Corvida, Sarah Perez, and Marshall Kirkpatrick all have it right on target.  Sure, it’s early days and Identi.ca doesn’t have all the features that we’re used to, but they have one thing that Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku all missed: the are offering the sever software as open source that can we can install ourselves.

Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, even FriendFeed, all rely on increasing their own capacity to survive.  This is different.  We can install the server ourselves and then, of course like POP, have accounts to connect to the larger cloud with.

The question will be not how fast will Identi.ca add Twitter, but how fast will Twitter add Laconica.

You can follow me here: http://identi.ca/trishussey

Post from: EveryJoe

Identi.ca Canada’s gift to microblogging and might become Twitter’s salvation

Next week, a hair less than a week from today, Redwerks, Colleen Coplick will be hosting a summer social media BBQ with Freshbooks:

Summertime BBQ: The true Canadian social media Wednesday, June 25, 2008 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM Redwerks Rooftop Patio 321 Railway Street, Suite/Buzzer 106 Vancouver, British Columbia V6A 1A4–Summertime BBQ: The true Canadian social media at Redwerks Rooftop Patio (Wednesday, June 25, 2008) – Upcoming

Will you be there?  Looks like it will be a great kick off to a social media summer.

Post from: EveryJoe

Freshbooks, BBQ, next week. I’ll be there—you?

Photo sharing site Flickr is one of the leading lights of Yahoo – but cofounders (and husband/wife team) Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield won’t be around to keep driving the product forward. They are both joining the mass exodus of executives from the company.–Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo

Flickr is one of those bright stars in the Yahoo pantheon that I think is just, well, amazing.  I use it almost daily (as my 8800+ photos on there can attest to).  What worries me is that while Flickr has stayed great, it really hasn’t done a lot of new and great things since acquisition.  I don’t blame the Flickr folks, okay the uploader they pushed out sucks, because I wonder if Flickr was stuck in a corporate rut.  There is the argument that, heck it freakin’ works don’t mess with it. So the relative stagnation might really be the fault of Yahoo not leveraging the value it brought it (which del.icio.us and MyBlogLog suffer from as well, imho).  What’s next for Flickr then?

According to Stuart leaving a comment on the TC article, Flickr will be fine:

Stewart Butterfield June 17th, 2008 at 3:09 pm No need to worry about the future of Flickr – it’s well-protected from the uppings and downings of YHOO and will continue to be awesome. Kakul is actually better than me anyway — ask anyone on the team. ;)–Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo

Well that’s okay. I guess, but the monetary Stewart and Caterina must have taken as Thomas Hawk alluded to–Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection: Flickr’s Fake and Butterfield to Leave Yahoo!—must smart a wee bit.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the people who were bought by Yahoo found a way to buy themselves back?  Or really stick it to Yahoo and take their millions and make the Flickr 2.0, for example, that they always wanted to but couldn’t.

All I hope is that Yahoo doesn’t start doing the fire sale bit and start selling off the good stuff to the highest bidder to raise cash.

See that’s what happens when a great company is acquired, then the buyer starts to run onto the rocks.  You risk your part getting sold off for quick cash.

Update:

I caught Duncan’s post through Techmeme or something on Flickr alternatives and decided to check out SmugMug again.  I wander over there and what do I see but this little button on the homepage:

Which then leads to this (click for larger version):

Clearly someone had their thinking cap on.  If this isn’t new, well cool, then it is a fortuitous bit of luck.  Interestingly enough I was going to get my daughter a Flickr pro account soon to show off her photography.  Maybe that will be a SmugMug account.

Post from: EveryJoe

When the company that acquires a great company starts to founder

Most Promising Company of the Year: * b5media, Toronto * Filemobile, Toronto * Viigo, Toronto—Live from nextMEDIA: 2008 Canadian New Media Award Finalists | Techvibes Blog

Of course all I have to say about that is: W00t!  Our fearless leader Jeremy Wright is there (he was speaking) as are other b5-ers.  So I expect to be able to blog the winners when they are announced.

Fingers crossed…

Post from: EveryJoe

Breaking News: b5media New Media Award Finalist as “Most Promising Company of the Year”

Like CIL, Scribblelive is web-based and is easy to get started with your live blog.  You can add additional authors and because it’s AJAX it does seem a bit more responsive, however I just don’t see it as the next shiny thing or the second coming of live blogging.

I’ve done a ton of live blogging in the past three plus years.  It’s something I’ve done with a wide variety of tools, online, offline, web-based.  When I first looked at CIL, I wasn’t convinced (I’m still waiting for the AIR app, btw), but I was won over.  So why not Scribblelive?

It just seems too simple.

Now here’s what I’d like.  A live blogging tool that bridges between CIL, Scribblelive, and an offline editor.  Something that let’s me post quickly, through the web or AIR app, but also uses XML-RPC to post right to my blog at a set interval (every 5 mins if there are updates).  I’d like to be able to set categories and tags.  I like the polls and live commenting that CIL has.  Media sharing is interesting but generally I’m taking scads of pictures and posting to Flickr, so maybe putting a Flickr stream on there.

Hope I’m not asking too much.  Perhaps someone could just whip something up for me.

Post from: EveryJoe

Scribblelive: Easy it is, CoverItLive it is not

Not two weeks after taking the Webby award for Social Networking, last night Flock was honoured to receive two awards at the annual VIATeC Technology Awards dinner. VIATeC is the high-tech industry association serving Victoria (and the rest of Vancouver Island), where much of the Flock development team is based. Vancouver Island is quickly becoming a hotbed for innovative tech companies, and the Flock Canada team is very excited to be part of that growth. Online Strategy of the Year – This award recognizes Flock’s success in integrating and forging relationships with the major players in the social networking and social media spaces. Newsmaker of the Year – It has been a very good year for Flock in the press. So much so, in fact, that there were no other finalists listed for this category. With over 400 published articles including PC World, BBC, and many other major media outlets, Flock was far and away the biggest newsmaker.—Flock Browser – Flock takes home two VIATeC awards | Flock

Flock doesn’t get much love from the blogosphere.  Like the poor-step child of Firefox.  Really Flock is great and a worthy alternative to Firefox.  In fact this post is written using a combo of Flock’s web clipboard and WLW.

Sure Firefox 3 is getting a ton of press right now, but I know for a fact that Flock is going to be ready with their v3-based version very, very soon after Firefox goes final with theirs.

Why do I like Flock?

Besides it’s Victoria, connection, I think it runs faster and with far few browser implosions (maybe because I don’t load it down with a ton of extensions either).

Flock is gaining some ground at b5media as a power-surfers browser.  I’ve been showing the Windows users my web clipboard tricks and they are amazed.

So props to Flock.  Keep it up guys.  I’ll wander down to the office this week.

Post from: EveryJoe

Flock nets some VIATeC awards, well deserved

Call it bragging rights if you wish, but b5media is still on the top of the Toronto Startup index—Toronto Start-up Index – May 2008 | Techvibes Blog.

I don’t know what else needs to be said, except if they counted all the traffic from all our blog properties, we’d blow everyone out of the water, including some “traditional media” players.

Just saying.

Post from: EveryJoe

b5media still top of the Toronto Startup Index

b5media – a rapidly growing blog network that I’ve been familiar with for quite some time now. Just a thirty minute walk from my apartment and home to a fantastic crew I’m thrilled and honoured to start working with (notice the ‘u’ – I really am home…). Fortunately for me, I don’t have an international move looming like other startup junkies I know…but I do have some difficult emotions to sort through. Fortunately, I’m running toward something – and that something is an incredibly big opportunity I’m dying to dig into. Source: Debanter » Blog Archive » Back to LA, one last time…for now.

One of the things her dad, Rick Segal, talks about is hiring the best people in your startup to make it shine.  You can’t do everything in your company, you can’t be an expert in everything.  It might have been your idea, you might have used a couple close friends/early employees to get everything done, but to “take it to the next level” you have to find the experts who can help you.

I’ve been reading Rachel’s stuff for a while and I’m excited about working with her.

Boy, I hope she knows what she’s in for, we’re a pretty crazy bunch!

Post from: EveryJoe

b5media welcomes Rachel Segal to the fold

Colleen opened up with an aptly-named post, Introduction, and today talked about the new TweetLater service, which Colleen thinks is just some bad mojo (Missing the point).  Pretty strong start … and knowing that Colleen is feisty, to say the least, we can expect lots of good stuff.

Okay Colleen, start shaking up the place!

Photo: © Tris Hussey, 2008

Post from: EveryJoe

b5media Welcomes Colleen Coplick into the fold at buzznetworker

1. Canadians are innovative. One word: RIM.
2. Canadians are well educated.  Not only do we have some of the best post-secondary education in tech in the world (PHP was invented by a Finn–I think–who went to Western), our populace is generally well educated (we can find Canada and the US on a map).
3. Canadians are wired and connected. Until recently Canada had the highest per capita adoption of high-speed Internet in the world.  Places like Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa dialup is nearly a thing of the past.
4. Canadians adopt and adapt to new technologies quickly.  The debit card (up here called by its brand name Interac) is overwhelmingly popular, in the States debit cards are still trying to gain traction.
5. Tech savvy VCs.  Okay maybe not all VCs are tech savvy, but folks like JLA, Brightspark, Growthworks are and that’s who you’d be talking to.
6. Rick Segal.  Yeah I’m biased,  but if you listen to him talk about Canada and don’t think we’re the best place to start a tech company, well you must have skipped your morning coffee.
7. The tight-knit tech community.  We might be spread out over the second largest country by land mass in the world, but we try to connect and support each other.
8. Cost-effective.  You might not think so, but it doesn’t cost as much to run a company here.  We have some great tax and other benefits to help you along.
9. Passion and drive.  Canadians might seem all polite and mild-mannered, but don’t let that fool you.  We’re passionate about what we do and we work damn hard to make it work.  Come on have you watched Canadians at a hockey game?
10. Great beer.  Our beer tastes great and has alcohol in it–and that’s the cheap stuff.

Okay, this might be more than a little tongue-in-cheek, but in all seriousness Canada has probably one of the most underrated tech scenes in the world.  Gotta change that.

These are my reasons … your turn.  Add to the list.

Photo credits: Photo of me, by Lloyd Budd, Photo of Rick Segal by Tris Hussey

Post from: EveryJoe

Tech Channel Theme Day-Lists: Top 10 Reasons Your Tech Startup Should Be In Canada