New iPhone 3G Pricing Plans from Rogers
When Rogers bowed to public pressure and offered the $30/6Gb data option for the launch of the iPhone 3G, it came with fine print saying the offer would expire August 31. Well, that’s this weekend, and Rogers is extending their little bonus for an extra month.
The Globe and Mail is reporting the proposed new plans are set to kick in October 1.
Rogers has decided to extend the current pricing plan for another month and will make it available to owners of all devices.
A new pricing model will kick in beginning Oct. 1, balancing consumer concerns and actual usage patterns, Ms. Hamilton said.
A monthly fee of $30 will buy 1 GB of data instead of 6GB. A cheaper package of $25 will give 500 megabytes, filling the needs of most customers based on early consumption trends, she said.
Other plans include $50 for 2GB, $60 for 3GB and $80 for 8GB. [Globe and Mail]
There was a lot of bitching and complaining when the data plans were first introduced, and while most people (91%) are using less than 200Mb a month, the more accurate usage rate hovers somewhere around 500-600Mb per month.
I’m guessing the wireless connection for the iPhone has a lot to do with that. I’ve kept mine turned off, just to see how far I could jack my data consumption, and despite using the iPhone as a sattelite radio receiver listening to stations from Toronto and Calgary, and streaming music through my dash via Last.fm, I’m still only at 578Mb of data.
If you’re an average user and still on the fence about the iPhone, wait until October and scoop the $25 / 500Mb plan.
Vancouver Crowd Putting the Social in Social Media
 This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on August 27, 2008. |
The new world of blogging, Twittering, Facebook etc is called social media. It’s about interacting with other people, building and sharing experiences and ideas and working together to create new ones. In this case, the medium truly is the message, and Vancouver’s social media fans really like to emphasize the social part.
DotComPho is one of the longest running events on the social media calendar, as creator John Chow estimates he’s been meeting with colleagues as part of a weekly ritual since 2001.
“I’ve been going for weekly Pho noodles for as long as I can remember,” he says. “And always told anyone who wish to meet up to come out for a bowl.”
Every Saturday the invitation is open to join John and friends, usually in Richmond at Pho Lan.
Michael Kwan, is one of the DotComPho regulars and appreciates the chance to meet people while doing a job that usually requires a lot of alone time.
“I work from home as a freelance writer, so I don’t get the same kind of office co-worker camaraderie that you would experience at a conventional job,” says Kwan
Raul Pachecois the organizer of the monthly Vancouver Bloggers Meetup. He’s only really been active on the local scene in the past year, but finds the social part of social media crucial to becoming a better blogger.
“Meeting people in person gives me a sense of who the blogger behind the blog is,” says Raul. “Moreover, it has helped me with my own blog, as most of the people I have met are very immersed in Vancouver’s tech scene, and they are very knowledgeable and willing to help.”
“We may not all belong to the same corporation, per se, but it’s almost like we are co-workers striving toward the same common goals,” agrees Kwan.
Every week could easily be filled with 3 or more camps, meetups, or impromptu gatherings created on Twitter called tweetups.
One such tweetup happened earlier this month, when Jordan Behan invited all his Twitter followers to join him for lunch the next day in Gastown. Sure, some of those who came along were colleagues, but some were total strangers who only knew Jordan through the web, like Karen Hamilton.
At first, Karen was a little nervous about walking up to people she had only ever followed online, and had never really “met”
“Everyone was so open and friendly,” Karen writes at tinybites.ca. “I’ll try not to be quite so timid for [the next] one!”
And that’s the message the local scene would like to spread. Whether you’re a blogstar, or just starting out, it’s called social media for a reason, get out and be sociable!
Flickr image by Michael Kwan
24hrs Blogosphere Buzz: 08.27.08
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on August 27, 2008. |
Want to know more about these events before you dive in? Visit DotComPho.com, where videos of the lunches are cut together highlighting the best parts of the conversation along with a featured Gadget of the Week. The Vancouver Bloggers Meetup schedule can be found at blog.meetup.com/30.
Next weekend sees MobileCampVancouver2 landing at Workspace. Those who are passionate about their pocket communication tools will be gathering together for an ad-hoc discussion about unlocking the potential of a mobile life. “Topics may include - but are not limited to - mobile gaming, entrepreneurship, social mobility and presence, mobile storytelling, the importance of open standards, protocols, and platforms, and mobility on other continents.”
Now all the options are out there for those needing a new phone. The Blackberry Bold has arrived to rival the iPhone. For those a little more buttoned up, the Bold is a nice upgrade for the Blackberry with a bigger screen, and more multimedia. Whichever smart phone you’re thinking about adding to your mobile arsenal, if it’s on the Rogers network, you’ll want to get it this week. The limited time offering of 6Gb of data for $30 / month expires at the end of this weekend.
Jordan and his wife Alex, celebrated their 4th anniversary this week. Like any couple, they have their own language – like using the word Nubnoo instead of I Love You. As an anniversary present to his wife, Jordan created nubnoo.com, a site devoted to love letters from twitter. When using twitter, just tag your 140 character love letter with #nubnoo to have it appear on the page.
So we got next, Vancouver is now on the clock as we count down to 2010. One of the cool toys those in the suites at GM Place Canada Hockey Place will get to play with will be the ability to order from concessions and souvenir stands without standing in line. Nortel Networks, is embarking on a 3 yr Unified Communications plan that will eventually let fans choose the replays they want to see on their personal mobile device from their seat.
Dream Big
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on August 20, 2008. |
Dreams. We all have them.
Your dream might be Heli Hiking, or a South American Extravaganza, maybe even attending the Gold Medal Hockey Games at the 2010 Olympics.
Dawn Bowles’ dream was to get a new road bike.
24hrs Blogosphere Buzz: 2008.08.20
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on Augsut 20, 2008. |
You may have heard of Brendan Baker, a local guy who was using the web to try and crowdsource $90 000 to fulfill his dream of attending Oxford for an MBA in social entrepreneurship. Instead of using a DreamBank to reach out to family and friends, he created 3bucksforbrendan.com where he hoped to get $3 from 30 000 different people. sadly the deadline for school has passed with just over $11 000 raised towards the total.
Many dreams have come true in Beijing over the past week and a half, the first of them for Carol Huynh from Hazelton. She won Canada’s first gold medal of the games in wrestling, and the praise has been flowing to her website from across the country ever since. Share your thoughts at
There will be a longer lineup than normal at the border this weekend as the local blogosphere packs up its MacBooks to head to Seattle for Gnomedex. The tech conference promises to “become the crossroads between producers and observers, between users and developers.” In plain English, that means many people will be discussing, blogging, podcasting and new media and how to make it better. Keynoters this year include notorious author Sarah Lacy.
Big box movie theatres are no longer all about movies. Already you can go to them to watch pay-per-view hockey games or wrestling events, and this weekend saw the launch of a program that will have buddies renting out the big screens for a little Xbox 360 action. The CBC is reporting you, and up to 11 buddies, can reserve a 2 hour window for a screen, mostly in the mornings, for $179. You can bring your own games, or choose from the theatre’s library.
Do you think you spend a little bit too much time pointing and clicking? Then visit the center for Internet Addiction Recovery. Seriously, such a place exists – except to learn about it you need to be online. They have a little quiz, you can answer some questions about your usage and it will tell you whether or not you have a problem. Actually you could substitute the word “internet” for “alcohol, “drugs,” or “gambling” and get an equally valuable result.
Urban Vancouver Stole My Blog
I got into a very heated discussion today with some editors and manager types over at Urban Vancouver.
The site is an aggregator of blogs from across Vancouver and the web. They access the RSS feeds distributed by the blog and repost the entire blog entry on their site. I call it scraping, they call it aggregating.
Some tried to defend what they do by likening it to a mashup. However, mashups, as they are commonly found on the web and in music today, take an original work, combine it with another and make an entirely new product.
Taking my copy, republishing it on your website, with a unique url to your website, and linking back to the images from my server is not an entirely new product. It’s theft. It’s plagiarism. It’s wrong.
It’s not just my content that they’re stealing with urls unique to Urban Vancouver, they’ve aggregated dozens of blogs accross the city. Taking the content verbatim, plagiarizing it at an Urban Vancouver url.
Some are fine with it, I am not. Mostly because I wasn’t asked. I don’t need to be asked if you want to quote and link back to my blog. I don’t need to be asked if you want to blockquote and link back to my blog. Those sorts of tactics help evolve discussion on the web and flow traffic through varying thoughts and points of view.
Taking my entire blog entry, however, and reposting it on your site with an url unique to your domain, along with a second link that goes to my archive - on your site - is wrong.
I use FeedEntryHeader plugin for Wordpress to try and prevent this sort of thing, or at least make it glaringly obvious when it happens. My header had read:
Copyright © 2008. Visit the original article at cyberbuzz.com.
It now reads:
Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. Visit the original article at cyberbuzz.com.
I’m wondering if I need to make it even stronger or more blatant.
Credit to the people at Bryght / Raincity, they did remove the stolen blog content the minute I called and asked for it to be done, but Roland’s smug chuckle on the other end of the phone just told me these people know they’re getting one over on the bloggers of the city and frankly don’t give a damn.
Actually, it might not be the bloggers they’re getting over on, it’s more likely the rest of the PR sphere that is getting gamed. Boris Mann defends his site’s approach by saying: “Many people benefit from the ability of UV to help generate “press” credentials, for everything from music awards to the Olympics.” [source]
In other words, a few bloggers, without much clout, readership, or influence, are trying to artificially increase their standings on the internet so they can catch some creds and go to a free concert.
It’s cool to quote me (and link back to the source). It’s cool to blockquote me (and link back to the source). It’s not cool to repost all of my content with a unique URL that out Googles me when people are searching for keywords relating to my own content.
You can track through the comments on Twitter to try and rebuild the conversation. But here’s how most of it went down:
sillygwailo: @buzzbishop I’m a managing editor of Urban Vancouver, mostly adding feeds to the aggregator (and fighting spam comments/posts) these days.
about 7 hours ago · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop Got an example of the wrong URL? Every post links back to the original.
less than a minute later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo every post also contains EACH and EVERY word and EACH and EVERY image in the original. so what’s the point of clicking back?
1 minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop true enough. I’m asking about “does not drive to the original url”. It does indeed drive traffic to the original URL.
3 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo cant demonstrate anymore as i’ve been removed from the site. here’s my issue: http://tinyurl.com/6k9trr (expand)
1 minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop That UV reposts full content is undeniable. We wish the technology was a little more flexible in doing just excerpts or links.
less than 10 seconds later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo how about you just leave peoples stuff alone til you figure out?
less than a minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop (Not sure I understand the importance of the link you dropped. Wrong link?)
2 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop We’ve been trying to find the balance of increasing the exposure of the Vancouver blogosphere and respecting rights.
1 minute later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo no, it showed that your page out googled mine, taking traffic. and since my posts were FULLY republished without permission
less than 20 seconds later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo there was no need for people to come to my page, cause you had (stolen) reposted my entire site’s content.
half a minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop I’m open to the idea that the site swung the balance too far. Some people like it….
less than 5 seconds later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop …the aggregator is used as source material for a certain daily Vancouver news wrap-up (or if it’s not now, was for some time).
1 minute later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo here’s the thing.. you should ASK before you steal. then its not stealing. if people like it they will participate.
less than a minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop The @bryght account doesn’t accept DMs because that account doesn’t follow anybody (I’m its most frequent updater, obviously).
2 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop I’ve agonized over that. We’re different from scrapers because there’s no ‘nofollow’ and respond to removal requests.
2 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo you act first. wait for people to notice later. you’re being sneaky. if it’s so great, so wonderful, then ASK. why be sneaky?
2 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop Since January of this year, I’ve announced every addition at http://jaiku.com/channel/urbanvancouver
4 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo its not the same. fck me you are just not getting it. ASK! 3 little letters A! S! K!.. not to be confused with A! S! S! (holes)
3 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo negative option billing didnt work for rogers. stealing content that way wont work for you http://www.ellenroseman.com/?p=22
3 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo i dont care if youre blogging for mother theresa. ASK before you repost my ENTIRE BLOG ARCHIVE.
1 minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop Fair enough. I quibble that it’s not your entire blog archive: it expires posts. (I really don’t want the quibble to detract.)
6 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop I agree with you.
20 minutes later · Reply · View Tweetbuzzbishop: @sillygwailo guilt would be a big red flag you are acting without ethics.
1 minute later · Reply · View Tweetsillygwailo: @buzzbishop I don’t dispute that either. Surely you’ve agonized over stuff you’ve done?
7 minutes later · Reply · View Tweet [source]
I am not happy with the emotional tone of my tweets. I would have liked to have remained calm, but faced with stonewalled responses and a lack of addressing my original issue of their refusal to ask permission before wholesalely reposting/scraping/plagiarizing/stealing my content, I got a little emotional - it’s what I do.
I would love to have posted screen shots and direct links to the violations, but I didnt take them and the content has been removed. You can go to the site on your own to see how they’re scraping the content from the dozens of other bloggers around the city, I’d just rather not give them any direct links to validate their business practices.
Wordpress Plugin: Blog Icons for iPhone
There’s a great new WordPress plugin that will easily help you get your blog icon on the home screen of your iPhone. It’s called BlogIcons from Yoast
Check out how the cyberbuzz and Blog According to Buzz icons look on the home screen at right. (I’m just working with the logo for the cyberbuzz network right now, might change to individual site logos later)
The plugin also lets you add images to your RSS feed, and easily update your favico for browsers.
I was tempted to make my icon a ruby and label it I Am Rich. You could do it! Lol.
Olympic Coverage From the Streets of Beijing
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on August 13, 2008. |
Citizen journalism; it’s you and me with a web camera, or a cell phone and an internet connection immediately posting what we see online. When you bring citizen journalism to a place like Beijing and the Summer Olympics, things can get interesting.
NBC and the CBC alone have paid nearly $1B for the rights to broadcast this summer’s games from Beijing, but if you connect with the people on the streets, and the athletes in the village, a raw and authentic story gets told.
24hrs Blogosphere Buzz 2008.08.13
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on August 13, 2008. |
The highlights of the Olympics will eventually make their way to YouTube on the Official YouTube Summer Games Channel with content from official partners The New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press and assorted European broadcasters. The clips come up at least 24hrs after the event, but they are online andwill offer a different perspective when seen from different countries.
Future Shop has redesigned its Park Royal store with a greater focus on education. Future Shop VP Todd Empey admits they may have borrowed some ideas from Apple where learning how to best use technology is just as valuable as selling the goods. The Future Shop store is the first in Canada to feature The Connected Home hub in the center complete with experts to show you how technology connects throughout your home.
Congratulations to Maura Rodgers and Danny Robinson. The Vancouver techstars were married in Victoria on the weekend. Colleague Jordan Behan tweets: “There was a great crowd that didn’t let a little rain ruin a good time. “ Before building a new life together, the two founded Strutta.com, a friendly website celebrating the competitive spirit.
VancouverIsAwesome.com has launched a new initiative called Hood Wars. Site contributors will be responsible for convincing readers their neighborhood is the best in the city. First up is Jeff Choy to prop up Hastings-Sunrise. Jeff loves having Highway 1 in the heart of his hood. “I kinda like the idea of having your own exit. It’s like like in 8 mile; but not really,” he writes.
Another startup has joined the Techcouver map. AdHack launched into Beta last week and is a place for users to create fresh and new advertising creative. The site acts like an eBay for ads, where creators and advertisers can connect on some new ideas. For example, you might have a better idea than the Mr. Muffin commercial that pops on seemingly every 10 minutes during Olympic coverage.
Facebooking Your High School Reunion
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on August 6, 2008. |
Kris Lee missed her 10-year high school reunion. She graduated in 1988 as part of one of the largest classes in the province, nearly 1000 students from Centennial in Coquitlam. She didn’t get a notice about the reunion until a friend drove past the school and saw the billboard outside when it was already too late.
Now, as plans for her 20th reunion get put in motion, Kris won’t be missing it – she’s helping to organize it, and with the help from a little tool called Facebook, hopefully no names will be left off the invite list.
