Alec Saunders reports on his experience with a new Rogers service he tried out – in particular, the basic buying (and returning) experience: Rogers Portable Internet bait and switch. There’s something strange going on when a market leader makes even more elementary mistakes than it did when it built its leadership position. Rogers reminds me of the record companies more than anything else – scrambling frantically in all directions when the road ahead is difficult but clearly marked.
Kapica on Canadian Data Rates
The Globe and Mail’s Jack Kapica wrote a piece on Rogers data rates and the problems these pose in relation to bringing the iPhone to Canada. Take special note of the insulting comment from Rogers’ communications flack, who managed to both be inappropriately aggressive AND completely avoid the point of Kapica’s article. I wonder if mobile carriers – particularly those in Canada – will ever get it? Not only are they gouging their customers, but they’re leaving a ton of money on the table by completely underestimating the demand for wireless data in Canada.
From TidBITS’ Adam Engst:
Confessions of a Twitter Convert.
I’m eating a hearty meal of crow (roasted, with garlic and rosemary) today, since I’m here to tell you how interesting and downright useful I’ve found Twitter to be since being turned onto it properly at the C4 conference in August. My initial reaction to Twitter was that it was utterly inane…
I think a lot of people were misled by the early talk of Twitter that was focused on whether or not it was useful. That was likely the wrong question, the wrong focus. In fact it is (sometimes) useful, but more importantly, it’s (almost always) fun.
From Jaiku: We’re joining Google
The word today is that Google has bought Jaiku, the social/presence/messaging service that competes with Twitter and others. Here’s Google’s announcement of the news from their blog. As others have noted, it’s interesting that GOOG chose Jaiku over Twitter, which was co-founded by a guy (Evan Williams) who co-founded an earlier Google acquisition, Blogger.
New from the “better late than never” department:
Palm has canceled the Foleo, just before it started shipping. Pity they spent all that time and money on something that had nothing to do with either fixing their tech problems or shoring up their core business in the face of merciless competition.
