Sometimes it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, or the wood from the trees, or something.
TelstraClear yesterday called for further regulation of Telecom’s local loop unbundling. TelstraClear are calling for LLU to not only include the already agreed copper network, but also any future fibre roll out. One can only assume that TC would also call for a blanket regulation of ANY subsequent developments.
Here’s a hypothetical situation for you. TelstraClear invents an amazing new technology that allows high speed data transfer of around 10million mbps that works through the water carried in water pipes. A use only needs to have their computer within a metre of a water pipes to take advantage of the technology.
Telecom goes to court asking that TC be regulated to allow Telecom to access its water pipe network(!) to ensure a competitive environment exists.
Anyone care to guess what TelstraClear’s reaction would be?
Disclosure - Diversity Limited is a consultant to Telecom New Zealand and its subsidiaries
I posted a few months ago saying that while TradeMe is undoubtedly a super success story, it isn’t a fantastic example of web 2.0 (not that it needs to be given that it has around 75% of NZ’s total net traffic as it is!). I said at the time that product interest groups, micro communities and more rating and information functionality would pull it over the 2.0 line.
Well blow me down but I see that Ebay has just introduced a beta test of the Best of Ebay.
BoE allows members to rate auctions and thus to form a democratically measured auction popularity rank. It’s a great start but only goes some of the way - imagine if I could go to best_of_ebay/tea_cosy_world and there look at and rate all the tea cosies on offer. Imagine if while I was there I could get some Wikipedia style information about all that is relevant to the world of tea cosies. Imagine if within the tea_cosy_world micro site I could discuss tea cosies with all the other tea cosy nutters out there.
Sitting at breakfast this morning, my wife an I were discussing Facebook and email. My wife is a bit of a late technology adopter, not being really “into it” the way I am. She takes a while to get used to things and uses them if they’re in context with her and not just because they’re cool things (arguably a better approach than my “wow - whiz bang - let me at it” approach).
Anyway - we were both commenting on how a significant amount of communication that we do with friends, has recently moved from email to Facebook. Now smarter people than me have commented on this, and said that it is primarily a young person jumping onto the next big thing type shift rather than a real phase shift in the way people work but I tend to think otherwise. While email brought communication to an entire new level of people that one wouldn’t otherwise keep up communication with, so too does facebook bring communication to another level.
My wife’s take on this is that the visual aspect of Facebook is the differentiator - it’s a lot more “interactive” than a boring text email - but for me it’s about aggregation - the fact that a diverse mix of functions, only one of which is “email” are wrapped up in facebook is what makes me likely to communicate using it rather than more traditional electronic means.
What do others think? Is Facebook (or similar) replacing your email usage to any great extent?
After the recent comments regarding Telecom New Zealand’s plans for the roll out of cabinetisation of fibre, which in turn started an avalanche of comments some of which were pretty vitriolic in their demonisation of TNZ, Ernie Newman from TUANZ has posted another opinion, one that balances a little disappointment with some commercial reality and the realisation that in fact these plans have been fairly widely known for awhile.
While possibly it’s a case of not biting the hand that feeds, I find it difficult to believe the conspiracy theories that revolve around all of this. To me TNZ is a commercial operation that is finding any competitive advantage it can - which is different from being anti-competitive isn’t it?
Disclosure - Diversity Limited is a consultant to Telecom New Zealand and its subsidiaries
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