Backbone magazine_Web 2.0

PM 4100 41000015

July 2008 $4.95

Who’s changing the face of the Web? Crowdsourcing with Cambrian House How to: social-media toolkit

CELLPHONE TRAVEL PRIMER ■ DESIGN FIASCOS ■ BOT DEFENSE ■ IE8 BB_July08-4.indd 1

6/16/08 2:36:14 PM

CONTENTS

JULY/AUGUST

COVER

28 Best and brightest

28

Backbone and KPMG rank the best of Canada’s Web 2.0 community.

By Elaine Pratt and Peter Wolchak

37 2.0 clearing house Cambrian House helps Web pioneers design and build their dreams.

By Trevor Marshall

40 Tools 2.0

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

A guide to the tools that build social media communities.

By Andrew Rideout

20

Summer travel

You finally paid off the tickets, the flights and the hotel.

Then your cellphone bill arrives.

By Ian Harvey

20 4

FROM THE EDITOR

6 8

LETTERS

BACKSPACE

24

E-TRENDS

Design disasters Failed products begin their sad journeys on the drawing board.

Data caution: you may want to leave

By Ian Harvey

home without it. Also, want a Wii? Good luck finding one.

By Peter Wolchak

52

TEK GADGETS

Gadgets to go out with

12

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

Get where you’re going, make a call,

Fighting back

and talk to the locals.

What to do when malicious software hits your PC.

By Peter Wolchak

16

By Danny Bradbury

16

54 E-TRENDS

Browsing Web browsers are becoming more important than the operating systems under them.

BIG IDEAS

Blockbusted How one big company is losing to

12

a much smaller rival.

By Jim Harris

37

BB_July08-4.indd 3

24

PM 41000015

By Gail Balfour

6/16/08 2:36:40 PM

EDITOR’S LETTER

Feds going Web 2.0 in a big way PICK 20 winner helping 250,000 government employees share information and build content It wasn’t too long ago (September 2007, in fact) that Backbone gave federal political parties a failing grade on their Web 2.0 status. Back then we wrote “Canadian political parties themselves are not implementing widespread social media strategies on a national level,” and termed the collected Web sites “distinctly 1.0.”

But if the parties are slow off the mark, the same can no longer be said of the government itself. The feds and Canadian enterprise content management vendor Open Text announced in May a major rollout of Web 2.0-enabling technologies that should see up to 250,000 employees in government departments, agencies and Crown corporations begin to use wikis, forums, blogs, tagging, communities and chat.

Financial details and implementation specifics were not disclosed. The agreement is an extension of an existing business relationship.

Open Text, a giant in the content management market with 46,000 customers and millions of users in 114 countries, landed the number seven spot in this issue’s PICK 20 awards. (The contest judging was completed long before the recent government contract was announced.)

Open Text was lauded by judges Sean Moffitt and Michael O’Connor Clarke as “a leader in its space” and “one of the most important Enterprise 2.0 firms in the world” respectively, although innovation was one of the judging criteria and the company was dinged slightly for not being among the most cutting-edge firms.

But as the recent federal government announcement proves, being on the cutting edge is not always the most important measure, as this project could have a significant impact on everyday Canadians.

Information shared The federal government faces the same information challenges as any large organization: keeping employees up to date on company policies and industry trends, extracting and sharing best practices, and capturing and preserving corporate knowledge. In the past, companies employed intranet-based information management systems to handle this and ended up with silos of disconnected information. Those companies are now moving to internal wikis and blogs, tied together with pre-emptive tagging and search functionality.

And the federal government is about to do the same.

Once underway, the new collaborative systems mean a bureaucrat working on welfare policy, for example, will have easier access to current employment statistics and 4

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 4

2 0 0 8

/

to past research and insight on employment assistance, and that can only lead to better policy.

Government 2.0 A recent report called “The future of collaborative government and Web 2.0” from Deloitte (available on the company’s Canadian Web site) points out that “businesses are increasingly leveraging Web 2.0 applications, using them to learn more about their customers, build brand awareness and share knowledge internally” and that similarly, “the business case for government-focused Web 2.0 adoption is overwhelming. The potential for governments to contribute to improved societal outcomes by embracing online collaboration and information sharing is now clear.”

Deloitte outlines four areas in which collaborative systems will pay off: improved policy outcomes, more effective use of government information, streamlined internal operations and attracting top talent. Progress in these areas would deliver more responsive and transparent government to Canadians.

The report cautions that these systems are only effective when embraced by the user community: “The challenge lies in government inertia: elected leaders and the public service infrastructure that supports them must overcome the cultural barriers that stand in the way of a more open, free-form style of collaboration. The report then adds: “[Success] will also require the most sophisticated Internet-based technologies to make it accessible to all stakeholders — something that technologically conservative governments have traditionally been slow to adopt.”

While true in the past, this is hopefully no longer the case for our federal government. And it is interesting to note that, in the same September article quoted above, Liberal MP Hedy Fry said, “Social media can help you better understand people’s opinions across what is a very large country. I would like to see this help change the institutions of government.”

So would we all, and we will watch the progress of this year’s number seven company as it works to update our government’s information management systems.

Peter Wolchak Editor pwolchak@backbonemag.com

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:37:26 PM

LETTERS

C omp ac t f luore s cent s bulb s more comple x t han you t hink I like your magazine but the issues around CFBs are neither as simple nor as easy as you state in your magazine (“Acting locally,” May/June 2008), but depend strongly on where you live and the kinds of energy you use.

Any CFBs used indoors will only save you money when you don’t need home heating. This makes them great for warm countries, where they reduce both illumination and air conditioning costs, but not for Canada. The reason for this is simple physics — virtually all the energy used for indoor lighting also heats your home. In Canada most of our lighting energy bill happens in winter when it is dark (and cold). If you replace your indoor lamps with CFBs, every bit of energy you thought you were saving now has to be replaced by your heating system.

If you have electric heat you have not harmed the environment at all, just switched your energy consumption from your lamps to your baseboard heater, with no net change. But if you are among the 65 per cent of Canadians who heat with fossil fuels, you have just switched your carbon footprint from size 8 to size 10, and given the current price of gas or oil, increased your costs as well. Of course none of this applies in the heat of summer, but how much lighting do we use during those long summer evenings?

Virtually every watt and joule that powers a lamp heats your home. Most energy used by a lamp is emitted as heat; even the portion emitted as light is converted to heat when absorbed by walls and furniture.

What about “switching off” to save energy? The effect is the same: it increases greenhouse gas generation if you use fossil

Publisher Steve Dietrich sdietrich@backbonemag.com

EDITORIAL Editor Peter Wolchak pwolchak@backbonemag.com Contributing Editor Lisa Manfield lmanfield@backbonemag.com Art Director Shelley Walker swalker@backbonemag.com Creative Consultant Gavin Orpen Production and Prepress Peter Pasivirta Online Communications Coordinator Sue Ansell sansell@backbonemag.com Publishing Assistant Andrea Paul apaul@backbonemag.com Contributing Writers Danny Bradbury, Elaine Pratt Gail Balfour, Trevor Marshall, Ian Harvey, Andrew Rideout, Mark Lorne, Jim Harris Paul Lima, Laurence Yap Contributing Illustrators Jon Berkeley, Gavin Orpen Alain Gonçalves, Florent Auguy Contributing Photographers Randy Gibson, Meek Kapuszczak

ADVERTISING SALES Director of Sales Harry deHaas Tel: 905 471 9276 hdehaas@backbonemag.com V.P. Sales Marketing Steve Dietrich Tel: 604 986 5352 sdietrich@backbonemag.com Special Supplements Account Manager Natalie Hayward Tel: 604 986 5362 nhayward@backbonemag.com ●

●

●

●

fuels to heat your home and saves you nothing if you use electric heat. Lowering your thermostat is what will really save energy.

Most electricity in Canada is not produced by greenhouse gas generators. The Canadian average is 11 per cent, and in B.C. where I live it is about two per cent.

The moral should be think globally, but also think before you act locally.

Nick MacKinnon President, OneLight, Vancouver

Consumer incentives make a green difference I can’t help but agree with the points you’ve made in your letter about the green bandwagons (“Environmental responsibility, when it pays,” May/June 2008). My company is, I suppose, another one, but with a small difference in that we are a social enterprise employing people with disabilities to sort, refurbish and/or recycle computers and electronics.

I wrote a brief article that was published in Solid Waste and Recycling Magazine recently about the need to add incentives for consumers to do the right thing when it comes to recycling, etc. In Ontario, Brewer’s Retail has done a great job of ensuring that 99 per cent of standard beer bottles get returned and reused 12 to 15 times each, and I believe the electronics industry could learn something from this practice, which has been carried on since 1927.

●

●

HEAD OFFICE/CIRCULATION Publimedia Communications Inc. Tel: 604 986 5344 info@backbonemag.com ●

●

PLEASE SEND COMMENTS TO: E-MAIL pwolchak@backbonemag.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

MAILING ADDRESS 187 Rondoval Crescent, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2W6 FAX 604 986 5309 ●

●

WEB SITE www.backbonemag.com MEDIA KIT www.backbonemag.com/mediakit EDITORIAL OFFICE 1676 Wembury Road, Mississauga, ON L5J 4G3 editor@backbonemag.com SUBSCRIPTIONS One-year subscription $27.25 (GST incl.) within Canada $40.95 outside Canada To subscribe call: 604 986 5344 online: www.backbonemag.com/subscribe ●

●

Backbone magazine is published six times per year by Publimedia Communications Inc. 100,000 copies are distributed through Globe Distribution Services, a division of The Globe and Mail. An additional 5,000 copies (approx.) are distributed to select newsstands, additional subscribers of Backbone magazine and trade shows.

Plus an additional 10,000-15,000 copies are distributed through corporate affiliations. Year established, January 2001.

All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher, or the staff.

All editorial is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed. The publisher is not responsible for any liability associated with any editorial or products and services offered by any advertiser.

Copyright © 2008 Publimedia Communications Inc.

www.backbonemag.com

Patrick C. Hebert Director, Thriftopia.com, Barrie, Ont. 6

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 6

2 0 0 8

/

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:37:28 PM

B A C K S PA C E B Y

.ca

P E T E R

W O L C H A K

One million strong and growing

April 15 was one big day: the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) announced that Canadian Internet users had registered one million dot-ca (.ca) Internet domain names. Brent Krause of Calgary registered the one-millionth dot-ca domain name, krauslaw.ca, for a site that promotes his private law practice. “I’ve recommended dot-ca domains in the past and dot-ca was my first choice for my own legal practice,” Krause said.

In 1988, the first dot-ca domain name, upei. ca, was registered by the University of Prince Edward Island. Since then, dot-ca domain name usage has grown more than 20 per cent per year.

“Dot-ca represents Canada on the Internet.

A dot-ca domain name, Web site or e-mail address means you can be confident that you are dealing with a Canadian or Canadian business online,” said Byron Holland, president and CEO of CIRA. Dot-ca now ranks as the seventeenth largest Internet domain name registry compared to generic domain names like dot-com and country-specific domain names like dot-uk (United Kingdom). CIRA launched a celebration site at www.onemilliondomains.ca.

Travelling this summer? Leave your data at home If you’re heading out on a business trip or vacation, you might want to leave your data storage devices behind, especially if you’re crossing an American border. That’s advice from the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), which is warning that U.S. agents can seize cellphones, handheld computers, smartphones, digital cameras and USB storage devices, and can legally comb through your data.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials recently won a court case which upheld their right to search electronic devices even without reasonable cause or suspicion. ACTE said this means border guards can also download your

Is that a corporate database in your pocket?

Employees are carrying flash drives stuffed with valuable or confidential data, and few of them understand the inherent security risks, according to a recent study from SanDisk. A survey of corporate end users and corporate IT managers found IT executives have no idea how much data

Canadians doing more than ever online

8

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 8

2 0 0 8

/

is walking around unencrypted in pockets, purses and briefcases; 77 per cent of corporate end users surveyed have used personal flash drives for work-related purposes, but when asked to estimate the percentage of workers using these drives, respondents came back with 35 per cent.

Data files most likely to be copied to a personal flash drive include:

> customer records > financial information > business plans > employee records > marketing plans > intellectual property > source code

Moving online E-mail, instant messaging and surfing are all valuable online activities, but Canadians are doing much more than that, according to a 2008 Rogers/Ipsos-Reid report which finds us embracing rich Web applications such as streaming video, television and online conferencing.

Overall Internet use has increased in the last year, the survey found, as Canadians increasingly move offline activities — such as paying bills and sharing photos — onto the Internet. “Canadians are well known as early adopters of new technologies and have taken to the Internet in record numbers, and what’s interesting to see in this survey is that Canadians are using the Internet for the func-

data for future examination, and is recommending companies establish policies on cross-border data. One option is to move to cloud computing, a solution in which data is actually stored on a central server and the computer simply acts as an access device, with no local data storage.

Toronto-based law firm Blaney McMurtry has taken action on this issue. The firm now mandates that employees purge laptops of all sensitive information before crossing any international borders. Without such a policy, the firm said, client data would be at risk.

If you need another reason to leave work at work as you set off, this may be it.

tional benefits as well as the fun stuff,” said Max Valiquette, president of Toronto-based marketing firm Youthography.

Valiquette offers these Internet tips:

> push your boundaries: the Internet

changes fast, so the things you did last year may have been replaced by something better share: if you like something, other people with similar interests may, too. The people you share good stuff with are more likely to share with you interact: the Internet is not a passive medium. Get involved in online conversations, and offer product reviews and recommendations

>

>

25 per cent 17 per cent 15 per cent 13 per cent 13 per cent 6 per cent 6 per cent

What Canadians do online, compared to a year ago Activity % last year Communicating 85 Shopping 62 Paying bills 59 Downloading music 43 Managing/sharing photos 39 Playing games 38 Streaming videos/music/shows 24 Downloading TV/movies/games 16

% today 89 65 65 44 47 38 31 20

What we want to do online in the next eight to 12 months Activity % of Canadians Watching live TV on a PC 50 Making a video call on a PC 49 Making/sharing videos online 46 Downloading/reading books online 39 Using a webcam for conferencing 34

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:37:31 PM

E X E C U T I VE OVER V I E W

‘Bot

12

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 12

2 0 0 8

/

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:37:38 PM

t wars How to fight back when botnets attack D A N N Y

B R A D B U R Y

S

ince Backbone ran its “I, Botnet” article about online crime in the March/April issue, hundreds of thousands more legitimate Web pages have been hacked in order to channel malicious software from rogue servers through to visitors’ browsers. Even UN Web sites have been hit. That means thousands more computers will have been infected and remotely controlled by online crooks. How can you avoid your computer suffering the same fate?

Traditionally, users have been encouraged to install anti-virus software and avoid opening suspicious attachments. Fail to do that and you are to blame if you get infected, goes the conventional wisdom.

There’s a certain truth to it, because users can do some naive things. “A computer is just a tool. We must try to educate people in what they should and shouldn’t do,” said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, the malware analysis and detection laboratory at Panda Security.

Users will often click on a link in an e-mail, or select Yes when asked to run a script on a Web site, he said. “If criminals are using that, it’s because it works. People are taught to install software just to see a picture or a video. The only thing we can do is to educate the users. It’s the human being that is deciding to click or not to click.”

But now that otherwise legitimate Web sites are infecting computers en

masse, can users really be expected to know how to avoid trouble? Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer at anti-virus company Webroot, doesn’t think so. He points out that we are also still suffering from vulnerabilities that were accidentally coded into systems in the past. “So the safety belt (now) has to be on the technology side.”

But even the companies that sell traditional technological solutions such as anti-virus tools admit they can’t guarantee protection. “All of that stuff can help, there’s no question about it,” said David Emm, senior technology consultant at anti-virus software company Kaspersky. “But even taking that on board, there is a possibility that you may get hit by someone.”

“Anti-virus software is not completely worthless, but mostly worthless,” said Joe Stewart, a security researcher at SecureWorks. Malware writers generally test their software against the better antivirus engines before releasing it, to try and dodge detection, he said.

“You won’t be able to stop 100% of the infections, but you’ll stop some of them,” counters Cody Pierce, a member of the research team at security firm TippingPoint, who recently helped to infiltrate the Kraken botnet. It’s better to use anti-virus software that might still let in an attack, rather than use nothing at all, he said.

B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 13

/

Illustration: Jon Berkeley

B Y

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

13

6/16/08 2:37:45 PM

E X E C U T I VE OVER V I E W

Have cellphone, will travel A primer on roaming voice and data charges, and how to avoid them

20

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 20

2 0 0 8

/

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, because it’s tolling for you in the form of outrageous roaming charges anytime you use your mobile outside your home turf.

Once upon a time most of us didn’t turn our cellphones on when travelling, lest we get dinged by those heavy long-distance and roaming charges that can make a three-minute conversation cost as much as lunch on the Champs Élysées.

But turning off is a luxury we can no longer afford, with both bosses and clients expecting all-the-time access to us. Meanwhile, rates have only improved slightly.

And habits die hard. Earlier this year, I was on the U.S. west coast for a week and used my Torontobased mobile to pick up some e-mails between flights instead of firing up the laptop and paying the $10 Wi-Fi access fee. I racked up 22 minutes in voice calls back home at 95 cents a minute, plus long distance charges of $12.50. That’s $33.40 for almost nothing. Worse still were the data charges: a puny 475 Kb transfer (about 158

I A N

H A R V E Y

e-mail headers, since I constrict each message to less than 3Kb) cost $23.75 in roaming charges. More galling was that the incoming e-mails were mostly spam because Rogers doesn’t filter mobile e-mail with the same efficiency it applies to regular e-mail.

None of that is enough to bankrupt anyone, but regular use while away would have cost as much as the flight out there.

This experience is backed by a recent study from Brightroam, a Canadian company that sells SIM cards and rents mobile phones to travellers heading to 163 countries. The study suggests international roaming fees cost U.S. businesses US$693.50 per trip for every global traveller — 12 times more than the average monthly wireless bill.

“The study shows 15 per cent of employees make at least one international trip per year, which translates into costs of more than $950,000 annually per 10,000 employees,” said Jeff Wilson, general manager of Brightroam in Toronto. “If you consider that many large businesses in the U.S. employ more than 30,000 employ-

Illustration: www.gavinoillustration.com

B Y

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:38:07 PM

B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 21

/

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

21 21

6/16/08 2:38:07 PM

E-TRENDS

24

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 24

2 0 0 8

/

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:38:11 PM

Failure by B Y

I A N

H A R V E Y

n

desig Murphy was right. What can go wrong usually does.

No matter how cool looking or entertaining something is, if we can’t use it — or if using it is too complex — we give up in frustration. It happens with Web sites, consumer electronics, software and more.

The reverse is also true: great design can rescue a mediocre product. Take the iPhone. It lacks many of the features and functions of other smart phones but grabbed headlines because it is so easy to use.

Compared to Windows Mobile 5, which had been on the market for three years before the iPhone, it was a breath of fresh air.

“I was so frustrated with my Windows Mobile phone because the synchronization program, ActiveSync, just didn’t work, it was horrible,” said Steve Krug, a usability guru and author of Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (New Riders, 2000). The book is considered a seminal tome on the subject. “Last December I played with my neighbour’s iPhone. I decided if my Windows phone was making me so unhappy, I would just get rid of it.”

While the iPhone can’t compete feature to feature with a Windows phone, he said it’s closer to the experience he had with his old Palm Pilot. “You connect it, push a button and it syncs. The connec-

tion is slower than the EDVO network I was using (on my Windows phone) but the Web browser responds so quickly and they’ve done such a good job with the screen, it doesn’t matter.”

He’s not alone in his opinion.

“I think that in a lot of products — and obviously in the software and computer technology fields as well — there’s a disconnect between the engineer, the technologists and the designer,” said Sir James Dyson, famous for reinventing the humble vacuum cleaner in form and function. “Usability can drive technology forward, and vice versa.”

The usability gap also irritates Bill Buxton, a principal researcher at Microsoft and associate professor in computer science at the University of Toronto, who also did a stint at the Ontario College of Art and Design. His frustrations boiled over into a book, Sketching User Experiences: Getting the design right and the right design (Morgan Kaufmann, 2007), which has the unique distinction of being endorsed by his boss, Bill Gates, and Genesis founder and legendary rocker Peter Gabriel, an aficionado of design and a pal who collaborated with Buxton on some early synthesizer projects.

“The question is, where’s the user interface?” asked Buxton, brushing back the silver grey strands of his long hair in his east-end Toronto kitchen. “Is it in the hardware or software? Traditional industrial B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 25

/

Illustration: Alain Gonçalves

Some products are huge, others huge disasters.

Often the dividing line is drawn right through the design specs

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

25

6/16/08 2:38:15 PM

Web 2.0 The PICK 20, Canada’s best minds and sharpest practitioners

BY ELAINE PRATT, KPMG, AND PETER WOLCHAK

28

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 28

2 0 0 8

/

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:38:31 PM

winners With this issue, Backbone and KPMG unveil the PICK 20, the first and only national roundup of Canada’s Web 2.0 pioneers and practitioners.

In the pages that follow you will discover 20 companies that are leading the way into the second iteration of the Web.

Web 2.0 has been defined, redefined and argued over, and there’s no doubt the 20 winners our judges picked will create some of the same debate. For our purposes, we defined Web 2.0 as the use of emergent online social platforms to link individuals to each other and, increasingly, to connect companies to partners and clients. The real point, though, is that Web 2.0 happens when the talk goes from a monologue to a dialogue, when everyone gets a say and when those voices can actually change opinions, company policy, government decisions and so on.

What follows is a ranking of the top 20 Web 2.0 players in Canada. To assemble the list of winners we held an open public nomination process and then turned those entries over to a panel of judges. Most of our judges are active bloggers and they come with a diverse range of professional experiences, including work in academia, marketing, pub-

lic relations, corporate communications, venture capital and e-commerce. All are passionate about Web 2.0.

For each PICK 20 winner we have also included the judges’ analysis of the implementation, because in addition to simply highlighting Canada’s Web 2.0 stars, we also want to offer insight on what these companies are doing right and what they need to improve to continue their success. This is especially important as many of these implementations are in the early stages of development, and the next year or two will be critical.

One important note: Any judge who was in any way involved in a nominated implementation did not participate in its judging process. This allowed us to engage Canadian experts while maintaining the integrity of the process.

In addition to our top 20 ranking, we also placed the winners into one of four categories, to give even more insight into these projects.

The PICK 20 process divided Web 2.0 into four broad implementation categories: 1) Problem solving: customer response, idea generation, solution brainstorming 2) Innovation: crowdsourcing, market prediction, participatory feedback 3) Collaboration: jams, customer input, user rankings 4) Knowledge sharing and management: teamware, wikis, blogs and collaborative content creation This is the first annual PICK 20 from Backbone and KPMG. Early in 2009 we’ll announce nomination details for next year’s list, so if your company or project isn’t here this year, we’ll look for you in 2009.

Come out to meet the PICK 20 winners and learn how your company can leverage Web 2.0 technology in either Vancouver at the Wosk Centre, Sept. 16, 2008, or in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Sept. 23, 2008, during TorontoTechWeek. E-mail epratt@kpmg.ca to receive an invitation or go to www.backbonemag.com/web2.

Congratulations to all our PICK 20 winners.

B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 29

/

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

29

6/16/08 2:39:01 PM

the

judges

Backbone and KPMG assembled a prestigious group of Canadian thought leaders, movers and shakers, practitioners and pundits to judge the PICK 20 nominations and comment on the winners. Our lineup, in alphabetical order, is:

Sean Moffitt

Dave Forde, http://profectio.com

Michael O’Connor Clarke

Dave has been involved in the technology industry across Canada for more than 10 years in sales and marketing roles.

Dave is the chair of Toronto Tech Week, an annual industrywide initiative that showcases Toronto as one of the largest, most innovative and fastest-growing information and communications technology (ICT) markets in North America.

Ron Shuttleworth

Dave Forde

Kate Trgovac

Mitch Joel

Michael Geist, w w w. michaelgeist.c a Michael is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law. Michael has written numerous academic articles and government reports and is a columnist on technology law issues. He is the founder of the Ontario Research Network for E-commerce, serves on the advisory boards of several leading Internet law publications, and is a member of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board. He has been recognized with several important awards including the 2008 Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award and the 2003 Public Leadership Award from CANARIE for his contribution to the Internet in Canada.

Mitch Joel, w w w.t wistimage.com/blog Mitch is president of award-winning Twist Image, a digital marketing and communications agency. Marketing Magazine called him the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing.”

Both his blog and podcast, Six Pixels of Separation, are widely regarded as top marketing destinations in Canada.

Sean Moffitt, http://buz zcanuck.typepad.com/ agentwildfire As an answer to marketing’s future, Sean founded Agent Wildfire — Canada’s Word of Mouth Experts, a marketing, media and research firm dedicated to customer advocacy, social media, influencer marketing, user-generated content, brand evangelism and buzz-building. He was recently ranked one of Canada’s leading marketing innovators and speaks frequently on the subject of new marketing and media. He chairs and speaks at conferences and seminars, and rants and muses through his top-ranked blog Buzz Canuck, e-newsletter “The Buzz Report” and in executive marketing 2.0 white papers.

Michael Geist

Rick Segal

Michael O’Connor Clarke, http://michaelocc.com Recognized as a social media pioneer, Michael is one of Canada’s most experienced consultants on the integra-

30

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 30

2 0 0 8

/

tion of Web 2.0 approaches within mainstream public relations and marketing campaigns. As a vice-president at Thornley Fallis Communications, Michael combines 20 years in technology and corporate marketing with seven years of experience as a blogger to help the firm’s clients make the appropriate connections with their audiences through both traditional and social media communications campaigns. In 2006, Michael’s blog was named one of the Top 10 Corporate Marketing Blogs worldwide, based on Technorati rankings.

Rick Segal, http://ricksegal.typepad.com Prior to joining JLA Ventures, Rick was president and CEO of Microforum, a provider of integrated e-business solutions. Rick joined Microforum in July 2000 from Chapters Online, where he held the position of president and COO. Rick was also a partner at the international firm TMS Consulting and worked at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash.

Rick is also the author of four books on network management and Windows software development. He serves as a director of Planeteye, HealthUnity, b5media, MusicIP, Sirit and Truition Marketplace Solutions.

Ron Shuttleworth w w w.jenning sc apital.com Ron joined the Jennings Capital Toronto office in October 2006 and covers the technology sector. He has a 15-year industry background in technology, holding positions as CEO and CTO in various Canadian software companies. In addition, he was executive-in-residence with Vengrowth and also consulted to various leading venture capital organizations and early-stage technology companies within their portfolios.

Previously, Ron was technology analyst for Lowen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon.

K a t e Tr g ovac , w w w. my nameiskate.c a An Internet trailblazer from pre-Web days, Kate Trgovac started her digital marketing career when plain text e-mail was the marketing tool of choice.

Over her 17-year career, she has worked for several clients, including Nike, Molson, Nabisco, Procter and Gamble, Fido and Petro-Canada. In 2007, Kate founded LintBucket Media, a boutique marketing agency headquartered in Vancouver that focuses on social media, community building and co-creation between brands and their audiences.

She writes about the intersection of marketing and technology on her blog and publishes OneDegree.ca, an online magazine that provides the inside scoop on Internet marketing and social media for Canadian marketers.

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:39:03 PM

the PICK20

winners

1.

Club Penguin www.clubpenguin.com A snow-covered virtual world where children play games and interact with friends in the guise of colourful penguin avatars.

Club Penguin was purchased by Disney in August 2007 for a reported US$350 million and is no longer Canadian, but we didn’t want to penalize this homegrown company simply because of its huge success story. And, indeed, our judges praised the Penguin for both its simple charm and its enviable profits. “Such a great idea, and wellexecuted,” Moffitt said. “They identified a gap between children’s commercial sites and MySpace and nailed it. The fact that their revenue base is by subscription is all the more amazing. The site is very sticky and has tonnes of interesting parent-approved and kid-loved avenues to explore.”

Trgovac concurred. “I think Club Penguin wins for return on investment and ongoing value. It’s a great product with great execution. There are a lot of virtual worlds for kids out there, so it’s not super innovative, but they certainly won big with the Disney buyout.” Shuttleworth, however, sounded a cautionary note on the company’s ongoing revenue base. “Kids can be fickle, so the community needs to extend to maintain relevance.”

2.

FreshBooks www.freshbooks.com An online invoicing and time tracking service that “saves you time and makes you look professional.”

BB_July08-4.indd 31

This one scored very well across the board, with O’Connor Clarke calling its implementation “superb.” He commented, “Using pure Web 2.0 tools to solve real business problems, FreshBooks also scores high marks for using the full spectrum of Web 2.0 and social media tools to connect with their customers and market themselves. Consistently one of the leading innovators in Canada, in my opinion.” Forde was similarly complimentary: “FreshBooks makes great use of various social media tools to not only promote FreshBooks, but also its clients.” Moffitt said: “Who doesn’t want to get paid quicker and take the pain out of tracking a problematic piece of inventory — employee time? This has great execution, collaborative forums and open transparency of the company. With 300,000 users, they have a real scalable advantage to provide expanded service offerings.”

3.

ConceptShare www.conceptshare.com An online design collaboration space that allows users to share, discuss and mark up designs for online review.

NEED LOGO “The ease of use and fluidity of the UI makes this a standout winner for me,” O’Connor Clarke said, while Trgovac simply said, “ConceptShare knocks it out of the park. It’s an exceptional implemen-

tation that is solving a real-world problem for designers. The business model totally makes sense and their interface is sweet.”

Moffitt liked the revenue model.

“There is strong revenue potential, given its ability to partner with software companies. I also love the fact they were able to create this out of Sudbury, Ont. Web companies can succeed anywhere.”

4.

Cambrian House www.cambrianhouse.com The home of a large crowdsourcing community, members earn Glory Points by posting in forums and submitting or commenting on ideas and businesses.

Although it earned high marks across the board — Geist called Cambrian “a global leader in outsourcing” and O’Connor Clarke called it “a national treasure in the Web 2.0 space, constantly pushing the boundaries in all they do” — there were some concerns expressed about the business end. Shuttleworth said Cambrian is an “excellent idea but the business model needs streamlining” while Moffitt gave the group “high marks for innovation but it still needs to tap a revenue-generating model that is sustainable and can deliver more profitable ideas to market.”

5.

S m a l l t h o u g h t Sy t e m s ’ Dabble DB www.dabbledb.com A site that helps people create online databases. As one blogger described it, “If

6/16/08 2:39:11 PM

HOT TECH

Dep

40

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 40

2 0 0 8

/

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:39:32 PM

loying social media tools B Y

A N D R E W

R I D E O U T

Backbone’s guide to thriving in a Web 2.0 world For the enterprise Recommended tools: corporate blog, blog aggregation, social bookmarking, social networking, internal wiki, Facebook applications.

Keep things as simple as possible and try to focus first on doing one thing well. The easiest place to start is with a well thought-out corporate blogging strategy. This is much easier said than done. A company can’t start a blog on its Web site, assign somebody from communications to blog about how great the company is and then sit back and tell its shareholders it’s taking advantage of social networking.

The best way for the enterprise to get the most out of social media is to utilize its blog to establish the company as a trusted source of information and opinion about its industry or market. Hiring a dedicated blogger is the first place to start. Following that, lay out detailed instructions as to how the blogger should interact with readers. It’s important to emphasize the soft sell when dealing with customers, as overtly selfpromotional messaging reeks of desperation and can undermine a company’s online presence.

Combine a well-written and informative corporate blog with an RSS syndication service or use a high-end blog aggregation system to B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 41

/

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

Photo: www.istockphoto.com

Do you write a corporate blog? Post to internal and external discussion forums? Maintain a company wiki?

If not, pundits, business leaders and magazines like Backbone all say you should. And we’re right: the entire social media palette can be a very effective business communication mechanism. Plus, the cost of entry is low and the tools are easy to use. Sadly, social media is also easy to do poorly.

Even companies that do their homework, are diligent about posting regularly and understand it should be the execs who talk to the public, don’t always get the massive response they expect.

Because there are many pitfalls on the new media road, Backbone offers the following guide to get you started. Find the category that fits your company below and, as you read, keep in mind the four main goals of any new media project: identify and create a community, deliver consistent and clear messaging that confirms your expertise within your industry, offer a place for your customers to interact, and provide customers the means to spread your message to other Web sites and social networks. While we can’t guarantee server-crashing traffic, executing on these four goals will ensure you’ll fare better than most in the wild frontier that is corporate social media.

41

6/16/08 2:39:37 PM

FOCUS ON FAST CITIES A

S P E C I A L

F O C U S

A D V E R T I S I N G

S U P P L E M E N T

Fast cities Canadian urban centres accelerate efforts to attract and retain high-tech companies

F

Fast Cities. When you hear the term, the idea you’re supposed to get is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

All cities have economic potential: Fast Cities maximize theirs by actively seeking to attract high-value businesses and knowledge workers. All cities have bright citizens: Fast Cities work with academic institutions to foster home-grown talent, then ensure that newly-minted graduates have ample opportunity and reason to stay in the community instead of leaving for greener pastures. All cities have business organizations, entertainment venues and other places where people meet: Fast Cities use these to actively create the networking opportunities that make a community vibrant and encourage the exchange of ideas, then help foster the innovation that results.

Whether it’s building industry clusters and centres of excellence, or collaborating with companies on everything from curb cuts and zoning issues to applications for financial incentives from other levels of government, many Canadian municipalities are demonstrating that they are, indeed, Fast Cities.

Mississauga’s value proposition With the fourth largest cluster of ICT companies in Canada, the city of Mississauga in Ontario is a hub for innovative and tech-savvy businesses.

Located within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and home to a population of 710,000 (and growing), Mississauga has a lot to offer for current and incoming businesses.

“We have about 4,000 technology companies here,” says Larry Petovello, Mississauga’s Director of Economic Development, “including the Canadian headquarters of some of the world’s leading corporations—Microsoft, HewlettPackard, Oracle and Pitney Bowes.”

Not only is Mississauga home to American and global Fortune 500 com-

BB_July08-4.indd 44

panies, it also boasts many innovative Canadian-based ICT businesses.

Companies worth noting include Redknee, a software application developer for wireless technologies; Financial Models Company (FMC), a software developer for the financial securities industry; and Cedara, a leading independent provider of medical imaging software.

Offering a geographically advantageous position for ICT companies on a number of fronts, Mississauga is within close proximity to the United States and Southern Ontario. Just a 90-minute drive from the U.S. border and home to the Pearson International Airport, the city is attractive to Canadian and international businesses. “Companies are able to access both the Canadian market and the U.S. at competitive rates while maintaining their strong presence in their home country,” says Petovello.

With infrastructure in place to support continued industry growth, organizations including Bell Canada and Research In Motion (RIM) are in the

process of expanding their Mississauga locations. By the end of 2008, Bell Canada will have relocated much of its Toronto operations to Mississauga, resulting in an increase from 4,000 to 7,000 employees, says Petovello. “RIM currently has two buildings under construction which, when complete, will employ more than 2,000 software engineers.”

Encouraging continued focus on research and development, the Mississauga-based Sheridan Science and Technology Park helps build synergies amongst companies sharing resources, equipment and information.

Member companies with sites on this unique campus include Xerox Research Centre of Canada, IMAX and AECL Division of Atomic Energy of Canada.

“Another main draw is our highly skilled talent pool, with 82 per cent of Mississauga resident workers possessing some post-secondary education,” says Petovello. With 10 universities and 11 community colleges within commuting distance from the city centre, Mississauga

6/16/08 2:39:43 PM

Toronto is one of North Americaʼs largest, most innovative, and fastest growing information and communications technology markets.

TorontoTechWeek brings entrepreneurs, investors and professionals from these communities together to promote and foster partnerships, employment, investment, education and new business.

Visit www.torontotechweek.com to register for the lineup of keynote speakers, seminars and networking events, September 22 - 26, 2008.

Founding Sponsor

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsors

Media Sponsors

Photo: CN Tower by Northern Xander

BB_July08-4.indd 47

6/16/08 2:39:49 PM

TEK GADGETS

Summer travel

BY PETER WOLCHAK PHOTOGRAPHY: MEEK KAPUSZCZAK

Get out and get where you’re going with style and fun

Good tote, easier on the Earth Targus EcoSmart Reflection Messenger Bag We heard about Targus’ new EcoSmart line of bags just after our May/ June focus issue on green technology, but better late than never.

Targus makes four cases using materials that are less toxic, have nickel-free metal and recyclable plastic hardware, and each can be returned to Targus for recycling. The pictured messenger bag holds laptops with widescreens of up to 15.4 inches, offers a bunch of pockets and compartments, and a slip resistant shoulder strap.

It sells for $69.99.

Nav, with 3D maps Navigon 7100 All GPS devices perform the same basic functions: supplying turn-by-turn directions and highlighting area restaurants, hotels, etc. So selecting your device comes down to deciding which extra features matter to you.

The Navigon 7100 offers a roomy 4.3-inch touchscreen; options for car, pedestrian, bicycle or motorcycle routes; and it can plot your route in different ways: fastest, optimum, short or scenic.

It stands out by also offering a lane-assist function that recommends where to drive on a multilane road, and a 3D map view that delivers a fairly accurate picture of complicated intersections, including road signs. Of course, this last requires the driver look at the screen instead of the road. It retails for approximately $450.

Multimedia player Cellphone, keys, GPS receiver Freedom Keychain GPS 2000 The idea behind the Keychain GPS 2000 is simple: when people walk out the door they always take at least their keys and a cellphone or PDA. By attaching a small GPS receiver to the keychain, these people can also have a navigation system.

This scenario assumes you have a mobile device with both Bluetooth connectivity and mapping software, but once you’ve got that, an additional US$99 will also get you GPS navigation.

52

J u l y / A u g u s t

BB_July08-4.indd 52

2 0 0 8

/

Nokia N95 8GB People buy phones to suit their priorities: some want the smallest handset, others a full keyboard. If multimedia is your thing, have a look at the N95 8GB. It’s not cheap — the best price with a Rogers plan is currently $399 — and it’s not small, but the N95 packs in a huge list of features: 8GB of onboard memory, full GPS functionality, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a two-way slider design (to access either the dial pad or the multimedia controls), office documents and PDF viewing capability, video recording and playback, and on and on.

And even better for multimedia enthusiasts, the N95 sports a bright 2.6-inch screen and a 5-megapixel camera with flash.

B A C K B O N E

6/16/08 2:40:00 PM

Less clutter, better desk Bluelounge SpaceStation This is a very simple gadget that may make your laptop experience a little more enjoyable. The SpaceStation is a docking port for laptops that delivers a 4-port USB HUB (great if your laptop only comes with one or two), cable management and an ergonomic design that also keeps your laptop a little cooler by lifting it off the desk.

Offered in white or black, it retails for US$79.95.

Parla italiano?

Lingo Voyager 4 If you’re heading out on vacation and you don’t speak the local language, consider picking up a Voyager 4. About the size of a large PDA, it’s a 14-language talking translator that handles English, German, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew. Overall, it handles more than 280,000 words and 32,200 useful phrases. It also packs in the New Oxford American Dictionary, a built-in voice recorder and eight games, including Sudoku.

The Voyager 4 retails for approximately US$200.

Bring an e-book on vacation Sony Reader E-books have yet to take off in the mainstream; it seems people really like the old technology: paper. Enter Sony’s new Reader, which goes further towards duplicating the paper experience than has any other device.

Good around the world Samsung Ace As you’ll learn in Ian Harvey’s “Have cellphone, will travel” article in this issue, using a local carrier can really cut down on mobile voice and data charges when travelling, but your phone has to be compatible with the various worldwide networks.

The new Samsung Ace has you covered.

In addition to the standard smartphone specs — Windows Mobile, full keyboard, a camera/camcorder and a speakerphone — the Ace operates on Bell’s CDMA-based mobile data network across North America and also on GSM/GPRS networks internationally, for voice roaming in more than 180 countries and data roaming in more than 100. The ACE is available from Bell for as little as $199.95 with a contract.

First, the screen size approximates a large paperback, and the high-contrast display is easy to read even in sunlight, just like paper. And then there are advantages paper can’t deliver: text can be displayed in three sizes; the unit stores approximately 160 books, and more storage space can be added; and it can handle Adobe PDF, RTF and text documents, plus JPEG images. More than 40,000 books are currently available and the Reader sells for $299.

WEB GEAR Bluelounge Fre e dom Input L ingo Navigon Nok ia S amsung S ony Targus

w w w. bluelounge. com w w w.f re e dominput. com w w w. lingot r avel . com w w w. navigon . com w w w. nok ia . c a w w w. s amsung. com/c a w w w. s ony s t y le. c a w w w.t argus . com/c a

All content is also on our Web site: www.backbonemag.com/magazine B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 53

/

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

53

6/16/08 2:40:19 PM

BIG IDEAS

A Blockbuster no more A business sparked from late fees on Apollo 13 has gone on to completely recast the DVD rental market

Jim Harris is the author of Blindsided, published in 80 countries worldwide, and The Learning Paradox, nominated for the national business book award. E-mail him at jimh@jimharris.com.

B Y

J I M

H A R R I S

Once upon a time, Blockbuster dominated the video rental business. It was big and powerful and Hollywood trembled during annual negotiations with the company.

Then one day in 2000, a tiny start-up company met with the Blockbuster execs. It offered to sell a majority of the company for a US$50 million investment. And the Blockbuster execs looked at the little company’s business model and decided it was deeply flawed. Instead, the wise Blockbuster execs signed an exclusive 20-year video on demand (VOD) deal with Enron.

The little rejected company was Netflix, and it soon grew up: as of May 2008, it was worth US$1.9 billion. Blockbuster is valued at US$345 million.

Supplanted by subscriptions Netflix — an online movie rental service with 8.2 million subscribers who can access more than 100,000 movie and TV titles — radically changed the video market. Its most popular subscription plan allows for three titles out at the same time, with no due dates, late fees or shipping charges on an unlimited number of rentals, all for $16.99 monthly. Subscribers select movies online and DVDs are delivered by first class mail, each with a postage-paid return envelope. This disruptive business model came to founder Reed Hastings when he had to pay $40 in Blockbuster late fees for Apollo 13.

Blockbusted profits

All content is also on our Web site: www.backbonemag.com/magazine

BB_July08-4.indd 51

As Netflix grew, Blockbuster decided to “drop” its late fees, but its profitability took a huge hit: late fees accounted for 16 per cent of its earnings. Today Blockbuster renters have a seven-day grace period beyond the return date; they are then charged the DVD’s full value. Netflix, by contrast, truly has no late fees: members can have a video out for as long as they wish.

Also flattening Blockbuster’s profits is the weight of its brick-and-mortar stores. Instead of having thousands of stores in expensive retail locations like Blockbuster, Netflix’s 50-plus distribution centres in relatively inexpensive industrial locations guarantee one-day delivery to 95 per cent of U.S. residents. So what was once Blockbuster’s strength — dominant retail presence — is now its greatest weakness, because of huge overhead costs.

As a result, Blockbuster has been busy closing stores, shrinking from 9,100 locations in 2005 to 7,800 today.

In 2007, Netflix’s 1,300 employees generated US$1.25 billion in sales — almost US$1 million per employee — while Blockbuster’s 67,300 employees generated US$5.54 billion of sales, or approximately 90 per cent less per employee. It’s clear: Blockbuster can’t survive in its current form.

Digital to dominate With YouTube doing 200 million video downloads per day, no on can ignore this is the way the market is moving.

Netflix is diversifying its business to gain market share in the video digital download market. In January 2008, it began offering most subscribers unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes on their PCs. As Apple’s iTunes and Netflix rapidly expand their paid video download offerings, the death knell will toll more loudly for Blockbuster.

Other trends hitting Blockbuster: > Wal-Mart’s muscle: 37 per cent of all U.S. DVD sales are through Wal-Mart, and sales dampen the rental market > Cable companies are pushing Personal Video Recorders, and time shifting movies and shows also decreases rental demand > Video on Demand’s growing popularity: why rent, when you can pay your cable or satellite company to watch on demand? > File-sharing services such as Limewire allow the transfer of millions of movies a day

Canadian success None of this is lost on us Canadians. Zip.ca, founded in 2004, is the Canadian equivalent of Netflix. It has 72,000 individual titles, 35,000 members and distribution centres in Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. The most popular subscription is three DVDs at a time for $24.95 a month with no monthly limit. Sound familiar? Zip.ca will ship its 10 millionth DVD in 2008.

And we have just seen the launch of the Bell Video Store, a new download service with more than 1,500 movies and TV titles available. Bell is offering both rentals and movies to own.

6/16/08 2:39:59 PM

Crowd wisdom

Cambrian House crowdsources its way to a spot in the PICK 20

Photo: Randy Gibson

of inductees into the National Viking Association and profiles of its team and board members that read like speeddating write-ups. And the CEO is quick to compare Cambrian House’s business strategy to TV shows such as American Idol and Seinfeld.

But beyond the irreverent tone is a very serious proposition, not “build it and they will come,” but “give them some space and they will not only come, but also build it when they get here.” Cambrian House started as an online platform where innovative people could harness the wisdom of the masses, engage the participation of experts and even secure funding to turn ideas into commercial products and services. The concept even has its own term: crowdsourcing. Cambrian House’s application of the crowdsourcing concept as a business model for incubating start-up ventures earned the company a spot in the PICK 20.

What’s more, Cambrian House itself has attracted some support for its own big idea. The folks behind the community announced in late May that Cambrian House has joined forces with an arm of New York-based private equity firm Spencer Trask to migrate its band of Vikings to a new community, VenCorps (www.vencorps.com). The Cambrian House community will operate much the same way as always, but Spencer Trask will run the show and is sweetening the pot with a $50,000 start-up fund available to members.

Create, test, build, sell, profit

MICHAEL J. “MJ” SIKORSKY, CEO, CAMBRIAN HOUSE B Y

T R E V O R

All stories are also on our Web site: www.backbonemag.com/magazine

M A R S H A L L

It is immediately obvious that Cambrian House (www.cambrianhouse.com) is not a traditional technology venture.

Its home on the Web includes a virtual tour of the company’s Calgary offices, hosted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a small but growing gallery

The crowdsourcing concept is simple. A member has an idea, puts together a pitch and posts it for comment. Other members of the community vote on the idea and provide feedback about possible tweaks, market opportunities, how to differentiate it from competing products and so on.

Ideas that do well at this phase attract members from the crowd who have skills that can help turn the idea into reality, in B A C K B O N E

BB_July08-4.indd 37

/

J u l y / A u g u s t

2 0 0 8

37

6/16/08 2:39:17 PM