I have no idea if WIND Mobile is going to be able to deliver what they promise – a mobile phone company that listens to its customers and provides better service than the sad players in the Canadian mobile phone oligarchy – but they’ve got the right ideas and some rather funny videos that perfectly illustrate what the Canadian mobile customer has to contend with.
What if Toronto’s hot dog vendors had a pricing model like Canadian mobile phone companies? Buying a hot dog would be like this:
Canada is the only country in the world where mobile companies lock you into three-year contracts for mobile service, and this situation is illustrated in the video titled Bike Lock:
I always look at the service packages offered by U.S. mobile companies with envy. Here, the mobile companies love nickel-and-diming you:
WIND is a new entrant into the Canadian mobile phone market and a branch of Globalive Communications, who already have a presence in Canada in the form of Yak Communications, an alternative phone and internet provider. They seem to be taking a very “social media” approach to their marketing, what with the “viral” YouTube videos and a “conversational” website in which readers are encourage to actively participate in online discussions.
They look like an interesting company to watch, and hey, if they can get me a better deal than Rogers, I’ll switch.
This morning’s sessions in TechDays’Developing for the Microsoft-Based Platform focuses on both the ASP.NET MVC web app framework and recommended object-oriented programming practices, namely the Model-View-Controller pattern with Colin Bowern’s presentation earlier this morning and now (at the time of this writing) the SOLID principles in Bruce Johnson’s session, SOLIDify Your ASP.NET MVC Applications.
Assless Chaps + Twitter = Business Opportunity
You might remember Bruce from the “Assless Chaps” story. The story can be summarized in the three tweets shown below.
I tweeted him back and then decided to throw in a jokey reply:
My thinking was: Hey, this is a conference of Microsoft developers! Yes, they’re a bright and talented bunch, and I like them, but they’re an older, corporate, more buttoned-down crowd. They’d never go for renaming a session from “Data Binding” to “Data Bondage”.
And since he responded to my challenge, I had to fulfill my end of the bargain:
The “Assless Chaps” story doesn’t end there. Yesterday, while we were hanging out by the Windows 7 lounge and the “Assless Chaps” story came up. Bruce told me that our conversation on Twitter about the assless chaps actually landed his company, ObjectSharp, some business. A local developer got curious as to what the “assless chaps” business was all about in Bruce’s and my conversation on Twitter and the ensuing conversation got them talking about ObjectSharp’s services, which in turn became a contract.
The moral of the story: there’s actual business value in Twitter and assless chaps. I may have to go buy a pair (I rented the ones pictured above).
What do you get with WebsiteSpark? I put together a little graphic that explains it pretty quickly:
Visibility: By being showcased in the WebsiteSpark marketplace as well as through opportunities creating through The Empire’s marketing and business networking programs.
Support: You’ll get hooked up with an entire ecosystem of Microsoft support, network and hosting partners, and web developers and designers so you have a wide range of technical and business resources.
Tools: Full-on access to full versions of current Microsoft web tools and technologies, such as the goodies listed below:
What You Get
What It Is
Silverlight For building rich internet applications that can do multimedia, access data from the web and can also be run on the desktop.
Expression A suite of tools for building websites, user interfaces for Silverlight and desktop applications, making web and application graphics, encoding video and building prototype applications in a hurry. You get: - 1 user licence for Expression Studio - Up to 2 user licences for Expression Web
SQL Server Web Edition Microsoft’s database platform for data needs of all sizes, from the simplest web form to full-on enterprise applications. You get a 4-processor licence of SQL Server 2008 Web Edition.
Windows Server 2008 (and 2008 R2 when it becomes available) A server that’s both powerful and easy to maintain, featuring the IIS 7 web server and the Web Platform Installer, which makes it easy to install and upgrade popular web applications. You get a 4-processor licence of Windows Server 2008 (and for 2008 R2 when it comes out).
Visual Studio Professional The IDE (integrated development environment) that has it all. You get up to 3 user licences of Visual Studio Pro.
Are You Eligible to Join WebsiteSpark? Answer These 2 Questions.
If you can answer “yes” to the two questions below, you are!
Is your company a professional service firm whose primary business is providing Web development and design services for its clients?
Does your company have 10 or fewer people, including owners and employees?
Once you join WebsiteSpark, there’s a simple obligation: in order to continue participating in WebsiteSpark, you must deploy a new public, internet-accessible website developed using the tools and tech given to you by WebsiteSpark within 6 months of joining.
You can stay in WebsiteSpark for up to 3 years. On the first and second anniversary of your initial enrollment, you must update it – that is, confirm your company hasn’t gone public or its ownership hasn’t changed.
I Don’t Have a Fee-For-Service Web Shop, I Have a Startup. Can I Get in on This?
No, but we have a program for you – it’s called BizSpark.
I’m a Student and Have Limited Money, and It’s for Books and Beer. Can I Get in on This?
Dude, we have something just for you! It’s called DreamSpark.
How Do You Find Out More?
The details about the program are at the WebsiteSpark site. Check it out, and if it’s right for you, sign up!
Yossi Vardi, according to Wikipedia, is one of Israel’s high-tech entrepreneurs and for over 40 years has funded or helped build over 60 high-tech companies in the fields of software, energy, internet, mobile, electro-optics and water tech. If you’ve used ICQ or the services of my old company Tucows, you’ve used something he helped fund. He’ll be speaking tomorrow evening in Toronto at the Velma Rogers Theatre.
Yossi Vardi is one of the leading individuals in the Israeli software/Internet industry.
Yossi has extensive experience in the public and private sector. In the private sector, he is probably the most respected investor in Israel; has served on many boards including Amdocs, Maariv, Elite, Scitex, Bezeq, Arkia, Elisra. In the public sector, he has extensive experience in technology, including helping to set up the VC industry in Israel via Yozma. He serves on the board of governors of Weizmann Institute and the Technion. He was the chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation, council member of the Open University of Israel and serves on the board of trustees of the Hebrew University. Vardi acted as an advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program on issues of energy policy and strategy in the developing world. He is a member of the World Economic Forum, serves on the Research Visionary Board of Motorola, and on the Future Trends Forum of The Bankinter Foundation of Innovation. He serves on the advisory board of Blackberry Ventures in Ontario, and served on that of 3i, was advisor to the CEOs of AOL, Amazon.com, Allied-signal, Siemens-Albis and others.
Yossi was the founding investor of Mirabilis, inventor of ICQ – the well known Internet-wide Instant messaging product. Among the companies he invested in, or helped to build are Answers.com, Gteko (sold to Microsoft), Airlink, Tivella, Scopus, CTI2, Foxytunes, Tucows (Toronto based), and Starnet.
In recent years Vardi has been active in fostering a culture of innovation and creativity in Israel and abroad. He founded the Kinnernet conference, an annual, three days gathering of creative people from all over the world.
Vardi won the TechCrunch Europe 2009 "Best investor personality" award; He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Technion, Honorary Fellowship from the Open University, and twice received the Prime Minister award for life achievements in the high tech area; he was nominated as one of The Most Influential International Executives by The Industry Standard.
Yossi, most recently, is an Angel investor in many Israeli startups and is now focusing on unique models of investing in startups. He is currently invested in many startups. Yossi is just returning from San Francisco where he attended the TechCrunch50 conference as one of the Panel of Experts.
An Evening with Yossi Vardi takes place tomorrow night, Thursday, September 24th at 6:30 p.m. at the Velma Rogers Theatre, which is inside the Rogers building at 333 Bloor Street East (at Jarvis).
The free student admission tickets to this event are sold out as of this writing, but the regular admission tickets are a dirt-cheap $5 and some are still available – go there to purchase a ticket.
Local business search site Canpages has just acquired GigPark, the social networking site for employers and job-seekers.
Here’s a snippet from Canpages’ news release:
"Online recommendations, especially those from a user’s social networks, are increasingly important when choosing which local businesses to buy from," said Olivier Vincent, President and CEO of Canpages. "With the acquisition of [...]
The New York Post is a “scandal sheet” tabloid newspaper that’s best known for its sensationalistic, hilarious headlines. A few examples:
When beer magnate Freddy Heineken was kidnapped, they ran a story titled No Deposit, No Return.
When New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was linked to a prostitution ring: Ho No.
On the possibility of [...]
Even though we now have over a decade of e-commerce history under our belts, credit card processing is still one of the most stone-knives-and-bearskins primitive aspects of web app development. It seems like a lot of trouble and arcana just to move money from buyer to seller, an action that at its essence is as [...]
First, Andy Serwer, managing editor at Fortune magazine wrote an article titled This Crisis Could Have a Happy Ending. In it, he calls this first decade in the 21st century “one big washout for investors” and “a lost decade”.
He also wrote:
I believe that in order for the market to achieve a sustainable advance that [...]
The second-last speaker at yesterday’s Startup Empire conference was Hugh MacLeod, whom most of us know for his comics drawn on the back of business cards and his blog, Gaping Void. Here are my notes from his presentation:
Intro
It’s easy for an advertising career to tank, especially if you live in New York and drink [...]
Another afternoon presenter at yesterday’s Startup Empire was David Cohen, founder and Executive Director of TechStars, which provides a unique opportunity for early-stage startups. Here are my notes from his presentation:
Boulder, Colorado
Why did I come here today? Because I’m hearing more about Toronto every day
I started out in development
“Never ever take the title of CEO,” said Rick Segal between speakers at yesterday’s Startup Empire conference. “We fire CEOs all the time. Be a founder instead.”
Technorati Tags: Startup Empire,Rick Segal,startups,entrepreneurs,CEOs
Later on in the afternoon at yesterday’s Startup Empire conference, Howard Lindzon took the stage. Howard manages a hedge fund and is the creator of the finance news humour site Wallstrip, which he sold to CBS in May 2007. He also has a very popular financial blog at HowardLindzon.com.
I shot some video asking Howard [...]
The second presenter at yesterday’s Startup Empire conference was Austin Hill. Austin’s one of the founders of the Company Formerly Known as Zero-Knowledge Systems (they’re now Radialpoint), where he served as both Chief Technology Officer, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President. He’s the co-founder of Montreal-based tech startups Akoha, where he serves as [...]
The first speaker at yesterday’s Startup Empire conference was Microsoft’s own Don Dodge, Director of Business Development for Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team and author of the blog Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing.
Don’s been in the industry for over 20 years. He started with Digital’s database group and went on to work with [...]
If you can answer “yes” to the two questions below, you are!
