DISQUS

Ha I've got you beat, my enabling web2.0 collaboration via FAX startup is long in production, closing on major financing... any minute now... :)

Inspired by, from the archives: http://tinyurl.com/57ovbc

as a hosted social faxing service that would be blogging + fax = flaxtr.net or floggr.com ?

now how would the details work, you can upmod any inbound fax by writing +1! on in thick pen and faxing it back to an 800 number?

Ha I've got you beat, my enabling web2.0 collaboration via FAX startup is long in production, closing on major financing... any minute now... :)

Inspired by, from the archives: http://tinyurl.com/57ovbc

as a hosted social faxing service that would be blogging + fax = flaxtr.net or floggr.com ?

now how would the details work, you can upmod any inbound fax by writing +1! on in thick pen and faxing it back to an 800 number?

Great post Craig. So here's the question, on convertables what are the typical numbers for interest rate and discount percentage?

For a tech startup raising their first angel round of a few hundred k, what range would be reasonable or typical?

Great post Craig. So here's the question, on convertables what are the typical numbers for interest rate and discount percentage?

For a tech startup raising their first angel round of a few hundred k, what range would be reasonable or typical?

I wrote a post on this on tuesday and the related/supposed exodus of facebook users to twitter in which is partly an excuse to work in a phrase like "...as though seized by a grand mal craptileptic fit in spam factory" into a sentence (as describing this same facebook problem as it happens)

http://www.thomaspurves.com/2008/02/12/facebook...

But it looks like facebook understands the problem and is making (some) progress to put "some of the bad bits of the toothpaste back in the tube"

Flavio Quaranta writes StartupNorth:

"You might have missed it but Holistis that you mentioned on your last article and that was presented at The Lift Conference tonight, was mainly developed in New Brunswick, Canada. Holistis is a spin off of IC-Agency that was co-founded in Geneva in 2000. I moved to Canada in July 2005 in order to set up our R&D dept. and make this great idea we had years ago happen. You can proudly claim that Holistis is a Swiss-Canadian project!

Holistis already won an important prize in Paris, France, last December at LeWeb 3 and has been noticed by ITpro UK as one of top 5 companies to watch in 2008."

cool!

Flavio Quaranta writes StartupNorth:

"You might have missed it but Holistis that you mentioned on your last article and that was presented at The Lift Conference tonight, was mainly developed in New Brunswick, Canada. Holistis is a spin off of IC-Agency that was co-founded in Geneva in 2000. I moved to Canada in July 2005 in order to set up our R&D dept. and make this great idea we had years ago happen. You can proudly claim that Holistis is a Swiss-Canadian project!

Holistis already won an important prize in Paris, France, last December at LeWeb 3 and has been noticed by ITpro UK as one of top 5 companies to watch in 2008."

cool!

Michele just blogged about a great example of a idea/project we could and should be importing to Canada. What a great way to sponsor and develop targetted early-stage innovation (whether it be public broadcasting or any other industry)

http://shotfromthehip.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/...

Michele just blogged about a great example of a idea/project we could and should be importing to Canada. What a great way to sponsor and develop targetted early-stage innovation (whether it be public broadcasting or any other industry)

http://shotfromthehip.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/...

No, you are right Jevon, DD is the face of entrepreneurship in Canada ... in exactly the same way that American Idol is the face of modern music:

It's appalling cringeworthy, completely disconnected from every new venture/artist that is meaningfully important, it's "entertaining" like a car accident ... and it's exactly the first thing that springs to mind for any of millions of Canadians when you say "I am an entrepreneur".

Maybe together we could start to try and change that.

No, you are right Jevon, DD is the face of entrepreneurship in Canada ... in exactly the same way that American Idol is the face of modern music:

It's appalling cringeworthy, completely disconnected from every new venture/artist that is meaningfully important, it's "entertaining" like a car accident ... and it's exactly the first thing that springs to mind for any of millions of Canadians when you say "I am an entrepreneur".

Maybe together we could start to try and change that.

Congrats and best of luck Stephanie!

there's the catch, it would make sense if they also win the US spectrum. Would be pointless if they don't.

In the U.K., google has claimed they aren't interested in spectrum.

Certainly there are risks that any new entrant may behave no differently than their predecessors. A competitor like Quebecor does have their own entrenched media interests to look out for as well before they get too disruptive.

Notheless, I don't think we've heard the last of who will be bidding on the spectrum. As well, a little game theory suggests any new entrant has a lot less to lose in terms cannibalizing revenues from an existing install base, and lot to gain from attempting to differentiate themselves from the entrenched incumbents.

Lastly, tacit price collusion is harder to maintain with a larger number of players than fewer which is hopeful (not that the big Canadian banks haven't generally succeeded in this amongst the 5 of them).

We didn't get anything like Google's 4 principles of open services, networks, devices etc. but what we did get, at least should be interesting.

And it represents a show of strength by the government that they are willing to step in if they don't perceive the market as behaving in the best interest of Canadians. Sometimes just the credible threat of greater regulation is as good as the real thing in terms of keeping a market operating orderly.

Anyway I am optimistically optimistic at this moment in history. The possibility space for the wireless industry in Canada just got a lot bigger. It's back to a newly opened market now to see what happens next.

My biggest fear is that a regional carrier may buy up the spectrum but under-utilize it outside of a narrow geography. Looking at Quebecor's balance sheet lately, this could be a genuine concern.

Certainly there are risks that any new entrant may behave no differently than their predecessors. A competitor like Quebecor does have their own entrenched media interests to look out for as well before they get too disruptive.

Notheless, I don't think we've heard the last of who will be bidding on the spectrum. As well, a little game theory suggests any new entrant has a lot less to lose in terms cannibalizing revenues from an existing install base, and lot to gain from attempting to differentiate themselves from the entrenched incumbents.

Lastly, tacit price collusion is harder to maintain with a larger number of players than fewer which is hopeful (not that the big Canadian banks haven't generally succeeded in this amongst the 5 of them).

We didn't get anything like Google's 4 principles of open services, networks, devices etc. but what we did get, at least should be interesting.

And it represents a show of strength by the government that they are willing to step in if they don't perceive the market as behaving in the best interest of Canadians. Sometimes just the credible threat of greater regulation is as good as the real thing in terms of keeping a market operating orderly.

Anyway I am optimistically optimistic at this moment in history. The possibility space for the wireless industry in Canada just got a lot bigger. It's back to a newly opened market now to see what happens next.

My biggest fear is that a regional carrier may buy up the spectrum but under-utilize it outside of a narrow geography. Looking at Quebecor's balance sheet lately, this could be a genuine concern.

Fantastic Stephanie! congratulations. Perhaps by Lift you can tell us all about it? :)

Thanks for the writeup Jevon, sounds like it was a great event.

Amazing to think that DemoCamp is fast coming up to it's 2 year anniversary, and what we've learned along the way.

Thanks for the writeup Jevon, sounds like it was a great event.

Amazing to think that DemoCamp is fast coming up to it's 2 year anniversary, and what we've learned along the way.

Jonas, I think this should be your theme song:

"This is a great idea and the next internet with the ease of use!"

I wish I had a t-shirt with this on it.

Jonas, I think this should be your theme song:

"This is a great idea and the next internet with the ease of use!"

I wish I had a t-shirt with this on it.

Either that Jevon or you should be raising your prices ;)

Either that Jevon or you should be raising your prices ;)

Well religion is *supposed* to be lofty is it not?

And yes, religion 2.0 is not too far off:
http://remarkk.com/2007/02/25/tales-of-the-unex...

It was a pleasure to meet you a Lift this year Stephanie!

til next time...

Thanks for you comments Aaron!

to someone like yourself (and other campers) with long experience in blogging and other web2.0 stuff, nothing we're doing should be tremendously surprising. What should only be surprising to all of us, however, is how all these tools like blogging, social media and web2.0-ish media that are so clearly useful and familiar to us have still yet to penetrate organizations and business outside of our world of web2.0 communities. We know that the potential is there for tools like these to help alleviate bureaucracy, make better/faster decisions and generally make large organizations more human.

But to get there the tools themselves still need more work and organizations need help too to manage change and it's in these combined challenges that we specialize in.

We've been doing this for almost 3 years now and even working with some (previously) very traditionally-minded organizations. And all that experience we've now been putting in to the design of our newest rebuild - though the build we showed was only a matter of weeks into development. Of course like new parents we were/are fiercely proud of even these early ultrasounds and anxious to show the world – even though there's still a lot more to come.

So from the pure tech perspective, you could be right. Maybe it was too early to introduce ourselves at DemoCamp or, this time out, maybe we just didn't explain ourselves so good (or both could be true!). Nonetheless we absolutely welcome your commentary. We're excited that you and others who've written share our passion for the ultimate potential of what we're trying to do.

And this stage we are eager for all the criticism and feedback we can get

Cheers and continued best of luck to all of you on the B5 team

(and next time you are in town, drop us a line, we'd love to grab a beer and talk some more)

Thomas Purves

Co-founder, CEO Firestoker
http://firestoker.com
http://thomaspurves.com