Let the Media Tablet Wars Begin!

PC tablets have been around for a while and have never really lived up to industry expectations, but the arrival of the iPad earlier this year signaled the beginning of an emerging market for media tablets. Inevitably, more vendors will follow as they consider their positioning in this market as well.

Most recently, on June 29, 2010, Cisco unveiled the Cius, a mobile collaboration tablet (with a camera and video camera) targeted at business users. But are Canadian businesses ready to embrace this kind of device?

My blog post on itbusiness.ca provides some more detail into the device, and the reaction we might expect to see from Canadian businesses.

Canada's Digital Economy Strategy: Fast and Flexible Startups Can Help, But They Need Support

Back in May, the government announced a national consultation aimed at building consensus among governments, the private sector, academia and the Canadian public in developing a digital economy strategy for Canada. The public consultation period formally ended this week on July 13, although news and updates will be posted on the Government of Canada website as they become available. The government reports that between May 10 and July 13, more than 2,000 Canadian individuals and organizations registered to share their ideas and submissions.

My full response to Canada's Digital economy strategy can be found on the Government of Canada website. A short overview is below:

"To position Canada for success now and in the future, a connected and integrated digital economy is needed that enables greater two-way communication and transactions. Fast and flexible startups can play a key role in helping Canada achieve that quickly by providing leading edge technology to enable this connectivity, and become engines of growth and job creation themselves. However, they need support — and ideally, that’s part of what Canada’s digital strategy will provide."

Sneak Peak: Creating Comics with Bitstrips

Toronto-based Bitstrips.com is a user generated online comic builder, but the tool and its application has potential way beyond geeky comic strip enthusiasts.

I had a chance to test out Bitstrips.com and chatted with Shahan Panth from Bitstrips on June 22. Here's a sneak peak into our Q&A:

Q: How is Bitstrips disrupting the market?
A: Bitstrips is designed to be easy to use and provides a wide breadth of visual variety in terms of characters, poses, emotions and backgrounds, letting users create really unique, personalized comics. The Web-based tool is intended to be social, encouraging comic collaboration, sharing, and interaction between users.

Q: How have customers used it?
A: The Ministry of Education in Ontario licensed a special educational version of Bitstrips beginning in September 2009, making it available to any publicly funded school in the Province. Over 25,000 Ontario teachers have now registered their classrooms with Bitstrips for Schools to engage students in reading and writing using comics as the medium in a private and secure virtual classroom. Close to 440,000 students are now using it across over 80% of the Province's schools.

Q: What's next for Bitstrips?
A: While we're looking to expand Bitstrips for Schools beyond Ontario - we already have hundreds of teachers using it around the world - there's also an opportunity to partner or collaborate with major brands on Bitstrips.com, particularly those that are eager to engage audiences with their products in new ways.

Sneak Peak: Enabling Audience Interaction with Chatroll

Engaging with audiences online and through mobile devices in real time is still relatively new, but quickly becoming a must for broadcasters, live event planners, big brands, and others that are looking to create more engaging audience conversations and experiences.

Toronto-based Chatroll is looking to address this opportunity with its platform for real-time social interaction. I had a chance to chat with Jonathan McGee and Francis Ma from Chatroll June 21, 2010. Here's a sneak peak into our Q&A:

Q: How do you differentiate Chatroll?
A: Chatroll allows broadcasters to quickly engage large audiences on a PC or a mobile device in real time. It allows the audience members to engage with one another, and the broadcaster, by commenting or asking questions. The conversation remains private (unlike a public forum like Twitter), providing an intimate conversation, but users can still sign in with their social media profiles so that other audience members can find and connect with them. We provide publishers with analytic data and insight around who is participating and where they are located, what kind of conversation is taking place, and topics that are being discussed, giving them powerful information to better engage with and monetize their audience.

Q: How have customers used the solution?
A: Chatroll was used at the Tribeca film festival in Manhattan, where we powered live Q&A, enabling real-time audience interaction in a single, private online space. Chatroll was also used by Joel Osteen, an American best-selling author and senior pastor in Texas. His ministry reaches over seven million broadcast media viewers weekly in over 100 nations around the world. During one of his live broadcasts from Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, Chatroll was used to expand reach and engagement by enabling live social interaction between thousands of audience members in-attendance at the event and thousands of new, previously untapped online audience members.

Q: What are your plans for the solution moving forward?
A: We will continue to scale the solution to work with new platforms, and are looking for partners who can complement the social experience though video, photos or audio to further enable broadcasters to reach, engage, monetize and analyze their audiences in exciting new ways.

What's Hot in Mobile & Wireless with Canadian Startups

Interested in hearing more about hot startups in mobile and wireless in Canada? On Friday May 28th, BNN covered some of the important trends and companies to watch in this space. Check out the coverage here.

The Coolest Stuff in Digital Media: Checking Out Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone

I’m often asked at IDC what the coolest technology is that I’m seeing in Canada from tech startups. In the Digital Media space, and in Toronto specifically, a good place to source out hot new digital media technology is at Ryerson's new Digital Media Zone (DMZ), which officially opened on April 7, 2010.

Located on the 5^th floor overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square, the DMZ connects Ryerson students, graduates and alumni from different disciplines to take digitally inspired concepts and make them real solutions and marketable products. Ryerson's President Sheldon Levy explained that Ryerson does not take a stake in the technology being developed; instead it provides the space and equipment for students to test and try their ideas in a safe environment supported and funded by the school. The result? Some pretty cool and marketable technology. Examples include:

• Social Buying. TeamSave, a new Toronto start-up, officially launched at the DMZ April 7. TeamSave brings deals from local businesses to local buyers through social media like Facebook, Twitter and mobile applications. The social buying platform is intended to help restaurants and other establishments attract new customers by letting them offer group deals that consumers can purchase together at discounted prices. The company is addressing a hot area of the market, where U.S. competitors such as Groupon have already demonstrated the success of this type of offering in U.S. cities such as Boston, New York and Chicago. Competition is now heating up in Toronto with TeamBuy.ca, which will make for exciting market dynamics.

• Gesture Technology. Jonathan Ingham, a graduate of Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson, founded Phosphorus Media Inc., to market his interactive technologies that are designed to engage audiences. Phosphorus Media is in the business of: gesture recognition technology, image projection, multi-touch technology, 3D holographic imaging, mobile applications, directional sound and a think tank for new media technologies. Jonathan is an authorized reseller of GestureTek, which has technology that projects interactive images on floors or walls that respond to movement, such as the sweep of your shoe or hand, but do not require actual contact (touch). Jonathan's company was subcontracted by GestureTek to develop content and set-up for L'Oréal's product launch this past January, creating a 33 foot interactive runway, dressed up with flowers that models brushed away with the sweep of their feet as they walked down the runway. There are other potential attractive applications of the technology and Phosphorus Media's services as well, particularly store advertising, or displays such as at trade shows.

• Metro Transit Travel Assistant. This context-aware mobile application is designed to help metro passengers with disabilities navigate their way. The app continually updates with new information based on the user's location, and tracks their progress from station to station. Users can get information such as the location of station elevators and other Metro lines; facilities and nearby businesses; updated schedules for connecting trains; and data about services at each station. The sensitivity of the users' microphone increases automatically as users enter busy subway stations, and the app can automatically switch to a text-based variant of the application if connection bandwidth drops. The app got the attention of the Paris Metro system, which will pilot the app at 10 Metro Stations in Paris, France beginning in May. Commuters will be able to download and customize the software for free. The application is designed on top of MUSIC Development Framework which is a European Funded Research Project. An app such as this one holds opportunity not just in subway stations, but in other transit terminals as well, including airports. There’s no shortage of competition in the app space: Handi Mobility’s iPhone app called TransLink that provides schedules for buses, SkyTrain, WestCoast Express and SeaBus in Vancouver; and Fusedlogic's Route 411 app in Toronto and Edmonton are just a few. The greater challenge is working with transit authorities that control how and if third parties can use their transit data.

There was no shortage of talent and interesting technology at the DMZ, but as President Levy pointed out, that's not the biggest challenge. "There's no doubt the talent is as good here in Canada as anywhere else, we just don't want it badly enough."

Providing a place like the DMZ where students from different disciplines can work together, pushing each other every step of the way to test and build superior technology, will definitely help overcome this challenge. Yet, the real value is likely to come from the mentorship, entrepreneurial counseling, funding advice, and industry connections that can be provided through the DMZ to help those students (who want it badly enough) take their cool ideas and initial successes to the next level.

Do You Have a Kick-Ass Story to Tell About Your Solution?

If your answer is no, you have a problem…or at the very least, you will probably have difficulty getting people's attention.

Case in point: "Dragons Den" style events seem to be all the rage these days, providing startups with the opportunity to give quick 5-minute demos. It seems the one thing these events have in common is that most of the companies presenting at them struggle to communicate what they do within the allotted time frame. At one recent Toronto event, after a company had presented for 5-minutes, an angel investor well versed in the tech sector turned to me and said, "I don't get it".

Enter: storytelling. Storytelling can be a particularly effective strategy for smaller tech companies with very technical products or those that customers may not be familiar with, and can provide a quick story to frame the discussion and get prospects to the "Ah-ha" moment faster – especially when time is not on your side.

One great example would be a story I heard from a Canadian startup recently. The founder was giving me a briefing of his new mobile app designed for children, but instead of launching in with tech specs or market size, he opened with this story:

While in a lineup at a store recently, the woman in front of me had a small child with her, who was trying to get her attention while she was speaking with the customer service rep. I turned on the mobile app and gave my BlackBerry to the child, who immediately stopped nagging his mom, sat down, and began to play with the app, allowing his mother to finish her conversation with the sales rep. The mother then turned to me and asked, "what is that game and where can I get it!"

Simple and to the point – it helped answer the key question – why would a parent with a BlackBerry buy this app for their kid?

April Dunford, from Rocket Launch Marketing, echoed the importance of storytelling to a group of tech entrepreneurs at Toronto DemoCamp 26 during her presentation entitled, "Startup Marketing" on March 29, 2010. Dunford's slides can be found here.

It's not rocket science – so why don't more companies leverage stories? Simple. Because it's easy to launch in with the tech specs you're familiar with instead of seeing things from the perspective of someone who knows nothing of your solution.

For startups, or those in a sales and marketing role, the takeaway is simple: find your story that you can use to highlight the value of your offering. No matter how large or small your company is, everyone loves to hear a story, and they can be structured to sound more natural than a sales pitch.

So what makes a kick-ass story?

- Keep it short and sweet. Don't risk losing the audience's interest

- Address a key point. Make sure they story has a defined purpose. If there is confusion in the market around why someone would want your product, make that the focus. If prospects are concerned around security, your story could be structured to address that key issue.

- Keep it fresh. Your story may need to change as the factors in the market and the product itself change.

- Consider the story's reach. Even if you share your story one-on-one with a prospect, it's possible that someone you tell could Tweet or Blog about it (like I'm doing!). Consider if it's a story you feel comfortable having everyone know about...not just the person you mentioned it to behind closed doors.