February 2009 Archives

Ten years ago I testified at the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) New Media hearings in Ottawa and argued that they should not regulate Canadian Internet content. I stand by that decision and they did not regulate Canadian Internet content at that time.

Today the CRTC held its first hearing in 10 years to consider a new proposal that would see a $100-million fund created to support Canadian content on the Internet. That fund would be created by a levy on the Internet Service Providers who of course would then pass it on to the consumer. What really irks me about this discussion other than an increase in my monthly internet service provider bill, is that the content this fund would create is Canadian online video programming from Canadian television production companies. Don't we already subsidize Canadian television production companies? Why can't they just take their existing content and broadcast it on YouTube? Hey, they already do! And if more people are watching video online then in front of their TV's then why not shift some of their exsiting budget towards more online video? Creating a fund that will pay for doing something the television production industry should already be doing is ridiculous.

If the CRTC insists on meddling with New Media then why not create an online technology development fund that companies can draw on to create more high tech products made in Canada and marketed globally. This would create new jobs in the high tech industry helping position Canada as a leader in whatever sectors these companies enter. The fund should not be passed on to the consumer through Internet Service Providers though. It should come in the form of a new tax credit or other mechanism.

If the CRTC deems to impose this levy (read tax) then I will support the companies that fight this though legal channels.

- Follow the CRTC New Media Hearings Day 2 on the live Globe and Mail blog.

I joined Twitter on May 8, 2007 on the advice of my business partner at @SpaceRef @KeithCowing. Not too long after that we participated in a NASA conference at NASA Ames on Participatory Exploration where @Biz (Stone) explained to the audience what Twitter was and it's participatory nature. Thinking on it now it's kind of ironic that Biz was giving us the talk as we were using Jaiku, a competitor then, for the conference. Jaiku is now pretty much history after Google bought it and recently decided to stop working on it and make it open source.

After listening to Biz that day I still wasn't convinced that Twitter was useful and would survive. In fact I sent an email to my contacts on LinkedIn asking what they thought of Twitter. I got back a variety of answers including; What's Twitter? To how essential some people thought Twitter would become to their business. So I decided to keep using Twitter and subsequently created over 30 new Twitter accounts for various entities I was involved in including @GeneRef, @OnOrbit, @SpaceMeme, @HMP, @Hyperix etc. I'm glad I created all those accounts because now I'm starting to get some real tangible benefit from being on Twitter and being a part of the conversation. If you don't know what Twitter is and need a quick simple primer than this recent article in the Vancouver Sun is excellent.

But what's in it for Twitter? What's the business model? (2) I don't think Twitter's not going to make money through advertising. The community could revolt and move to another platform. And if they wanted to place advertising on the service they would have, should have done so already. Twitter's not going to make money charging a fee to access the service. That would just make their audience flee and kill the exponential growth they are now experiencing. So how is Twitter going to make money? In my humble opinion the basis of how they are going to make money all started when they made their application programming interface (API) available.