Welcome to Bell Canada Lite

By Mark Evans in ILEC News, Analysis 1 Comment

One of the most puzzling aspects of Bell Canada’s announcement earlier this week it was slashing 2,500 management jobs was that some analysts seemed surprised.

In the wake of a leveraged buy-out that has left with more than $30-billion of debt, the company needs to be aggressive to boost cash flow. A key part will be lower operating costs, much of it through streamlining operations (aka wide-scale staff reductions).

It’s the only way that Bell Canada can support its new financial structure as well as give it enough money to make investments to remain competitive viable. For example, Bell Mobility may have to invest $500-million to do an GSM overlay to put it on a level playing field with Rogers.

At the same time, the competitive landscape is challenging. Bell Canada’s local telephone service, high-speed, wireless and satellite-TV are experiencing, at best, modest growth. This means revenue growth will have to come from small but steady price increases – not an easy trick to pull off when you’ve got pesky competitors looking to capitalize on any misstep.

George Cope may have his dream job as Bell Canada’s CEO but sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.

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First Impressions; Tough Critics

By Mark Evans in Search Engines, Web 2.0 4 Comments Tags: , ,

For anyone involved in an online startup, the launch of Cuil earlier this week offered some good insight about the ins and outs of officially unveiling a new service.

While lots of media and blog coverage is the ultimate goal to gain attention and users, a far more important issue is making a good first impression with a service that fills a need and performs well.

Cuil got plenty of attention but it was hanmmered for not working and/or offering less than satisfactory search results. So, the question is whether Cuil launched too soon or whether expectations were far too high/unrealistic.

In terms of timing a launch, pulling the trigger can be as much a gut call as a pragmatic assessment that a service is good to go. The reality is no service will be perfect so at some point you just have to jump out from behind the curtain.

Sometimes, the reception is great (e.g. Jango) but it can also be savage (e.g. Flock). In fact, most startups get a rough ride because there’s no lack of critics – most of whom have little idea about what’s involved in building and launching an online startup.

The bias to kick rather than praise can be disheartening given the work and money that goes into a new service. But it can also be a positive in that many services are built in semi-vacuums. Sure, you can get feedback from friends, family and beta users, but it’s not until you launch that the real feedback pours in.

When that happens, the key is to listen, learn, assess, and then determine what it means and how to respond. In some cases, it may mean going back to the drawing board; in others it may be just a matter of tweaking some features and the UI. Whatever the response, smart startups should take criticism as an opportunity to take advantage of free advice from many people who know their stuff.

In terms of Cuil, there are many lessons to be learned, as well as lots of criticism to be assessed. What Cuil needs to do now is carefully weigh everything, and then make any strategic and/or technology changes to get better.

Sure, Cuil was beaten up and bloodied but it wasn’t knocked down and counted out. Like a tough boxer, Cuil needs to go back to its corner, get some good advice, and then come out swinging to fight another day.

Tangible vs. Digital

By Mark Evans in Web 2.0 7 Comments Tags: ,

Even though Cottage Country is going digital with the sad but staedy penetration of high-speed Internet access and satellite TV, it is still pretty much an analog world.

If you look around many cottages, you’ll see tangible, non-digital things such as books, magazines, newspapers, a TV that, if you’re lucky pulls in the CBC, and a radio. And if you’re wondering where VCRs and all those VCR tapes go to die, many of them will be found in Cottage Country. :)

Without the Web and a 500-channel TV universe, it’s a different world. Books that would be ignored get pulled off shelves, old movies are watched, boardgames played, walks taken and talks had.

It makes me wonder what the digerati would do if the Web was suddenly knocked out of commission for an extended period of time. With no Web, e-mail, Twitter and Facebook would we look longingly at our now less-interesting computers, and start to call each other on the phone, write letters, read more books and go for walks?

As life gets more digital, the analog world is brushed aside as antiquated and less useful or valuable. Not that progress is a bad thing but some parts of the analog world are worth keeping.

Then again, we’re still reading books and newspapers, and listening to AM radio so perhaps there is still hope for analog.

Everyone Loves a Google-Killer

By Mark Evans in Search Engines 8 Comments

Cuil may not be cool – or that stable – but it has certainly caught the attention of the blogosphere.

Who knows if Cuil will become a viable and popular alternative to Google but there’s no doubt people are fascinated with a well-financed search player looking to take on Google. If it’s not Cuil getting people hot and bothered, it’s Powerset or Mahalo or Wikia.

When you’re King Kong – especially one making oodles of dough – it’s not surprise that people are fascinating with potential rivals that look interesting. Cuil is no exception but maybe the main difference is Cuil appears to have come up with a different, if not better, search mousetrap by claiming it has indexed 120 billion Web pages.

If anything, that’s attention-grabbing. But there are still a few key questions:

1. Are the results relevant/useful?

2. Will Cuil be better enough than Google to lure people away?

3. Will Cuil be able to turn a seemingly powerful search engine into a business?

The biggest hurdle is #2. To establish a solid foothold, Cuil needs to be better and/or different than Google – otherwise it will just be another search wannabe. While the initial reaction appears to be mixed, perhaps the pragmatic approach is giving Cuil time to prove itself.

That said, the search engine market is ripe for change. People like new and different so there’s an appetite for a new search engine so people have an alternative to Google. It doesn’t mean Google’s dominance is going to evaporate, it just means Google may not be default for the vast majority of search efforts.

If Cuil can achieve enough of a foothold to encourage other search engine start-ups, that will be a huge accomplishment.

For what it’s worth, here’s what Cuil produced for a search for “Mark Evans” (Yes, it’s a vanity search!). Mark Evans, the artist who has consistently been #2 behind me on Google, is the top-ranked results while my old blog (evans.blogware.com) is second and third. No sign of Mark Evans Tech, however.

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Let’s Share a Little

By Mark Evans in Wireless 6 Comments

While I’ve been able to find Wi-Fi in Bayfield, Ont. (mystery solved!), a comment that resonated was whether there’s a way to share a little bit of your Internet access with people who want to check e-mail and check out a few sites.

Everyone is seemingly terrified about leaving their Wi-Fi networks wide open amid concerns that nefarious people will download copious amounts of music and porn. That’s fair enough but what if you could allocate 100MB to 500MB of your 60GB data package a month to share with anybody and everybody?

A measly 100MB won’t let anyone go too wild but it does provide enough bandwidth do check e-mail and surf the Web. Sounds like a reasonable proposition to me.

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A Personalized/Customized Browser

By Mark Evans in Browsers 4 Comments

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For whatever reason, I’m fascinated with Flock.

Perhaps it has to do with the tremendous amount of hype Flock received before launching a couple of years ago. Its unveiling was a disaster with an alpha that should probably never have seen the light of day. For all intents and purposes, Flock should have been dead in the water.

Rather than fade away, Flock kept on moving forward by introducing an array of new features and raising another $15-million of venture capital. In a sense, it has evolved from being the “social browser” to the “Swiss Army” browser given you can do pretty much everything and anything.

Yet, Flock has never really resonated with the digerati. It’s a browser many people have downloaded but rarely use. In fact, I’ve never come across anyone who has proclaimed themselves to a loyal Flock user.

So, Flock keeps on the searching for the magic bullet to jump-start its fortunes. It’s still early days but Flock may have stumbled upon something interesting – customized versions for different market segments. Earlier this week, Flock unveiled a new version called Gloss for the fashion and entertainment sectors. It also has Eco-Green and German versions.

Given people are so attached to their browsers, maybe the concept of a personalized browser will capture peoples’ attention. After all, you can customize Firefox by using add-ons and bookmarks so why shouldn’t people gravitate to browsers feature pre-configured content and a stylized look and feel.

You have to give Flock credit for trying to find its niche in an extremely competitive market. Whether or not this strategy is going to work is left to be seen but it looks like an interesting step in the right direction.

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