Mark Evans

Hey, We’re Talking Tech

Hey, we’re Talking Tech, although Kevin is MIA again. The big news within the Canadian high-tech scene was the $227-million acquisition of Workbrain by Infor Global Solutions. Duncan (Stewart) laments the demise of yet another sizable Canadian software company, and wonders how long large players such as Cognos and Open Text will stay independent.

The launch of the iPhone on June 11 captured our attention. I have concerns the iPhone will too expensive to replicate the success of the iPod. Duncan says another issue is the iPod raised the bar so high, it will tough for the iPhone to meet expectations even if it sells millions of units. Another interesting angle that Duncan raised is the iPhone’s WiFi offering may be a nail in its coffin because users would be able to circumvent the carrier’s network, they would get cheap calls through Skype.

Finally, we talk about EMI’s decision to release DMR-free music. Despite all the excitement about EMI’s announcement, I’m puzzled by the idea EMI wants to sell music for $1.29 a track, which is 30% more expensive than iTunes. This point was hammered home by Bob Lefsetz, who argues that digital music should be getting cheaper as opposed to more expensive if you want to encourage consumption, experimentation and purchases.

Duncan illustrates his point with the fact that Vladimir Ashkenazy’s 1971 complete recital of Beethoven is in the top 100 songs on iTunes. The album is more than 10 hours of music, and was making the company zero dollars at its previous $100 price but is a huge hit at $29.99. Then, there’s AllofMP3.com, which has seen huge success selling CDs for $2 a shot.

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Hey, We’re Talking Tech

An interesting week in the world of tech, which gave Duncan Stewart and I lots of fodder for this week’s Talking Tech podcast. (Kevin was on a hardship assignment as he had to attend some conference in Orlando). Perhaps the strangest - and most troubling - story was Kathy Sierra’s blog post about the death and sexual threats she has been receiving. It raises a bunch of questions about the dark side of the Web and the ability for people to operate in anonymity.

Closer to home, BCE Inc. seems to be in play now amid reports Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has been talking to BCE about a $30-billion + takeover. If BCE’s on the block, you have to believe Telus is in play as well, right?

Finally, we touch upon the hot question of whether some bloggers are journalists. The latest round of discussion was spawned when The Application Delivery Network had a post that took issue with a post I did on whether bloggers should get media accreditation.

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Is Podcasting That Hot?

Putting aside the crazy notion that pod-vertising will be bigger than blog-vertising by 2010/2011, the podcasting movement looks be gaining momentum given the organizers of PodCampNYC.org have had 850 people register for the event, which happens April 6/7. The conference is happening on a holiday weekend and it’s free so maybe that explains the interest. (Note: PodCamp Toronto, which took place last month, was a huge success)

Then again, podcasting is really the new blogging for many people. By that, I mean a lot of people are already blogging, and looking for next new thing aside from putting a bunch of widgets and Javascript tools all over their sites. This is where podcasting comes into play as bloggers - and others - try to get a handle on what’s involved (a digital recorder and a microphone), how much work you have to do to create one (not much, although good production quality requires some work and skills), and whether it’s any fun (definitely). As someone who’s been podcasting for about a year (Talking Tech), I’m starting to get curious about video-blogs, although I’m not sure the world is ready to see myself, Kevin Restivo and Duncan Stewart in the flesh yet.

Technorati Tags: Podcasting

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We’re Talking Tech

Another week, another Talking Tech podcast with Mark Evans, Kevin Restivo and Duncan Stewart. The tech landscape was dominated this week by an alliance between NBC Universal and News Corp. that will apparently be a challenger to YouTube. (Mike Arrington has a lengthy analysis that suggests YouTube has littleto worry about - at least in the short-term). Duncan and Stewart both believe that while the to-be-named joint venture’s prospects uncertain, its creation is yet another attack on the YouTube empire. Duncan adds he’s intrigued by the fact no one has jumped on the legal bandwagon after Viacom’s copyright infringement lawsuit was recently filed.

Of particular interest to Duncan are Motorola’s financial troubles, which could the mobile device market is quickly becoming a low-margin, low-profit commodity. After all, if you can buy a Razr - the coolest phone in the world not so long ago - for US$49, the margins can’t be that healthy, right? For us Canadian commentators, the obvious question is whether the Blackberry will also fall victim to the commodity trend. The answer - for now - is probably not because most Blackberrry purchases are businesses willing to pay for its reliability and security.

Finally, we take a look at why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called Google’s growth plans “insane”. Does Ballmer have a point given Google’s habit of tossing out new services that failed to gain much, if any, traction. Or his statement simply a reflection of Microsoft’s growing concern about Google’s inevitable march into the office productivity market - and perhaps the browser and OS markets?

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We’re Talking Tech

Two major themes within the high-tech industry this week: dealing making and lawsuits. So, lots of good material for Kevin, Stewart and I to talk about on our Talking Tech podcast.

We spent a lot of time looking at Microsoft’s acquisition of TellMe (estimated to be worth $800-million to $1-billion), as well as Cisco’s purchase of WebEx for $3.2-billion. On the legal front, Viacom’s $1-billion lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement captured a lot of attention. A lot of people believe it’s just a negotiating ploy (probably true), although Kevin believes this is the beginning of the end of YouTube as we know it given millions of people have been drawn to YouTube because of the free content. If content owners want to be paid, he argues YouTube will loses some of its appeal.

Nortel - boy, we do manage to talk about Nortel a lot, eh?! - gave us a lot to chew on after the SEC filed a civil fraud lawsuit against several ex-Nortel executives, including CEO Frank Dunn. For anyone interested in the nitty-gritty, check out my Nortel blog.

Finally, we look at the growing interest in green investing. The cynics among us would suggest investors aren’t interested in being good to Mother Earth as much as they believe there’s money to be made from development green technology.

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Guest Post: The Outlook for Pod-vertising

Will pod-vertising be bigger than blog-vertising? For some reason, PQ Media seems to think so: they believe pod-vertising will hit $400-million by 2011 while blog-vertising will be worth only $300-million by 2010. I have a hard time buying into this forecast because pod-vertising appears to have so little traction while blog-vertising is growing as advertisers become more comfortable about allocating more of their budgets to the Web.(Of course, my thesis not surprising given I work for a blog networking company). Anyway, it got me thinking that maybe there’s another side to the argument so what better way to explore it than to ask someone within the podcasting industry, Leesa Barnes, who put together a guest post for me. (It’s also on her blog). Take it away, Lisa.

“As I continue to interview podcasters for my book Podcasting for Profit, I’m discovering more and more that advertising and sponsorship can work in a podcast (although some do think they’re truly awful). So, it’s not surprising that eMarketer would release a report saying that spending on podcast advertising will reach $400-million by 2011.

While I don’t doubt these numbers, what concerns me is that many companies still don’t understand that advertising in a podcast has to be treated differently from advertising in other media, specifically television and radio.

There are so many benefits to consider when choosing to advertise in podcast:

1. Most podcasts target a niche audience. This allows a company to speak to a target audience that will not only listen, but take action.
2. The content in a podcast is evergreen. Scott Bourne talked about this on his blog. The fact that podcast episodes are available online well beyond its published date gives an advertiser an advantage that no other media does.

Advertising (and sponsorship) in a podcast has to be non-instrusive. The ad can’t stand out so much that the only thing the podcast listener or viewer remembers is how much the ad interrupted what they were consuming.

This is similiar to taking pictures. Personally, I hate taking pictures simply because I find the whole process to be contrived, fake and pretentious. Instead of the camera capturing the moment as it occurs, the photographer interrupts your conversation by asking everyone to stop, smile and say cheese. The best pictures are those that catch people in the moment. In other words, the camera should be non-intrusive and should weave seamlessly into the event.

The same of advertising. It should be non-intrusive and fit into the content of the podcast, not become a glaring interruption. Until those who buy advertising understand this, podcast advertising will be treated as nothing more than a gimmick or a stunt and I can’t forsee spending reaching anywhere close to $400-million.”

Technorati Tags: Leesa Barnes, Podcasting

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We’re Talking Tech

From the better late, than never file…another episode of Talking Tech. So, Google made yet another acquisition - this time one with Canadian roots as Google picked up AdScape, which makes technology to deliver advertising in online video games and virtual worlds. AdScape was started in Ottawa (and still does most of its R&D in the nation’s capital) but it moved its headquarters to the U.S. a couple of years ago.

Sadly, there were no Canadian VCs involved with AdScape - much like there were no Canadian VCs involved with Calgary-based iStockphoto, which was acquired by Getty Images last year for $50-million, or Voodoo Computers, which was acquired by HP. Is this a sign Canadian VCs aren’t investing in high-tech start-ups or just anonmalies?

Another mystery is whether a wireless spectrum auction being held early next year will lead to the emergence of a fourth wireless carrier to provide some competition to the incumbents - Rogers, Bell and Telus. When you think about it, there really isn’t much competition in Canada’s wireless market despite the efforts of folks such as Virgin Mobile.

Finally, we take a look at a U.S. study that suggests Blackberry users work more hours than folks who don’t carry a mobile e-mail device. As a rather undisciplined Blackberry user, the study definitely resonates with me.

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We’re Talking Tech

The week that was in the world of technology from Mark Evans and Kevin Restivo (that’s us, and here’s our Talking Tech podcast). There was lots to talk to about on the telecom front as Nortel unveiled plans to lay off another 2,900 employees to slash operating costs by $400-million a year, while Alcatel-Lucent (aka Lucatel or Alcent) said it plans to chop 12,500 positions in the wake of their union last year.

While the music industry tried to get its head around Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music marketing exercise (let’s turf DRM but Apple ain’t going to lead the charge), EMI mused publicly (or at least through the Wall Street Journal) about releasing all its music without DRM protection. What a novel idea to let consumers do what they want with the music they purchase!

Finally, Circuit City plans to close 62 The Source stores in Canada. If this doesn’t strike you as news, then you’re clearly not one of those geeks who wander into The Source (formerly known as Radio Shack) looking for a nine-pin adaptor to connect your clock radio to your PC…or something like that.

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Hey, We’re Talking Tech

So, what happened this week in the world of tech? In this week’s Talking Tech podcast, Kevin Restivo (aka my partner in crime and the solicitation of evaluation units) talk about the launch of Vista (is anyone really that excited); the coming out party for BlogTV.ca (Canada’s version of YouTube), super high-speed Internet access from Videotron using technology from Cisco; and a new blog from Nortel CTO John Roese.

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Another Friday, another Talking Tech podcast featuring yours truly and my trusty sidekick, Kevin Restivo. In the wake of CES, it was a fairly quiet week but there was lots of buzz in the online video market with the official launch of Joost, Netflix getting into the movie and TV download business, and Brightcove raising $59.5-million. Both Kevin and I are impressed with Joost, which we think will be a success as long it can get content owners onboard. I also think Joost will be another entrepreneurial success for Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friss, who appear to have the Midas Touch in the wake of Skype’s sale to eBay.

In Canada, the big tech news of the week was Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s admission that its Talvest mutual trust subsidiary had lost a backup file that contained the personal data of 470,000 investors. Of course, this pales in comparison to TJX Inc. having its network hacked and as many as 40 million credit card numbers exposed.

We wrap up the podcast with a look at a week in the life of telecom entrepreneur Terry Matthews, who saw one of its investments, Ubiquity Software, acquired by Avaya for $144-million, while another, March Networks, had its stock drop 40% after revealing that one of its large customers (Wal-Mart) is buying less of its digital surveillance technology.

Technorati Tags: Wal-Mart, Terry Matthews, Video

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