Everything SKO...

Video killed the Radio Star, part 2.

I think public Wi-Fi as a business model is pretty much dead in its current form. OK. So I'm not the first person to say this but having been one of the pioneers of the industry I had a lot of emotional baggage tied up in public Wi-Fi. It took me longer to see the light than most observers.

I'm not saying public Wi-Fi is dead. I think it has a fantastic future. But please! Just unlock every network and offer free access. Provide maintenance services to the location owners.

I think the business model has died because:

a). Complacency, hubris and inflexibility from the myriad group of pubic Wi-Fi operators around the world. Why didn't (wouldn't) you get together and offer access to anyone with a GSM-type roaming agreement? The fact that people have to fill out numerous online forms and get different user credentials is reason enough not to use this service.

b). The price. An average of $10 per day and as high as $40 a day in some places. Give me a break.

c). The Blackberry. What an absolutely superb device. I remember when the impact of the Blackberry over public Wi-Fi first struck me. I was in the waiting lounge at London City airport in late 2004. This is the perfect environment for public Wi-Fi. European business people in transit to and from London to the other financial centres around Europe. However, Swisscom were charging 15 *POUNDS* to get access. On top of that it was an absolute pain in the arse to sign up. I remember the day I noticed. 27 people in the lounge were on their Blackberries and two were connected to Wi-Fi. If you go back to the lounge today you will see 70% of people on their Blackberries and still, two people connected over Wi-Fi.

d). 3G. This is the final nail in the coffin. Most of the carriers are offering broadband wireless -- synchronous 256k service in reality. But that's usually enough for e-mail. For example 3 in the UK offers a fantastic deal: 10 Pounds a month (12 month contract) gets you a USB 3G dongle and about 3GB traffic a month throughout their worldwide network. Why the hell would you bother signing up to a Wi-Fi service if this is available.

We went live with a free unlocked iPhone ;-)

Wow! What a week.

We finally launched the maxroam.com site for real. We are open and doing business and yes! People are buying stuff. It's very satisfying. They might only want the unlocked iPhone with free MAXroam SIM that we are giving away to one of today's lucky buyers... whatever works.

We also got in the New York Times today.

Cubic launches at TechCrunch40

I haven't been able to write anything for ages because I've been so busy.

Today we launched our new products at TechCrunch40 in San Francisco. The actual demo didn't go too well as we had no GSM or Wi-Fi coverage in the hall. Go figure! At a Tech demo event!

Anyway... the product is absolutely fantastic. I have to say that of course ;-) But really... even if I didn't work for Cubic I would want these products.

We've moved heaven and earth the past two days to get these ready. Here they are:

MAXRoam
Cubic Mobile

E-mail push to Text

He's an interesting idea. Push e-mail to any mobile as a text message. It's nice because it doesn't require a data plan, special software or an expensive handset.

Currently only available in the US. I like it though. It's simple.

I notice they're in Santa Monica. I was there today. I could have popped in. Damn. I think it might work really nicely with the new service we are launching at Cubic Telecom.

Two great little aps for the Mac

This won't be too interesting for those of you who are PC users but I'm sure there might be similar utilities out there.

I love the software cottage industry that has developed around the use of computers. Those individuals who are using a computer in their daily life and go looking for a particular tool or functionality, can't find it so they build it themselves. As is often the case, there are also many of us out there who might also want the same functionality so we are happy to buy these little aps.

Of course what I'm describing here is a product that conforms to the characteristics set out by Chris Anderson in his great book, The Long Tail.

The two aps I've just bought, which I highly recommend are:

1. WriteRoom by Jesse Grosjean at HogBay Software. If you're like me you are inundated with information all day, every day. However, you still have "real" work to do. As Jesse says on his Web site,

"Walk into WriteRoom, and watch your distractions fade away. Now it's just you and your text. WriteRoom is a place where your mind clears and your work gets done. When your writing is complete, exit WriteRoom and re-enter the busy world with your work in hand."

A truly excellent tool.

2. MenuCalendarClock by Guido Neitzer and Peter Maurer at ObjectPark Software. This little iCal or Entourage plug-in sits in your menu bar. When you click on it it gives you your calendar with to-do's and schedule in a nice drop down menu. It means you don't have to have your primary calendar open all the time.

Another truly excellent tool.

Now that's service

Kudos to Canadian Tire.

If you don't know anything about Canada, Canadian Tire is a national institution. They've been around since September 15th, 1922 so they're a pretty "old" institution. Every time you make a purchase at one of their stores they give you your change plus some Canadian Tire Money.

A common piece of Canadian folklore is that if every Canadian who has Canadian Tire money (that would be all 30+ million of us) turned up at their stores and cashed our Canadian Tire Money we would bankrupt the company ;-)

Anyway, this isn't what I'm here to talk about. For an "old" company they certainly "get it" and are changing with the times. Here's a recent experience I had with them. One of my cars had a flat tire (tyre) so I headed off down to their new store in Vancouver on Cambie Street.

What a refreshing experience. No greasy, intimidating mechanics joint this. Really friendly staff, computerized systems, standardized and clear pricing and it gets better. They've got a waiting area you can sit in, leather seats, lovely decor, BBC World Service news on the 42" flat panel TV, free coffee and free open Wi-Fi.

And it gets even better... They couldn't do it for me right then so they took it and said they would call me. That's exactly what they did the next morning. And it gets better. Then they call me a week later to make sure everything was OK with the service they sold me.

All of this focused on one key issue. Great service that respects the customers' time.

So kudos to Canadian Tire. I'll be going back.

My new gig...

Today is July 1st, Canada Day.

It's also the day I start my new gig. I'm joining Pat Phelan and his amazing team over at Cubic Telecom in Cork, Ireland. A lot of you might know Pat, he is very well known in the VoIP space and is the person behind AllFreeCalls (Yak4Ever), Roam4Free and the very widely read blog by the same name.

I met Pat while I was working at Jajah. What really struck me about him was his combination of clear vision and realistic focus on revenue generation. He intuitively knows what customers want, what they are willing to pay for and how much they will pay. I've been involved with startups for a long time. A lot of people focus on raising money to achieve their vision. Pat doesn't... he focuses on selling stuff. I can't tell you how refreshing this is.

I have been offered a few gigs since I left Jajah. None of them really got me excited. Two weeks ago I went to Cork and met with Pat's team. That got me really excited. What a great group of people. For me the team is everything. It doesn't matter what you do for a living, if you're with a strong dynamic team and you're having fun, any ambitious vision can become reality.

So what am I/we going to do?

Well I can't really tell you the specifics just now. We will launch our product in September and there is a lot of work to do before then.

However, what I can tell you about is Pat's vision. He wants a world in which you can pick up your mobile anywhere in the world and call anyone in the world for as long as you like and not worry about the price.

The real beauty is that the solution is not technical. No downloads, no special numbers, no websites. It's a simple service that anyone can understand yet surprisingly, nobody has done it yet.

Given my background and experiences over the last seven years I have seen just about every proposal in this realm and Pat's approach is the best I've seen. I'm so excited I can barely stand it!

Jawbone

My good friend Michael Kuhlmann turned me on to Jawbone yesterday. Like him I've tried every bluetooth headset known to man. Basically they've all be crap!

It's usually the ambient noise issue. I can't hear the person I'm talking to and they can't hear me. Michael gave me a demo and it worked exactly as this video shows. It's also a really nice design.

I'm off to pick one up tomorrow.

Hallelujah!

This is more an "inside story" than anything else so it won't be relevant to a lot of people but Halle-bloody-lujah!

Facebook

I got going on Facebook this week and it's been quite an experience. I'm late to the party as I was with Linkedin. You know how it is, you get lots of people asking you to join and you resist then you hit a "tipping point" and you head over and check it out.

That's what happened to me and I have been really impressed. I think it's actually a significant platform. It's a really great way to stay loosely in touch with friends and acquaintances. You can just track what people are up to and connect with them at those points where your worlds might intersect or when your friend has significant news.

I recommend it. If you haven't dived in yet give it a go. I think I'm here...