With six major conference events over 5 days in Toronto, this year’s Mobile Innovation Week is looking solid. Head on over to the official MIW site for more info on each of the events and to pick up tickets.
Great to see this kind of though leadership in mobile coming together in Canada. Recommended.
WirelessNorth.ca has the golden opportunity this friday to put questions to both of Canada’s largest two new entrants in Canada mobile scene, on stage, at the MEIC launch event in Toronto.
And so… what would be fairer than throughing it out loyal wirelessnorth.ca readers? Post your questions in the comments -or mailto editor[at]wirelessnorth.ca- If there’s some good ones, we’ll stick it to them :)
WirelessNorth.ca will be participating in an Interactive Ontario iLunch event this Friday and we’re looking forward to it:
If you dream of creating the next “killer app” for mobile phones consider this: the iPhone app fund rejects 99.8% of applicants. In a six-month period over 2,700 plans were received. Out of that group, only five companies were funded.
According to a recent Jupiterresearch/Forrester research report, mobile TV adoption is now at just 1%, and interest in all types of mobile TV is just over half what it was in 2006.
And Yahoo tech reported that a wave of economic gloom is set to hit mobile phone buyers (in 2009), with a growing number of analysts expecting the once-buoyant market to shrink for the first time since the 2001 crash.
But against this backdrop of doom and gloom, content creators gain ground as mobile technology continues to flourish, while carriers and other traditional gatekeepers of mobile content give way to new distribution opportunities.
Drawing on the experience of each of our panelists, iLunch 7.03 will explore:
- the types of mobile content that have been most successful to-date
- the best businesses to be in: mobile content creation, platforms or distribution
- distribution methods, partnerships and monetization strategies that have been most successful in this space
- the role of private investors or venture capitalistsPanelists for this session include:
• Simon Foster, Vice President, Business Development, GlassBOX Television Inc
• David Bazak, Sr. Relationship Manager, Media & Entertainment, RBC Royal Bank of Canada
• Mark Hyland, VP, Marketing, QuickPlay Media
• McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves, CEO/Founder, The Nimble CompanyModerated by: Thomas Purves, Tech Strategist and blogger
And hope to see you there.
In case you haven’t heard, VC and converted-cannuck Rick Segal is sitting on a great pile of cash which he is earnestly trying to throw at startups. Rick works for JLA the VC firm administering the 150M blackberry partners fund (details). Rick has let us know of a great deal for seed stage mobile startups, ~100k on simple, standardized terms, convertible debt which you “don’t have to pay back” it is expected to be converted in to equity at your next round of funding within 18 months. The only major catch we’d imagine is that you’ll need to have a) a good enough idea b) a willingness to work your butt off once funded.
Here’s the advice.
1. Economy notwithstanding, it’s a great time to be at the seed stage of springboarding a new mobile startup in Canada. Remember that in the next year and half: Airwaves are opening up, wireless competition is coming, and newer and newer devices will be making amazing things possible. There’s a RIM/Apple/Android/Sybian/MSoft platform war brewing which is why these funding and partnership deals are on the table for developers.
2. Dust off the napkins and white boards, figure out a business model, whip together a prototype and drop Rick an email for one of his famous “no harm no foul” meetings.
3. There’s a saying in startup world “when they are passing around the cookie tray, take one.”
FYI: Thanks to his blogetc., Rick is probably the most public of the personalities at JLA, but we’ve long heard (from other CEOs) good things about John Albright and all the rest of the team at JLA.
see also: StartupEmpire: Somebody will get funded!
Breaking news, Canada’s ever popu(list) governing party latest polling data has found few ordinary citizens in favour of “unfair” telecom charges. I don’t know if this poster child would top our list in that category, but inbound SMS fees have recently garnered a lot of press attention, and so.
“We are obviously responding to a specific concern, which is the imposition of charges for unsolicited text messages,” Harper told reporters today in Victoria, British Columbia. “We think this is completely unfair to consumers; completely unwarranted.”
Now there’s insensible about waiving fees on unsolicited txt messages (how about the same for unsolicited telemarketer calls eh?) the catch is that Bell and Telus already claim to credit consumers for “spam” messages. So this new policy may not mean much.
Buried under the headlines though is the story with real far reaching implications:
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission would also be empowered to block “unfair charges” in the future, and the country’s telecommunications act will be amended to create a “code of conduct” for wireless services, Harper said.
To date the wireless industry has not been subject to CRTC regulation. This is huge (depending on your opinion of the CRTC’s efficacy). Sadly though the conservatives have stopped short of another likely remedy, relaxing foreign ownership rules to spur greater competition. This “is not the time to move forward” on loosening ownership restrictions says Harper.
On balance however, this announcement is progress and probably good news for Canadians. For better or worse it does seem likely that Harper will still be in his seat after this election.
At WirelessNorth.ca we’re strongly in favor the conservative (or any other party) spending less effort on quashing arts & creativity in Canada and more on building a globally competitive wired/wireless telcom infrastructure and related industries in this country.
A code of conduct to enforce reasonable consumer protections is a good idea. Starting to relax foreign ownership would have been a good idea too.
Forgive the slow pace of updates this week. It’s summer and WirelessNorth.ca is on vacation this week. If you have a piece of saucy news or commentary you’d like to see posted, drop us a line to editor@wirelessnorth.ca or head over to the trusty submit a story page. WirelessNorth.ca will return next week with more regularity.
Jevon has been following this one for a week or two and has all the news over at StartupNorth.ca New $150 million Blackberry Fund, based in Canada.
These are exciting times for mobile developers in canda. Between this fund, other VC and Angels in the mobile space, and a number of Federal and Provincial funds/programs out there, there is a lot of backing available for mobile developers.
What do you want to build? or what’s the killer blackberry app you’ve been waiting for?
As widely reported everywhere Ted has announced he finally got the iPhone. Rogers reports their Q1 earnings today, some notable points, ARPU (average revenue per user) is up almost $5 to a wallet crushing $72 thanks in part to a growth in Data ARPU (now 14% of revenues) and as Rogers seems to have lost some low end share to growing competition to the likes of Telus’ Koodo and other discount brands. (we hear koodo is doing well, despite the branding)
Meanwhile, further rumours have the Nokia N95 (and other n series?) coming to rogers as well. Certainly Rogers will price the hell out of the high-end Nokias but notice these two announcements would Rogers is finally (and smartly) dropping the hammer on their GSM advantage on Telus and Bell. Those two share a network based on the increasingly-orphaned CDMA standard not supported by nokia or apple.
The coming of May means an important tradition, the coming of the Spring quarter and new mobile pricing and marketing plans from all the big carriers. What shall it be this time?
Just off the phone with a CSR at Rogers for one who informed your editor of this little tidbit: the reason Roger’s roaming charges on data are so high (not unheard of for folks to run up 800-1000 blackberry bills on a few business trips to the US) is because Rogers has never had a roaming plan for data. There’s a thought. But, says the CSR as well as sources from other carriers, starting next week expect some new new rate plans across the board as each carrier launches their spring campaigns and Rogers clears the deck for iPhone.
Expect the iPhone in June or so. Expect it to be the second gen iPhone with 3G and a few other tweaks to the current model.
Thank goodness for decent blackberry plans on Telus and new GSM entrants on the horizon, elsewise your future is looking awfully Rogery and you might as well sign over all your future paychecks to Ted right now just to get it over with.
If you don’t have one already, WirelessNorth.ca is giving away a free ticket to ICE 08 the “Interactive Content Exchange” march 26 – 28, 2008 Toronto Canada. This conference is looking pretty good. Regular price is $599. Of course there’s catch, or as we prefer to look at it, two opportunities in one. WirelessNorth.ca has an extra ICE ticket (thanks to DemoCamp17) but a shortage of hands to help blog the conference. So we’re looking for one person, who will cover ICE for WirelessNorth, 2-4 posts over the course of the two days on what you think are the best (or worst) stories of ICE and what it all means for you, the future, or the great WirelessNorth.ca
So, save yourself $600, get into the conferece, and get published on WirelessNorth.ca, drop a line to (editor at WirelessNorth.ca). If there’s a multitude of volunteers, the winer will be selected by some selective and subjective process we haven’t entirely thought of yet. Possibly related to how quickly you send in an email.
As a blogger, there’s one other official way to win a free ticket, ICE is sponsoring a contest to give away a pair of tickets to bloggers who write the best post somehow related to one or more of: “Innovation. Creativity. Enterprise. ” Details. Heads up though, the deadline is tommorow. The tag you want to use is “ICE08″.
Speaking of learning and hacking with iPhone and Android SDKs, head over to Montreal Techwatch if you are meeting up with other mobile developers to share and kick around ideas. Sounds awesome. The date Wednesday the 19th has been suggested, in downtown Montreal.
The event will go ahead if there are more than 4-5 people interested. Somehow, I don’t think that will be a problem.
Definitely thinking that WirelessNorth.ca should organize something like this in Toronto (and elsewhere) as well. Stay tuned, and subscribe to this blog for future announcements….
Update: Looks like the final date is set for Friday, 21 March at “Station C” in Montreal more details.
