The Universality of Broadband

Here's an interesting social question. Should we take the necessary steps in society to make broadband universally available?

It's an important question, because the continued growth and success of our economy depends on technology and broadband is the core of modern technology. Access to high speed internet improves access to information, enables better education and promotes higher levels of productivity. These advantages cut across all sectors of the economy, albeit to different degrees. Generally, people with higher incomes make good use of broadband. those with lower incomes do not. Lack of universality of broadband access therefore promotes the digital divide - the growing economic disparities in society brought about by access to technology. It's a chicken an egg situation. People without broadband are at an economic disadvantage, in their education and in their jobs. They tend to become lower income, and therefore can't afford broadband or the equipment to make use of it. People in poverty can't afford broadband and therefore have yet another impediment to improving their lot in life.

Should the government step in to develop policies for universal access to broadband? There have been sporadic attempts to do this, but not a comprehensive carefully defined policy. The question has been likened to the initiatives during the industrial revolution to make road access available to everyone. Broadband is the new road system, just as essential to the e-economy as roads were to the i-economy. It needs to be approached that way.

The Opportunity, A Novel

A new novel - The Opportunity, by Gerald Trites, has just been published. The novel involves the high tech industry and has an e-business backdrop. It centers on a complex merger in the high tech industry. It is available from Amazon.com and, in Canada, from BlackAvon Books.

CRM Failure

Customer Relationship Systems are large systems that take a lot of time and resources to properly implement and then operate. They are in the same league as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and the size and scope of some of the failures with these systems are legendary.

Some failures, however, are not as dramatic or obvious as the more famous implementation failures. Sometimes, the new system comes into production, and then the users work with it and it can take a long time before the realization creeps in that the system is not delivering on its promise, perhaps that it is draining the enterprise of its resources and not delivering results.

This calls for ongoing vigilence and the implementation of evaluation systems, carried out by groups with a degree of independence from the implementation, to determine whether the system needs to be tweaked or even replaced.

An article in E-Commerce News addresses this issue for CRM systems and offers some practical advice.

International E-Tailing

Selling internationally is a benefit of the internet. However it also carries risks, as international fraud is high. So precautions are in order, as well as using the best of the international marketing sites and services to help share the risk. This article takes a quick look at this arena, and offers up some sound advice.

That Blinkin E-Mail

Most people find e-mail management frustrating, at least some of the time and in many cases virtually all of the time. It just keeps flooding in, and much of it is stuff you don't really want to read, at least right now, but have subscribed to because it comes form an area of interest and might be useful in the future. So we sort through it and file it appropriately.

What if this process were automated. Just think how much time it would save.

The first reaction to this idea is that - is there any system out there we could trust to sort it accurately? The fact is, some of those messages are important, indeed crucial to our jobs. So we need to find out quickly which are important and which aren't.

One idea being floated is that we can learn from some of the techniques used in social networks. They often enable messages to be built into searchable databases. They have approval systems (thumbs up/thumbs down) that help to shape the messages received.

Google Mail does some of this, but sorts the messages by conversation. Google Wave has some promise, primarily for collaborative situations, but is untried. There are other possible tools, though. Check out the suggestions in this article.

Online Shopping

We still hear about shoppers who are afraid of online shopping because of security concerns. Some of this fear is fed by prominent stories in the media about identity theft, credit card fraud and phishing. many of the fears are overblown.

The fact is, online shopping is safer than ever before. Website security is well established. Payment card companies have adopted new and better means of authentication. Encryption techniques are commonly used and with modern systems and browsers, need not slow down transactions.

True, shoppers still need to be aware of the danger of fraud, fake sites, and phishing and hacking. However, many people these days have the basic level of "web smarts" to be able to tell when something is not right..

Online shopping has been a growing industry. Each year sees significant increases in the volume and this year it is likely to grow again. Hopefully the numbers of people who are deterred by security concerns is diminishing. Here's an article on this topic with more detail.

Facebook Responds to Canada's Privacy Commissioner

Facebook has recently posted changes to its privacy policy in response to an investigation by the Office of the Privacy commissioner of Canada. That investigation identified a number of instances where Facebook privacy policy did not meet Canadian rulkes, For example, the Canadain legislation is clear about the requirement to fully inform users of why their information is being collectedd and what will be done with it. Facebook has had policies that were vague in this department. They also had a policy of retaining information for deleted accounts, which users did not necessarily know about. Their argument was that the users might wish to reinstate their accounts in future. However, the users have a right to have the information deleted if they wish.

A good writeup on this development is found on InternetNews.

Paypal - A Success Story

There have been some remarkable success stories in eCommerce over the past ten years, but few overshadow that of Paypal. Starting out as simple way for people to pay for goods on palm pilots, it was bought by eBay, and  has grown into a full service online payment system accepting most major credit cards and serving almost 80 million people today. Now it is positioned to outgrow eBay itself - a remarkable achievement. More of the story can be found on Technology Review.

The Perils of Internet Phone Systems

We've been saying for years that the phone systems of the country are going to end up on the internet. this has been happening especially over the past couple of years, with many businesses buying into this relatively less expensive option, as well as its convenience. However, as with other business applications moving to the internet it carries with it new security challenges. Now the risks are beginning to surface and some companies are not ready for the challenge. Check out this write-up on the issue.

Word of Mouth Marketing

Marketing through word of mouth, referrals from happy customers, for example, has long been a most effective technique for many businesses. People are more likely to be convinced by someone who has had a positive experience with a company than by an impersonal image on TV.

The past few years have seen a growth in social media and, what is more important, a change in the demographics of the users of social media. Research now shows that over 35-year-olds now form a major component of social media users. Something like Twitter is a means of reaching out in a word of mouth fashion. Re-tweets can extend the message to a wider audience. Media like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, Digg, etc all offer the opportunity to advertise by word of mouth. It's the new way and many companies are picking up on it. A good article on this topic is found in E-Commerce News.

Now its the Nook

Barnes & Noble has announced a new e-reader - The Nook - to compete with the Kindle. it advances the technology by adding in an LCD screen as well as one based on the e-ink technology. the biog advantage of this is that it adds colour, which is not yet available with e-ink. That could make a difference with consumers.

E-readers are the wave of the future for books, but there does need to be more maturity in the technology., All these different readers will not be helpful to the consumer. They stand at risk of spending a still significant amount of money to buy one of them only to find out after a few months that it has been overcome by one of the other products. Also, newer ones are coming out, notably the expected release from Apple, which is almost certain to be a major event. And the price is going to go way down. Another year will make all the difference for e-readers. And we are waiting with bated breath for that new Apple product.

The Future of Books
by Gerald Trites

Google has announced the formation of a business - Google Editions - to sell electronic books that can be read on a number of devices. It represents an attempt to capitalize on their recent efforts at digitizing books in unprecedented quantities. In this new business, they say they will only be distributing books with the permission of the copyrightholder, where the copyright has not expired.

Google stands in a good place to offer direct and strong competition to Amazon and other publishers. Electronic readers are starting to take off. So far, they constitute as much as 5% of the total market. This is sometimes touted as a small percentage, but remember, good readers like the Kindle have only just started and are still expensive. It costs almost as much to buy a Kindle as it does to buy a desktop computer. This will change. Eventually, readers like the Kindle will be sold for perhaps $20 or perhaps given away in return for the purchase of books. Others are coming out with readers, like Apple. Smart phones are getting smarter and have a lot more power and storage space. It isn't hard to imagine smart phones impinging into the e-reader market.

Eventually, the electronic books market will be the majority of the book market. There seems little doubt about that. Google is placing itself in the market at an excellent time - just when the field is starting to heat up. For more, see this article.

Collaboration Pays Off

A recent survey carried out globally, sponsored by Cisco and Verizon, shows that collaboration results in more effective sales efforts and better customer relations. The survey took a broad definition of collaboration, and included the use of tools such as video and audio conferencing, VOIP and instant messaging.

Collaboration has been a feature of eBusiness for years, but it continues to pay dividends to companies, who have constantly employed a variety of collaboration techniques to strengthen their business and extend its boundaries beyond its traditional limits.

Interestingly, some of the new collaboration techniques include desktop video conferencing, which is suitable for a moblie workforce and holds a lot of promise. We'll be hearing more about that. For a write up on the survey see this article.

Canadian Wireless System Needs a Fix
by Gerald Trites

Canada has one of the most regressive and outdated wireless systems in the world. Generally. Canada is a technologically sophisticated country but in the wireless area, this does not apply.

Canadians pay the price in cell phone bills, the outdated practice of requiring contracts to obtain cell phones, the lack of availability of spectrum to more providers and the outmoded system of regulation.

True, more spectrum has been made available to some new competitors in the wireless area, and we are all waiting impatiently for them to arrive (at least consumers in selected areas are because the first ventures into the market will be limited to certain areas like Toronto). But this is something that should have been done years ago.

The big problem has been lack of competition, and still the arena is dominated by just three companies - Rogers, Telus and Bell. This is simply not competition, is oligarchic at best and not in the best interests of the consumer. The government and regulators seem to know this, but are bound by the old regulatory system which takes years to make simple rulings.

We see this not only in higher cell phone bills than most other areas of the developed world, like Asia and Europe, but in the availability of new technologies. We had to wait until the iPhone could be sold in Canada. We are having to wait for the arrival of the Kindle, because of issues among the carriers. We will have to wait for the arrival of future products such as the  forthcoming Reader from Apple, which will likely take the market by storm in other parts of the world and we will only be able to watch from the sidelines.

We also suffer from lack of online programming because of Canadian regulatory systems, such as the CRTC, which again is outdated and irrelevant. For example, Canadians cannot watch programming on Hulu.com for this very reason.

It's time the Canadian Government initiated a major reworking of the Canadian wireless and online programming regulatory framework. Canadians dsserve better.

For a good article on the Kindle issue, see this article in the Globe.

E-Textbooks - The Time is Now
by Gerald Trites

E-readers have been on the market for a while now and have been slowly growing in popularity. The biggest thing holding them back from a runaway market has been price. At $400 plus, they can't compete with traditional paperbacks. However, in the college textbook market, the situation is very different. University students have been paying prices in the range of $100 - $150 for traditional hard cover textbooks for years. Multiply that by five courses and two semesters and you have a lot of money.

Admittedly, the traditional textbooks are expensive to produce, but the cost is simply more than some students can bear. So they often try to go without, or share their books. This hurts their education, because you cannot become educated without reading, even in this digital age.

E-Book readers have the potential to change all that. There are different ways to get readers into the hands of the students without bankrupting them - through university bookstores, renting programs and used markets. Also, the price of the readers, like all new technologies, will be coming down over the next few years.

The textbook publishers need to give some serious consideration as to how they will proceed with this area. One thing they should not do is to each adopt their own unique protocol for the books. They need to be compatible across publishers. Students always have to purchase books from different publishers, and can't be expected to acquire six or seven different readers. So there needs to be standardization.

Also, the University Bookstores need to be empowered to sell the content. Not just for convenience, but for support.

In addition, the readers need to be compatible with other major readers, such as the Kindle, so the students can access other readings when they wish.

Use of e-readers by students could bring on a new wave of reading among young people. This is critical to education. A win-win-win for the publishers, the students and their professors. For an article on this emerging world of readers, see this article in Computerworld.

The Google World of Books
Gerald Trites

When Google announced a couple of years ago that they were going to digitize the world's books, a few eyebrows were raised. They began with all the books whose copyright had expired. Copyright laws vary, but in most countries, copyrights expire after a period of time, like 50 years, at which time they become part of the public domain. There can be exceptions, but this depends on the actions of the individual authors, if still alive, or their estates, or other interested people. So digitizing the books in the public domain is not really a big deal.

Then Google extended their realm to obtain the specific permission of copyright holders for books not in the public domain. Again, this was not too big a deal because it at least respected the rights of the authors.

A big change took place, when they proposed to digitize all books, and pay the authors part of the proceeds, with the provision that the authors could opt out if they wish. This was a significant change, because it put the onus on the authors to opt out rather than seeking their permission. It was a negative assurance approach to copyright law.

Although some groups support the idea because of the perceived advantages of having digitized books, many opposed it. One of the main arguments against it has been the fact that Google is essentially claiming full digital rights to these books, thus taking away a significant part of the copyright benefits of authors and publishers.

Of course it has been challenged in the courts and in a class action suit settlement last year, Google was granted the rights to digitize all out-of-print books, which covers many not in the public domain. The settlement essentially gives Google a monomoly over the digitization of books and tramples over the rights of authors, their heirs and traditional publishers. The US Department of Justice, which monitors things like concentration of economic power and monopolies, is concerned and has launched hearings. Most recently the head of the copyright division in the US has voiced opposition to the settlement.

This is a vastly important case. The attempts of Google to corner the market for digital books needs to be curtailed. The field needs to be left open to competition and competitive market forces. This is in the long run interests of everyone.

Information wants to be free. The internet makes that possible to a greater extent than ever before, but it must be recognized it will never all be free. Free market forces remain relevant. Placing a significant chunk of that information under the control of one large company is the absolute wrong way to go.

More on this in E-Commerce News.

The Virtual Workplace

There is nothing new about employees working from home. It's been a growing element of the business world for years. New younger employees expect it. And it saves costs of such expensive accoutrements as office space and furniture. Some companies have gone to "hotelling" where no employees have fixed offices assigned to them, but reserve space when they need it.

Of course technology makes all this possible, especially high speed internet.

But the challenges remain and need to be addressed by companies. Since employees can't be supervised, they need to be managed by output. How is the output of employees measured? That's still a big issue for some employers. And then there is the question of security. How should the company-owned computer systems be configured to minimize risk of data leakage and hacking? Employees may be working at home or even in internet cafes on unprotected or poorly protected wireless networks. There is a need for policies and controls here. And likely encryption policies as well as Data Leakage solutions.

An excellent article on this topic, together with relevant links to helpful resources can be found on the E-Commerce Times Site.

The 3-D Web

Want to have a business meeting without having to pay for travel? It happens all the time, you say. How about if I add that all the participants - in virtual form - can be there around the virtual table. They can talk to each other and look at each other as they interact. It sure beats a teleconference, where you miss all the body language.

Something similar has been done with expensive teleconferencing systems in the past, where you can sit people at a meeting table, and then interact with others on a screen at the end of the room who are actually in a different room in another part of the world.

But the new 3D Web will make virtual conferencing possible for anyone with a web browser to participate. To create a 3D image of themselves and place it at the meeting table. To see and interact with the images of the others at the meeting.

Live Virtual meetings are just one aspect of the 3D Web soon to come our way. It will change the way we interact with each other, It will usher in a new Web and perhaps a new world. Read more in this article on Computerworld.

Basics of Starting an Online Business

Here's a basic but useful primer on what is needed to start an online business. It covers the technology end in an ioverview fashiopn. Of course there are lots of other matters to consider in starting any business, including things like form of organization - corporation of proprietorship - methods of recordkeeping and accounting, income tax consideration, and so on.
Ecom Primer: What You Need to Set Up Shop Online — eCommerce-Guide.com

E-Commerce in Canada

Statistics Canada periodically reports on the state of e-commerce in Canada, with its last report issued in April, 2008 presenting stats on 2007. That report shows that e-commerce has continued to grow at double digit rates since the surveys began in 2003. It also shows that e-commerce is still a relatively small part of overall economic activity. The growth, however, will have its eventual impact. There is no question that e-commerce is a critical part of the activities of many, perhaps most, companies. Even if their core business is not internet based, their internet presence is often important. In fact, its a fair bet that the statistics issued by Statscan actually understate the situation. They take into account transactions consummated over the internet, but do not cover transactions started by the internet, through the use of websites for shopping and pre-buying research. That is an important aspect of e-commerce too. The Statscan reports can be found on Statscan's website.