Christopher Mercer.Net

With the Consumer Electronic Show right around the corner – Tomorrow Jan 7th – there is a lot of talk that 3D HDTV’s for the consumer will be the next big thing in home entertainment. In fact there is quite a bit of speculation that nearly every major HDTV manufacturer will announce a 3D HDTV or plans for a 3D HDTV at CES.

So are consumers ready for 3D HDTV? The technology really only hit theaters in the past couple of years and has been a real hit with some titles such as Avatar and UP. Previous 3D attempts – think back to Jaws and those old Red and Blue paper glasses – were lack luster and often troublesome for viewers. So while the technology of 3D has improved it is not ready for wide spread home adaption.

The main reason for my argument against 3D HDTV now is basic economics. For the average Canadian family an HDTV has been a recent addition to the home. My own parents still use a 36” tube TV from Hitachi that renders fantastic image quality even 15 years after it was first purchased. So while people are replacing their old long lasting tubes with LCD and Plasma displays, they are also investing significant cost for such screens. The average cost for a 42” LCD is still in the $1200 range. To quickly turn around and replace that set with an 3D HDTV, with the often prohibitive new technology price, is a great recipe for consumer rejection.

So while 3D HDTV is coming and CES is a great chance to show consumers what is coming down the pipe. Don’t expect to see the 3D experience in your local sore anytime soon.

What do you think? Will the home version of 3D entertainment catch on or will it be regulated to the theater experience?

Last week I wrote a piece about how the local newspaper industry could evolve by adopting technology like the Amazon Kindle eReader to deliver their subscriptions. I went further than to suggest that people be able to buy the Kindle via a subscription model like cell phone companies make the phones they carry available.

Well this week brings us news that the popular Kindle is now available in Canada. Not only is it available but you can get your daily copy of The Globe and Mail or National Post via the device. But the launch is not as simple as it should have been.

A few important things to note about this launch are what features are not available on the Kindle. The device uses the 3G cellular technology to download content from the Amazon store. In the United States this is done via Sprint network but here in the great white north it is done by? Well we don’t quite know right now. It could be the Bell/Telus network or the Rogers network. Either has their pro’s and con’s. Another feature available to our southern neighbors and not us canucks is the ability to surf the web or subscribe to blogs via the eReader. A handy feature that makes the product more of an attractive buy.

In what I feel is the biggest failure to Canadian buyers, is the rollout is the Amazon store. Amazon operates stores in various countries selling books, items, and other products in that regions currency and with specific national items of interest. In order to get a Kindel in Canada though, one will have to go to the US Amazon store and pay an import fee to have the eReader. Not only that, but the device seems to be paired still to the Amazon US store which sells no Canadian content. Want an electronic copy of The Bishop’s Man, 2009 Giller Prize winner? No luck! While it is available in the Canadian Amazon store, Canadian Kindel users will be out of luck.

This is where Amazon misses the boat on a successful rollout to a new region. eReaders have all the promise of a successful product paired with great content but with deployments like this, it will be a slow adoption if adopted at all.

While this is disappointing I still believe that the evolution of the local paper can be done using this technology. This incident however will be a stalling point for anyone who was considering the moving in this direction.

I have been an avid subscriber to my local paper, the Chronicle Herald, for a little under a year now. It arrives faithfully – with the exception of a few hiccups – every morning 7 days a week. Every day I take the time to read what I can and what interests me from the paper. It is one of the many sources and mediums I get my worldly news and information. To that extent I enjoy having the paper and the side benefit of supporting local journalist jobs and a local business. Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, it even comes with the added bonus of the weekly flyers. Unlike the ones that are delivered in with the postal mail every day, I actually enjoy these flyers as they are from some of my favorite stores.

So it is clear, I enjoy my local paper. I want to support my local paper. But right now I am not happy with my local paper. In today’s mail I received a letter from the Herald informing me that I am a valued customer, that they are enhancing the product, and they want more money for the subscription.

Typically a small increase in subscription fees is not a huge issue and generally speaking I am not opposed to the principal. Though, in today’s age I wonder if continuing with the paper product is necessary as the primary method of delivery. Should the paper, in its paper form, be regulated as a niche medium to the product? Let’s be clear that the product is the content not the physical paper! To confuse the two would be a mistake. After all, they pay their staff to produce pieces of journalism not folded pieces of paper.

Given the letter about the increase in fees and the afore mentioned hiccups in delivery I have started thinking about how the Chronicle Herald could evolve to provide me more bang for my buck. For $20 a month I could have a paper product delivered to my building that occasionally results in the frustration of a missed delivery or a paper taken by a neighbor. The production of the physical product is a highly recyclable result though its production is not environmentally friendly. Take in consideration other variables like the paper getting wet , ripped, etc and you can see how people might want a bit more than the status quo for more money.

What I propose though is not a radical shift in direction for the Herald but an evolution of the delivery. Many companies have flirted with moving to a website based paper. This does offer them a virtually unlimited space to produce content that a physical paper limits. It offers search ability, ease of archives, a world audience, and so forth. But it has been difficult for the industry to monetize that particular business model. So while I don’t think it is a model that is unsustainable – I just think it is being done wrong – it is not the solution I have in mind either.

To see where I am going with this take a long look at your mobile phone. News on my phone? No, not exactly! Think about the business model built from the subsidized subscription method of the mobile phone market. Since the cost of my local paper is now approaching the cost of a basic cell phone contract perhaps it is time to start thinking about such a model, a la Kindel.

By pairing the news service with a long term subscription based model where instead of a physical paper delivered you get it downloaded to your subsidized device such as an Amazon Kindel or other e-reader. I’d be willing to even pay $30 a month for such a service. The benefits of such a device are; reusable, you still benefit from the virtually unlimited space of the cloud, and other services can be used on the device making it versatile product for things like eBooks and magazines, a larger screen than your mobile, etc.

As these devices evolve to offer options for; full color, video, and audio, so does the possibilities for your news agency to produce more and more dynamic content. While I am not advocating for the Kindel in particular it is the most popular e-reader available today and I offer it as an example.

What are your thoughts? Is this the direction the news paper industry should take? Would you pay more for a Kindel (or other like device) to receive your daily paper? Would your current mobile suffice? Comments are always welcome.

For those who are not aware of such events, tweetup’s are nothing more than a meet up of people who use Twitter. The purpose of such events is to network with like minded individuals in person instead of using online tools. Here in Halifax we have a very active social media community which has some rather regular events. They have organized regular events for “Halifax Chicks”, a semi regular sushi night, and the ever popular 3rd Wednesday event at the Foggy Goggle.

They define the events with a line “This isn’t an industry or professional event, it’s just a bunch of people who like this whole ‘internet’ thing and want to hang out with like-minded folks” which is exactly what social media/new media is about. It is about bringing people together around a common idea or goal.

At last night’s 3rd Wednesday event a question was posed to the group, is there a wrong way to use social media? While the question is a valid one to ask it also implies there is a correct way to use social media. Which leads me to think about why you are using social media?

This is where the answer lays in my mind. Social Media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Myspace, etc are about engaging and connecting people in a new way. Twitter is limited to 140 characters per message to get your ideas across. Facebook allows the sharing of video, pictures, and a variety of other information. Blogs are a beast onto their selves. But their fundamental purpose is all the same. The spreading of ideas in an interactive way.

The real power of social media is not in what tools you use – although they can add clarity to your message – but in how you use them. There were many brand experts in attendance last night who made very valuable contributions to the discussion about building a brand using these online tools. Though I think the fundamental principal of engagement was the key to the whole discussion.

Like the discussion that was happening in the room the discussions that happen online are most effective when people engage each other. Discussions where people talk and don’t listen. Well, we all paid our tuition for those! And like the course I took on the romantic poets where I was lectured to for 4 months those conversations did not have an impact like the discussions we had over Feminist Philosophy.

Others made valid points on honesty, authority, and even clarity. All valid points, all worth considering. But how are online discussions different from in person ones in that respect. You can say what you want but if you are being dishonest you will be caught and loose any authority you had. You effectively destroy your message or goal.

So is there a wrong way to use social media? Yes, that is to be disengaged from your potential audience. Is there a right way? Not really, because the varied goals of each user will dictate how they use it. But use, without engagement, is rarely effective. If you are building a brand, personal, corporate, or otherwise, not engaging the people who will give your idea power will prove to be a fruitless endeavor.

What do you think? Is there a right or wrong way to use social media tools?

Lately I have been battling with a particular thought process which seems to be gaining steam. If anyone has watched the news lately they have likely heard a story or two about Crown Prosecutors in Ontario doing extensive background checks into potential jurors. A professor who is also an investigative journalist warning about the harms of too much information online and a mass of other stories about what people put online, and who can see it. The warnings are all around and should be well heeded but where is that line between an employer’s right to know and an employee’s privacy. At what point should you be saying “No, that has nothing to do with my employment here”.

In casual talks with employers and managers around the city the predominate feeling is that if an employee or potential employee has a blog, facebook, twitter stream, or any other online presence the it is the employers right to know. While no one would admit to actively hunting these resources out the reactions did indicate a certain “right to know” attitude. The reality is that some employers are doing extensive searches of current and potential employees online habits. A recent Deloitte survey found that 30% of employers were informally monitoring social networking sites for employee’s habits. People have even been dismissed for content they have posted online. A quick search for “Fired for blogging” will give you an easy dozen links to choose for with related stories.

Now on the flip side many employees will argue that their online actions are none of their employers business. According to the same Deloitte survey 53% of employees think that their social networking habits are none of their employers business. Even though over 70% understand it is easy to damage their employer’s reputation online. I think the reasons for this is quite obvious and do not warrant an in-depth discussion. Employees do not want to be held accountable at their employment for things they do off the company time. The basic social contract of mutual financial success, that is I perform a set of duties to assist the company in being profitable and am justly paid for those services, is the underlying principal of this. For many people the employee/employer relationship ends there and unless the employees external actions prevent or inhibit that process, what the employee does is their business.
So where do you stand? Where does the employee/employer relationship end? At what point do you feel the employer is overstepping its bounds of intruding into your personal life? Leave your comments below. I would love to hear from employers and employees alike on this.

If you are a Canadian Internet user this might be of importance to you or it will soon become important. Recent changes in Bell Canada’s network have caused a lot of frustration for media hungry internet users. A practice called traffic shaping – deployed on Rogers networks since 2005 – has been slowly introduced into the Bell network and is effecting any peer-to-peer traffic crossing on the network. It has also been rumored that his policy has been escalated on the Rogers network to included any form of encrypted traffic. You know, the kind of encrypted traffic you participate in when you purchase online or do online banking!

This has not grabbed mass media attention yet since it really, only affected users of programs like bear share, limewire, and torrent’s. Since the introduction of new policy on the Bell network on March 14, it has now expanded to Third Party ISP’s who wholesale buy their internet access from Bell. A notable example of this is an Ontario ISP, Teksavvy Solutions.

A few things are important when framing this conversation. One note to keep in mind is that the internet’s current foundations were built on public monies through grants to universities to become interconnected. Money the universities used to buy data connections from companies like Bell. This allowed an infrastructure to develop that eventually was taken over, and vastly expanded on, by telecommunication and cable companies. I doubt either would have taken place without that initial funding from the government.

Another thought to keep in mind is the inherent conflict of interest Bell and Rogers has by providing a data connection that can be easily used to avoid their other products. You can use your internet connection to get television shows, movies, make and accept voice and video calls. This would allow you to avoid watching Rogers or Bell Global Media (owners of CTV) channels, Bell’s telephone service, or either of their on demand movie services.

Now an annoying network management technique has turned into a business and potentially legal problem as it will affect the bottom line of another business. Since the options are limited as to where else you can get this access, any terms of service they [Bell/Rogers] require become default standard. Keep in mind, both companies operated in a federally regulated and permitted monopoly situation. One that could be pulled if it is seen in the best interests of the citizens.

They will argue that the reason for this network management is due to the pressure placed on their systems. Yet, neither company has done major increases in network capacity for a number of years. Another argument being batted around is the legality of such peer-to-peer services, even though major players like CBC have recently begun offering legal media over these services.

So what now?

The answer is clear. It is time to send a signal to the CRTC that Canadians desire more competitive solutions to what is vastly becoming a necessary communication an entertainment tool. It is time to send a signal to Bell and Rogers that such practices will not be tolerated and are wildly being viewed as interference not management.

Telephony companies were not allowed to discriminate against users who used their phones to dial into the internet – in a bygone era – over those who used it for voice conversations. It should also not allowed to discriminate against users who download every movie available or just casually surf. More transparency is needed in this service and more standards are required. How I use my connection, or how much, should not matter or come with strings