Warning - here follows a rant not at all related to my usual subject matter!
We’ve seen some governmental debacles in the last few days. Firstly the New Zealand taxpayer agreed (or their representatives did anyway) to buy the rail network back off Toll holdings. Bear in mind that this is the same rail network we sold years ago, it’s fallen into disrepair and is under-utilised. It appears that the selling party played a bluffing game, feigning reluctance to sell in order to ratchet up the price.
In any private sector setting this sort of game-playing would be picked up by the other side. In a situation where the negotiation is occurring headed by elected representatives with very little real world experience, and in positions of power vastly greater than their skills, experience and ability would deserve what happened? The said negotiators took the bait - hook, line and sinker - paying what analysts believe is an over-inflated price for the business.
Not only that but it now appears the deal was full of insider trading, whereby the managing director of Toll holdings personally bought a large parcel of shares only days before the deal was inked - his personal windfall is estimated at over $300k.
And then today it appears the the former head of a large government department had a fictitious PhD on her CV. Again in the real world CV’s are checked for authenticity - one can only surmise that the powers that be who hired this employee were so excited by the letter PhD that they omitted to do standard due diligence.
So what’s the answer then? Well perhaps electing representatives with a bit of nous would be a start, moving to a model where politicians and civil servants where accountable for their actions would be another.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) think tank from the States has compiled a report ranking 30 countries broadband offerings by a composite measure based on three indicators: household broadband penetration, average speed weighted by percentage of subscribership (Mbps), and lowest available price per Mbps.
The graph is interesting reading, it shows that New Zealand is relatively close to Australia, the UK and the USA on a composite score and ahead of what is held up as a Hi-tech success story, Ireland. Could it be that Ireland has got maximum utilisation out of the connectivity is has available to it (not to mention the EU money it has available to it), and if this is the case perhaps New Zealand’s economic growth to internet service ration is the real issue? ie we’re not using the connectivity we have for the right things?
It’s a contentious topic, even more so given that it’s an election year - but once again it begs the (mis)quote;
Simon over at iJump has interviewed Mauricio Freitas, founder of Geekzone. I’ve said before that Geekzone is an excellent role model for those attempting to create online communities of interest. The vidcast is a good lesson not only in community building, but also in user generated content and interactive marketing techniques.
I got an email this afternoon from Velocity Networks up in Hamilton. Velocity is a partnership between local government and tertiary institutes which aims to put in place fibre infrastructure for the Hamilton metro area. In their own words;
the combined fibre networks span the city, providing ultra-high speed broadband internet access to commercial buildings at speeds of up to 1Gbps (1000Mbps). Operating as an ‘open access’ community network, users are free to subscribe to services from a range of application and internet service providers on the network.
The project has a number of implementation phases and is expected to be completed by 2010. The initial rollout of the extensive fibre network has been funded by a $3.3 million grant from the Ministry of Economic Development, as part of the Government’s Digital Strategy.
Velocity say that;
A number of well known service providers such as WorldxChange, Kordia, Orcon, FX Networks and Lightwire have already signed up and are now offering their own data and voice solutions across the network…We also have several local internet cafés offering internet access through our fibre network
It’s pretty well accepted now that no one player can muster a business case to put this sort of infrastructure into place. It’s also argued that fast internet is a barrier to growth in this country (I’d add that it’s only one barrier and we need to think about removing the other ones as well). This sort of arrangement is an example of what we should be aiming for.
And by way of proof that it’s actually happening, here’s a picture of the trenching machines hard at work!
News that a bunch of disgruntled power-sellers on eBay have relaunched a boycott of eBay following changes made to rating systems and fee structures.
Sellers tried this once before in February and at the time eBay said that;
There was no impact of the so called boycott. And no one showed up to protest either. A lot to do about nothing
Putting aside the misquote in the eBay response, I’d be hugely surprised if this time it was any different With the sort of scale that eBay has, a few powersellers boycotting will cause no ill-effects.
These sellers need eBay significantly more than eBay needs them and you’ve got a classic case of one player having all the cards at a poker match.
The boycotters will blink, eBay will continue and we’ll all just have to learn to play by the (ever changing) rules of the big boys.
In the past few days there has been some discussion about the prognosis for traditional media in an environment where everything is going on-demand and digital. I was pretty amazed then this morning to see that Google is starting to broker regular TV adds - to be honest if it was 1 April I’d have thought it was a joke.
Google has set up an “ad creation marketplace” (and in the process disintermediated the creative departments of traditional add agencies) and also digitalised that bidding, network choosing and time slots for adds (and thereby disintermeidating another traditional advertising company role).
It’s an interesting move, and shows Google’s massive ambition to be part of life - whether that means online or offline.
Recently launched service stalemates aims to get users away from their computers and into more face to face dialogue.
The crux of the service is that a user uploads their contact/friend list and then chooses a default contact frequency. Stalemates then displays a “staleness” ranking (ie how overdue contact is) and reminds users when recontact is needed.
Stalemates say that their service;
ensures you need to spend the minimum time online and it keeps your information private. Share your stories face to face. We help you out of your chair and in front of others.
Effective planning of activities gets you off the computer and in front of friends. Regular contact, lasting memories follow creative ideas via web, txt/sms and email.
No delays as your mates do not have to join for you to use it.
An interesting idea that could prove useful for some people - similar to remember the milk and other services aiming to facilitate offline life but through an online service.
The question has to be asked about societal changes that necessitate a service to remind us to contact our friends - but this aside stalemates is an interesting concept.
It seems in New Zealand that we’re quick to admonish corporates that run high profits and seemingly provide bad service. The excoriation that has been levelled on our telcos of late has been a good example of this.
One cannot help but think that much of this criticism is politically motivated (it is after all an election year - and headlines of “foreign owned corporate milks massive profits and provides dodgy service” really get grey-power all fired up and give Winston Peters a few more votes).
Why then the total silence around the super normal profits, offshore ownership and almost total lack of service that we get from our banks? Recent profit reports have been pretty fat but the conspiracists among the political parties have remained silent about them - I wonder why?
Everyone will by now have seen National’s plans unveiled yesterday for a $1.5b investment in FTTH. John Key’s announcement is below;
Lots of commentary about this already, Rod is pretty positive as it reasonably neatly dovetails with the work the NZI has done (and which Rod was involved in).
Now ubiquitous broadband is a good thing, I’d personally love it. But being a good thing, and being the cure for our economic ills are two very different things. John Key claims FTTH is the productivity unleasher that will move us up the OECD economic rankings - he gives the examples of almost free local toll calls, cheap international calls, movies on-demand and telecommuting. Only one of those things is closely linked to productivity and there is no empirical evidence that a move to a telecommuting enabled world would in fact boost productivity.
I’m not pouring cold water on the idea - I applaud National’s vision and courage - I only hope that the analysis into true return is done such that decision can be made that actually help New Zealand win.
I got a press release the other day which will be great for those who have concerns about their privacy (especially coming after the Facebook Beacon fiasco). My Data is My Data aims to;
help counteract the collection and sale of personal information. This plug-in will be available through MyDataIsMyData.org. Selling private information for profit unbeknownst to the user’s is an abuse of their trust and MyDataIsMyData.org hopes to empower these user’s by allowing them to control the amount of personal information that they make visible.
I’m from the school of thought that says if you Facebook, Twitter, Blog and im at large, privacy would seem to be a secondary concern than connectivity. For those who do however have concerns, check out MDIMDs offering.
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