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Talking Tech|Talking Tech, Friday, March 9th Episode
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0.27 â Mark and Kevin are back with Duncan Stewart who will
now be a regular co-host.
1.04 â The big story of the week is Guelph based Geosign
raising
$160m. Geosign operates more than 180 Web sites with 35 million unique
visitors each month.
1.28 â Kevin has never heard of them and Duncan thinks this is the largest private
round a Canadian technology company has ever raised. Heâs interested in the
stealth mode Geosign underwent before raising financing.
3.15 â Geosign is more interested with the focused brand of
their Web sites than their own brand.
4.23 â Clearwire, the
WiMax guys, raised $600m
in an IPO. Duncan
thinks the problem is that no one really knows what WiMax is capable of. The
other problem is that the last three attempts to build a wireless network have
failed.
5.37 â Kevin thinks the stock did well because of the
founder, Craig McCawâs,
track record. He wonders where WiMax fits into the telco marketplace.
6.37 â Mark brings up Iridium who went into bankruptcy a year
after going public. He thinks WiMax is a niche play with a cool technology
rather than good business.
7.32 â Another cool technology is high definition
(HD) TV. Duncan
goes through the pros and cons of HD for the consumer and for the broadcaster.
9.10 â Kevin thinks that Canadaâs
HD market will be pulled along with the U.S. market.
9.41 â Mark ruminates
on the amount of invitations to panels, conferences and meet-ups heâs been
getting. Are we in another tech bubble or is there a need to collaborate and
meet people?
10.26 â Duncan
thinks the bubble, and all its conferences, was a very different thing.
Conferences then were all about raising, and making, money. The sort of things
Mark is talking about are more about embracing a new way of thinking about
things. This is no get rich quick scheme.
11.22 â Kevin thinks the amount of money the tech industry
is spending on marketing shows how healthy it is. Mark thinks there is a
revival in entrepreneurialism due to the low barriers of entry offered by the
Internet.
12.36 â Mark wonders where the tech IPO is. Clearwire fell
after its launch and Vonage is a dog.
Duncan points
to the barriers of entry surrounding the software and hardware industries.
Entrepreneurs can only afford to do Web 2.0 things right now.
14.11 â Duncan
gives the AIM
stock exchange some love as training wheels for becoming a public company.
He thinks that people predicting an IPO boom are 18 months too early.
15.32 â Kevin agrees with that analysis with respect to the
telco space.
16.08 â Mark brings things full circle suggesting that
companies are loathe to go public and are instead looking for private
financing.
Audio comments for Mark and Kevin can be left on the Talking
Tech hotline: 1 206-333-1327 or emailed to heytalkingtech@gmail.com.
Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No
Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.
[ Fri, 9 Mar 2007 19:13:00 GMT ]
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