, for one – will come out with guns ablazing before market dynamics bring them back to earth. Don’t get me wrong, four or five national competitors is a lot more attractive than three (Bell, Telus and Rogers) but it doesn’t guarantee things are going to change much. Time will tell, I guess.
For more, check out Startup North, which describes the decision as “wireless competition explodes”, TechVibes, and Telecom Trends, which contends the government’s intention to creation more competiion “appears to be ill conceived” because two existing players – Manitoba Telcom and SaskTel – will be able to bid on spectrum put aside even though they dominate their home markets.
If you ever wonder why Google continues to dominate the search market, check out a new experiment it’s conducting that lets you adjust search results.
The idea, which has caught many people by surprised, is you can move up search results that you particularly like; and remove results you don’t like. So, if it’s a search term that you use on a regular basis, you can get a personalized result. It’s definitely different and intriguing, and I would argue, something that could cause more pain to rivals such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Powerset, etc.
This experiment illustrates one of Google’s biggest strategic strengths: the ability to try different things even if they don’t work or seem downright strange. The ability to dabble gets more difficult the larger you get but, so far, Google’s has managed to maintain its strategic mojo.
For more thoughts on Google’s stab at a new approach to search results, check out Googlified and TechCrunch.
Technorati Tags: Google, Search Engines
Big revelations (note: high level of facetiousness) from Read/WriteWeb: “There’s No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere”.
Translation: If you have a blog with little traffic, you’ll be lucky if the AdSense Gods earn you enough for a few trips to Starbucks each month.
If you didn’t know this already, where have you been exactly? The online advertising market is a high-volume game. The more traffic you have, the more attractive you are to advertisers, the higher your chances of making money from advertising. And so it goes.
If, on the other hand, you have a site with little traffic (less than 100,000 pageviews a month), you’re probably dreaming about AdSense clicks. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule where a small, well-targeted site can attractive advertisers but these are exceptions to the rule.
A bigger concern for bloggers who depend on advertising, including Read/WriteWeb, is the rapid emergence of RSS as a content consumption tool. If people are getting content from RSS readers, they’re not visiting Web sites where all that pretty advertising is waiting to capture your attention. Not good news for revenue-seeking bloggers or advertisers. I riffed on this growing reality earlier this week.
More: Aidan Henry had a good post this week on the economics of online advertising. His math is eye-opening, and hammers home the point that being small online makes it hard to be big in business.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blogs
If you look at some of the recent comings and goings by the VC community in Silicon Valley, there’s a new investment darling in town: alternative energy.
While not to suggest the VCs will abandon the wonderful world of Web 2.0, it is a sign that alternative energy has become a lot more interesting from an investment perspective amid growing interest in the environment and climate change (aka global warming). Even Google is jumping into the alternative energy game with an aggressive R&D and investment strategy.
So, you can expect to hear a lot more news about solar, geothermal and wind power in the coming months. (For an in-depth look at what’s happening in this market, check out Tyler Hamilton’s blog)
If Web 2.0 is kind of passe, and alternative energy is the flavor of the day, let’s look into crystal balls and see what’s next in terms of the next, big technology investment opportunity.
I’ll argue that water will – or should – emerge as the next hot idea.
The lack of water in many areas around the world, including many areas in the southern U.S., is becoming a bigger concern. The water levels in major lakes are declining in alarming ways, rivers are dwindling from a roar to a trickle, and wells are drying up. According to the World Health Organization, one billion people around the world lack access to clean, safe water.
You can point fingers at climate change, booming population growth, aging infrastructure and a lack of conservation efforts but the bottom line is we’re facing a water crisis in many places around the world.
One solution is tapping places that have a lot of water – many U.S. status already have their eyes on Canada’s abundant water supplies. But this doesn’t really address the problem. We need to look at real solutions such as water purification/desaltification, remediation, water conservation, infrastructure, billing/metering, etc.
This is where technology and, hopefully, VC investments could come into play.
More: I stumbled upon this great quote from a 2005 San Jose Mercury News story on investments in water. “Water is the oil of the 21st century,” said Ira Ehrenpreis, an investor with Technology Partners, who is also eager to invest in water start-ups. “There is such a huge demand, and finite supply.” As well, check out this Cleantech blog post called “The Trouble with Water”.
Technorati Tags: Water
