NZInstitute BB report: Telepresence costs savings are minimal

Let’s start comments on the NZ Institute Broadband report with the top chunk of the slide on Telepresence, which is page 7. It is the first page that shows how the topline number of $2.7-$4.4 billion in economic benefits is built up. I believe the $95m in annual cost savings is far too high.

NZ Institute uses, in true consulting style, driver trees to calculate and show the benefits. I’m a fan of this method as it is a great way to identify the ‘drivers of value’, or the bits of a business or sector that create and cost the big dollars.

This is the top half of the telepresence driver tree.

NZ Institute

It shows that there are $95m in potential savings from an increase in the use of telepresence due to higher broadband uptake. Continue reading “NZInstitute BB report: Telepresence costs savings are minimal”

The NZ Institute report – the benefits of broadband

If you are frustrated as hell at the ponderous pace of broadband adoption and speeds in New Zealand, then the New Zealand Institute report:

DEFINING A BROADBAND ASPIRATION:

HOW MUCH DOES BROADBAND MATTER
AND WHAT DOES NEW ZEALAND NEED?

is essential reading.

NZ Institute

The presentation is in classic McKinsey style, which is an acquired taste, but has proven a remarkably effective method of communicating results. For more on this see The Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto.

I’m going to comment on the report in a series of posts.

#1 NZInstitute BB report: Telepresence costs savings are minimal
#2 NZInstitute BB report: Telepresence growth benefits are limited

Other Sites

NZ Institute report: Defining a Broadband Aspiration

Rod Drury: The business case for Broadband
Mauricio Freitas: New Zealand Broadband needs action now

BuyUSA.co.nz tries to clone Shipbutu

Shipbuktu has been going along since 20 November last year, and in spite of a few complaints on this blog about slow service, they are the best way, short of flying there, to get your US-address only goods delivered to NZ.

Today* I notice that they now have competition – BuyUSA.co.nz has launched.

buyusa

They use the same trick of a virtual street address at a US logistics facility. Shipbuktu’s is in Los Angeles, while BuyUSA’s is in Boise, Idaho.

Shipbuktu receives your packages, you fill out customs details online, they repackage (and can reduce costs by doing so), and then send them via NZPost courier to NZ. They have shipments Monday to Friday, US time, and Shipbuktu say it takes 5-7 days to arrive after shipping.

BuyUSA do it is bulk – they consolidate your and others packages and freight them once per week to NZ, where they then on-courier the item to you. BuyUSA say that you should get your stuff normally within 7 days of being sent from Boise.

Shipbuktu charges $41 for 500g, $49 for 1Kg, $65.50 for 2Kg, $82 for 3Kg and $296 for 15 Kg.
BuyUSA charges $70 for up to 1 Kg, $77.50 for 2 Kg, $84.50 for 3 Kg and $204 for 15 Kg.

Those prices are each the top end of a range – i.e. the 2 Kg price is the “1-2Kg’ range price.

So it seems that BuyUSA is slower, but cheaper for really heavy stuff (like desktop computers), and Shipbuktu is faster, and cheaper for lighter stuff (like books). That makes sense given their different logistic models.

But BuyUSA are sailing a bit too close to the wind – cloning, it seems, the Shipbuktu faqs – under the fold is the evidence.

Continue reading “BuyUSA.co.nz tries to clone Shipbutu”

Throng’s TV listing cloud

Pitched as the world’s first web 2.0 listing service, Throng’s tv-guide uses tag cloud technology to show the interesting stuff – as chosen by Throng fans.
THRONG

It’s not really useful yet – only showing today’s listings, and while the listings are clickable, they link to site sections (e.g. ‘movies’) only.

The longer term answer is listings out several weeks at least, ability to send recording requests to MySky and oodles of information about each program when you click on the links.

That takes serious money to buy the rights, serious partnering and technology to do the mySky thing and money and people’s time for the last. It’s hard to see much more happening if it is true, as stated in the PR, that it took two years for them to come up with this.

But it is a start.

Good AFR.com news – but will they finally get it?

Credit David Kirk for pushing the side of reason – especially while doing his other job as Rugby correspondent and blogger.

..afr.com, will be relaunched for the second time this year in “a matter of weeks” with more content likely to be made freely available after months of criticism

The decision by Fairfax chief David Kirk puts him at odds with the head of the group’s business division, Fairfax Business Media chief Michael Gill, who was quoted on Thursday as saying their approach to the much maligned internet site “would not change a jot”

Here’s that Micheal Gill quote, courtesy of The Age:

Mr Gill hinted the “news and simple stuff” on the relaunched website would no longer use Flash — “it will behave like a website” — but reiterated he had no intention of following The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and scrapping the paid subscriber model for online. “We’re very certain that our business is a subscription business,” he said 

mmmm. No flash, but either ‘subscription business’ or ‘more content freely available’.

It is a late decision, but no doubt helped along by the NYTimes going free, and the persistent rumours about the WSJ going free next. I’d love to see the NYTimes traffic stats for the last week or so – the archives are proving great fodder for the blogosphere.

Although David Kirk said:

We got it wrong at the outset, we are going to get it right, so stick with us,”… …..We are going to make afr.com more accessible for users..

he also said:

– but let’s go back to the beginning.
There are four dimensions at work here: news and information; archives; investment and financial tools; and a digital rights management system.

Right.

No wrong. I see little need any more for the digital rights management system as those WSJ rights are worthless soon, and any DRM gets in the way of usability. That may mean some contract renegotiations, but they should start with the premise that information should be free.
The investment and financial tools are available for free elsewhere, even in a spreadsheet. Moreover, people that can pay for those investment tools should really have them on their desktop already – and would probably prefer a straight data download.

Archives – well the recent ones should be open, else why would the live articles ever get linked to, and the historical ones should be open, as they create a wonderful long tail of content. A blog search for New York Times archives retrieves 60,000 results – pretty impressive for a week.

So – we shall wait to grok the fullness.

How to buy Apple iPhones in NZ

{update – From July 11th2008  you can now just go to a Vodafone store and get an iPhone 3G. And a contract.}

Want to buy an iPhone in NZ?

Well – the quickest way to get your hands on one is down on Queen street at Parallel Imports.

You can also buy them online from the Parallel Imported store – software unlocked and ready to go with Vodaphone. They cost $1299, which is a bit over double the US$399 retail price before unlocking, detachment from AT&T and GST. Probably $3-400 too pricey for me, but then again I’ll walk past a few  times today.

Parallel Imported

(Luckily the Nokia E90 is out of stock – so I can rest assurred that my current phone is still not available in NZ. It is also outrageously expensive.)

Parallel Imported

I found 5 iPhones on  SellMeFree, but all 5 are listed by people with zero feedback. Zero feedback and bleeding edge technology reeks of scam – stay clear. One person even has his email and phone number in the listing, which is a bad bad sign – showing lack of policing by SellMeFree..

eBay has plenty of phones, but you get dumped into the US site after keyword searching, and it is hard to filter out the ones that will ship here, the ones that will work here and the non scammers. So go back, hit ‘advanced search’ and show only those that accept PayPal and will ship to NZ. I got 713. The prices are in the US$400-$600 (buy now) range, with the cheaper ones being the 4GB model. That’s a much better price, and there seem to be some giant sellers in the game that will accept PayPal and ship (only to) PayPal confirmed addresses. PayPal gives fraud protection for these guys, so you are relatively safe. It is a pain (and can take time) to get a PayPal confirmed address though.

and of course Trade Me sadly doesn’t have any iphones. grrr.

How and how not to broadcast TV online

NBC, idiots that they are, withdrew from selling programs on iTunes, and instead is launching its NBC Direct service, which will be free.

But there are a few catches.

First, the shows will be riddled with unskippable ads.

Second the shows will be playable on Windows only.

Third, they’ll only last for 7 days before expiring.

If that cripple combination doesn’t make you mad enough, you can also probably forget about downloading them into NZ. Not that you would pay to download all those megabytes only to find you forget to watch the shows and they are rendered unplayable.

But Engadget is saying that NBC will be only testing the service, so let’s hope they figure out the fatal flaws.

Here’s how they should do it:

First, put very short ads in the shows, but keep then 10 seconds or less, and only at least every 10 minutes. Make them skippable, but short enough that skipping isn’t worth it.

Second, lose the DRM and encode the video in something that can be played on any device. Let us choose how big or small we want the file and resolution, so we can decide whether it is for our iPod or HDTV.

Third,  open the website to everywhere, not just North America. Insert local ads depending on the IP address or preference of the downloader, and allow downloads even if there are no local ads – you have to build a track record.

Fourth: Go back to iTunes. It’s easy money and makes your shows popular.

N90 and iPhone…

If you are looking for news on the Apple 4th generation “N90 iPhone” then try:

A Chinese employee committed suicide after one of 16 prototypes dissappeared: mystateline.com

China Stakes has the best article.  Sun graduated from university just last year, that the iPhone is called the iPhone N90, that Sun was in charge of transmission work for the prototype and that it was lost during mailing. China Stakes also says he was illegally detained and searched by his leader (boss?)

A major US blog reports-  TPM includes excerpts from Apple press release excerpt and some dirt on supplier Foxconn

The Register says a security officer (Gu Qinming) has been suspended. Stories are in dispute but the engineer was allegedly beaten by Foxconn security personnel – and that the suicide was captured on security cameras.

The Independent points out that Sun Danyong was 25 and worked in product communications at Foxconn. The iPhone was reported missing on the 13th of July, and he committed suicide on the 16th. Moreover Gu Qinming denies hitting Sun.

TUAW highlights more on Foxconn’s record

Thaindian news gives Gu Qinming’s full name and says Foxconn is owned by Hon Pai Precision Industry Co. who also make computers for Hewlett-Lackard, consoles for Sony and mobile phones for Nokia.

and, if you have access, the WSJ has the best written article, though nothing that isn’t reported above.

<Old blog post:>

Stephen Fry agrees with the E90 and iPhone combo. He puts us all to shame as gadget geek though..

Good to see him blogging – that’s his first entry.

TV3’s Pyrrhic victory

I’m not a lawyer – but has an unhealthy precedent been set by the Mediaworks vs Sky TV ruling? If so then Mediaworks  strategists and lawyers should be taken out and shot.

The ruling was very strict, and allows competing Sky to use 2 minute clips from the World Cup just 3 times in a 24 hour period. Moreover they can only use the clips for (sports) news programs, not ‘magazine’ programs.

“Sky could feel vindicated to use this ruling as a blueprint,” (Forsyth Barr’s)  Mr Mercer said.

Nice short term gain for TV3, but longer term Sky owns pretty much all the decent sports rights, and this ruling ruins it for everyone.

Does the ruling mean that TVNZ’s new 24 hour news channel won’t be able to show Super 14 clips more than 3 times a day? Has Justice Winkelmann ever seen Eurosport, with the 10 minute rotation of sport news?

And what about online re-broadcasting?  Will I get an injunction if I mash up the coverage? What if I obtain it from another broadcaster? What about.. oh never mind.

In the end the technology will win – and we’ll just turn off the TV and turn on YouTube, which incidentally has 1200 Rugby World Cup clips right now. Click on some of them and you get “This clip has been removed due to copyright restrictions from Rugby World Cup Limited”, so your may need to look a litle further.

How to watch the rugby? with iPods of course

So many rugby games, so little time. So I, err, invested in some Apple products to help me manage my Rugby watching. They also helped to boost my AAPL shareholding value.

How to watch 3 at once

That’s the new iPod Classic (160GB) on the left and the new iPod nano on the right, along with the not so new but still latest MacBook Pro 17 HD in the center. And with the eyeTV Hybrid I can receive and record both Channel Ten HD (using an external antenna) and Foxtel (providing I tell the set top box to auto-change).

I received these from the Apple store early last week, and yes, the AAPL shares have already risen.

The keyboard is stunning in all senses.

The Classic iPod is finally big enough to hold all of my music AND all of my photos – in full resolution. Not a lot of room left over, but it does mean that I can get rid of 2 older 60GB iPods – which I had for storing photos while travelling.

kyboard and 2 pods

The iPod nano is perfect for jaunting  around town – you can scroll through the songs, and can also download video for commuting. If you are not sold, think about the quieting effect on kids in the back of the car. The new nano is essentially the same volume (as in volumetric) as the old, just squatter, and more robust with it.

nanos

So yes – these toys investments make up somewhat for the paucity of iPhones in my life. It also helps that mobile phones are a safety (ignition) hazard where I am consulting, and so I am phone-free for much of every day.

and no – 3 way rugby action really didn’t work. Oh well.

Please sell me iPhones Trade Me. or not.

So as Sophie points out, Stuff confirmed the Trade Me policy on “no iPhones” this morning.  Adam also helpfully points out that perhaps I was behind the times –  oh the horror.

But yes – Trade Me has recklessly decided to arbitrarily ban sales of the absolutely essential and patently legal to sell iPhone.  This really really annoys me, as it also did when the policy was to ban sales of PSP’s and PS3s’.

(Hope you are listening Dean and Sophie.)

(Keep listening though – it gets better…)

Although I am royally annoyed (not really – after all I am in Australia until the weekend), it is tough-love policies like these that have made Trade Me so sucessful.

When you shop at Trade Me, you are a lot more confident in the quality of the sellers than you are on eBay. You are more confident because Trade Me has much tougher standards, and those standards are backed up by a community and Customer Service staff that have an eye for finding bad sellers.

Trade Me starts by banning essentially all foreign sellers, continues by listening to the community (the community watch link at the bottom of each listing), then has strict policies on what you can and cannot sell and finally does not tolerate scammers and dodgy sellers staying on the site.

eBay is much more tolerant, preferring to take the more dodgy listings and sellers in order to boost sales. Make no mistake – what Trade Me does is hard work, and doesn’t make friends in the short term. However, eBay may sell more in the short term, but that lowers the natural growth, which they try to maintain using expensive advertising. If this sounds familiar, then you may have been reading here two days back.

So – how to console myself? Trade Me won’t sell me an iPhone, and eBay Au is too dodgy. Well – that’s easy..

UK iPhone – what to do in NZ?

So the iPhone is in the UK – with O2. The interesting thing is that, like the USA, the iPhone is not coming with any 3G high speed mobile internet. Instead Apple and O2 have signed a deal with The Cloud, giving iPhone users free WiFi access at 7,500 UK locations.

We don’t have that option in New Zealand, so perhaps we’ll have to wait for late 2008 before we get the ‘proper’ 3G iPhone. So you may as well be like the Australians, and buy one.

Sadly Trade Me seems to be lacking iPhones, perhaps because of high scammer potential. Is TM is removing these? If so why? and please stop – there is a real market and I can’t think why we can’t buy them.  Meanwhile eBay has a bunch, but watch for scammers as they are attracted to the latest greatest kit.

Apple is apparently making big dollars from the telcos, who are kicking a decent percentage of their fees for the privilege of being launch operators.

One great thing Apple has done for the UK market is to get O2 to launch ‘all you can eat’ EDGE and WiFi broadband. That seems to be a market first, and hopefully the others’ will follow.

Sadly though Apple appears to have a country by country strategy, so those international roaming charges, especially data charges, will still be an issue. While Apple is shaking up the market structure, how about a global iPhone, or at least a pan-European iPhone?

Coming to your mobile phone: Google ads

Google is expanding the adwords product to websites designed for mobile phones.  web page providers can simply choose wether to accept the ads, much like adwords does so now.

With the limited screen real estate on mobile, Google recommends 2 ads per page. It’s tough though, on mobile devices where you pay so much for bandwidth, and speeds are slow, to see that many clicks. Google ads do have the best chance though, as they are generally pretty good at being relevant.

However – is this too late? Are we not (at least in the USA) moving to wireless internet on decent sized devices that show the ‘real’ internet?

I’ll be really interested to see the current traffic numbers on mobile only webpages, and I’ll be really really interested to see the trend in the last and next few years.

Last word to Gizmodo:

Perhaps Google’s “two ads per page” advice will bolster clicks, but we’re not holding our breath. Or clicking, rather.