Podcasters Across Borders

Post ImageThere are so many podcasting events taking place now, which is a good sign of the buzz level surrounding the technology. The latest one I have run across is called Podcasters Across Borders, taking place on June 23rd and 24th in Kingston, Ontario. There isn’t too much information on the event yet, so stay tuned to their blog if you’re interested in going. They also have a details page with a little more information.

I think we’ll start to see more and more targeted podcasting events appear. I have a feeling that there can only be so many “general purpose” podcasting events, and with the Portable Media Expo, Podcastercon, and other conferences like Gnomedex or Northern Voice, I’m willing to bet that we’re getting close to reaching the limit. So if you’re a conference organizer looking for a great topic related to podcasting, let me suggest one! I’d love to go to a conference about business podcasting. How are businesses using podcasting? How could they use it? That sort of thing.

Corel to go public

Post ImageCorel is one of those companies that never seems to die, nor does it ever do anything amazing. As Seth Godin would say, they need a purple cow! The Canadian company (and I’ll be honest, the fact that they are Canadian is the only reason I care about this at all) has decided to go public, apparently to pay off some debts:

Canadian software maker Corel filed with U.S. regulators on Tuesday for an initial public offering of up to 8 million shares at $18 to $20 a share.

Corel estimated that it would generate $82.9 million in net proceeds from the offering and an additional $90 million from a new credit facility. According to the offering document, Corel intends to use the combined proceeds to pay off $144.9 million in existing debt and financing fees.

The company strikes me as one without focus, or at least, too many different focuses. CorelDRAW and WordPerfect Office do not seem to be complimentary products. Seems to me there wouldn’t be a lot of synergy between the two. I guess what I mean is that there can only be one Adobe!

Read: CNET News.com

Sony Reader comes to North America

Post ImageIn my pocket/mobile/portable computing post I suggested that mobile devices may be forced to exist only in niche markets. Here’s a great example of a niche market for portable computing – electronic reading devices. Specifically devices that do one thing and do it very well, and that’s replace a paper book with something digital. I have heard many great things about the Librie, Sony’s reading device that is available only in Japan, and it appears a North American counterpart is on the way:

The Sony Reader, a new text-reading device that lets you have the Bible or the entire works of Tolstoy on hand but carry around the physical equivalent of a paperback, will be sold at Borders bookstores. The high-resolution (SVGA 800×600) electronic-paper display screen supports BBeB Book, PDF and MP3 formats and can also display JPEG images.

The device measures 6.9 inches by 4.9 inches by 0.5 inches and weighs in at just more than half a pound. The Sony Reader takes Memory Sticks or SD flash memory cards to augment 64MB of internal memory, creating the potential to travel with hundreds of books.

I have never used one of these devices, but everything I have heard so far suggests that the screen is simply amazing. And the one drawback that would keep such a device from taking off appears to be taken care of too:

The Sony Reader also has “a seemingly limitless battery life equivalent of 7,500 pages turns,” according to a Stony statement. That’s because there is no rundown on the battery over time. Power is only consumed when a reader turns the page.

You can’t complain with battery life like that! The device should be available this summer for around $400.

Read: CNET News.com

Imagine Cup Canada 2006

Post ImageIt’s getting to be that time of year again! Microsoft’s annual Imagine Cup programming competition is starting to heat up, with thousands of students from around the world already registered. If you’re a Canadian looking to enter the Software Design Challenge, time is running out:

The Software Design Challenge is the most high profile Imagine Cup competition. This year, teams of young technologists are challenged to create the an innovative, impactful, and elegant piece of software to help people live healthier lives.

Register your team for the Software Design Challenge – you can register until April 7, 2006. Create your executive summary and submit it using the required submission template to ICcan@microsoft.com by midnight April 7, 2006. THIS is all you need do to secure your team a place in the most high profile category of Imagine Cup 2006.

Having competed in the past, I can honestly say that the Imagine Cup is an excellent experience for students who want to do some .NET programming (as in my experience, most schools do not teach .NET or C# or anything related). In addition to the Software Design invitational, there are also invitationals for IT, Short Film, Algorithm, and Interface Designer, plus the Project Hoshimi Programming Battle. Lots of ways to participate!

I think Dickson and I will be entering a team again this year, as it is our last year of eligibility and we think we have a great idea too. Of course, it is related to podcasting, but that’s all I’ll say for now.

Read: Imagine Cup Canada

Notes for 4/2/2006

I got busy doing things, so here are my slightly late notes:

Going to Mesh!

Post ImageDickson and I recently registered for Mesh, Canada’s first ever Web 2.0 conference taking place in Toronto on May 15th and 16th. The organizers already have an impressive list of guests and speakers, so I am really looking forward to it.

Canada needs a conference like mesh. Web 2.0 is happening all around us, as the Internet becomes the place to communicate, collaborate and entertain. mesh is brought to you by people who want to inspire enthusiasm, creativity and opportunity; by people who believe that for Canada to remain vibrant and competitive, we have to connect with each other and share our ideas about what the Web should be.

In particular, I am looking forward to meeting Amber MacArthur, because let’s face it, she’s clearly the best looking of all the speakers up on the site thus far! There are eleven people on the site along with some text that says “and 30 other leading minds…” – sounds like a great place for a geek like me.

If you’re going to the conference and want to hook up in Toronto, let me know. We’ll probably be there for a few days before and after the main event as well.

Read: Mesh Conference

Apple to run Windows?

Post ImageHow would you like to buy a Mac and run Windows on it instead of OS X? All the style of an Apple computer with the ubiquity of Windows – there are many people that would love to have the option. Looks like they may get it sooner or later:

Word is out now that Apple has joined BAPco, an industry group that does one thing and one thing only: create benchmarks for testing the performance of Windows-based PCs. The move comes on top of rumors that Apple will include VMWare-style virtualization capabilities in the next version of OS X, which could enable the Mac OS to run Windows apps without requiring a third-party emulator or a reboot.

Apple does hardware. Microsoft is a software company, Apple a hardware company. Now that they are using Intel chips anyway, why not run Windows? There have been many essays written arguing for and against such a decision, but I think it would be cool. Apple could concentrate on making sexy computers and leave the OS stuff to Microsoft.

I’d buy a Mac if it ran Windows Vista.

Read: Engadget

Paramagnus Dinner

Thanks to everyone who came out to dinner last night, it was lots of fun! If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry about it. Special thanks to Megan (and whoever helped her) for getting that awesome cake made and stuff, that was really cool 🙂 Here are some pictures I took from last night, and here are some pictures that Megan took (I like this one).

Now that we’ve celebrated a little, it’s time for us to get back to work!

YouTube Popularity

Post ImageInteresting piece up at News.com about YouTube and the phenomenal success it has been having, at least in terms of traffic. No one is quite sure how they are going to make money, or if they have staying power, but they certainly do not have a lack of users:

According to numbers provided by traffic-tracking company ComScore Networks, YouTube received 4.2 million unique visitors in February. Those numbers are good enough to outpace Apple Computer’s iTunes (3.5 million) and put it within spitting distance of eBaumsworld.com (4.4 million) and AOL Video (4.7 million), both of which have been in business longer.

Personally, I think YouTube is going to run into very big problems. Lately when I have been on the site, I have come across a lot of videos that display a “removed due to copyright infringement” message, and I can only guess that it will get worse before it gets any better.

Like most Web 2.0 companies, they plan to use advertising to make money:

“We’re experimenting with different business models,” she said. “It’s not going to be a traditional model, that is for sure. Right now, we don’t want to disrupt the user experience. But eventually, we’re going to introduce extremely relevant ads that will benefit users and won’t disrupt the service.”

I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it here again – Google is an anomaly. I don’t think advertising is a truly sustainable business model, and even if it works for YouTube, they’ll never reach the levels that Google has. I think they need something besides simply advertising to truly make it.

Read: CNET News.com

Paramagnus Press Coverage

Post ImageWe’ve received a lot of great press for our business plan competitions lately. Of course, we were in the Ottawa Citizen the day after the Wes Nicol competition, and today we were featured in the Edmonton Journal:

Mack Male and Dickson Wong’s disappointment at not winning this year’s TEC Edmonton VenturePrize melted away 24 hours later when the University of Alberta students won a national business plan competition in Ottawa.

Unfortunately you need an account to read the entire article online, so go pick up a physical copy. There’s a great picture of us in there too, page G3.

We’re also featured on the Innovation Alberta website. There is text, audio, and an image:

One of the two runners up in TEC Edmonton’s VenturePrize Competition was Paramagnus Developments Inc. Paramagnus deals in podcasting software Tools, and is the brainchild of Edmonton computing science students Mack Male and Dickson Wong. Here’s what Mack has to say about being a finalist in VenturePrize.

And there’s more on the way too! If you run across something I haven’t, let me know.