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Toronto’s Wi-Fi Cloud
 The Wi-Fi cloud is finally descending on our city and we have to celebrate. Toronto Hydro is announcing a new service that will blanket the city with wireless Internet access. Rumour has it that one of the city's largest provider of wireless services, Ted Rogers, is not happy. We can't feel too sorry for Rogers and Bell though. They have long known that ubiquitous connectivity is inevitable and I'm sure they've planned for it. They may go to the CRTC and claim that government institutions like city electric companies should not compete with the private sector in the convergent media space. Normally I'd agree. The government is a poor supplier of non-essential consumer services. But this is different. Internet connectivity is as much an essential part of life in the 21st century as water and electrical services. Cities around the world are opening their wireless gateways. If Torontonians don't have the same kind of infrastructure then we'll be at a competitive disadvantage. So, if government makes the decision to impede the democratization of wireless there is a good chance that our economy will suffer in the long term. There are other reasons to celebrate. The poor will now have equal access to wireless. There will be an explosion of products and services for the new market. The venture capital and entrepreneurial sectors will experience an upsurge in new opportunities. More on the economics of this decision later.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 03/07
Amorfix and the Ontario Genomics Institute
 The Ontario Genomics Institute is entering a partnership with Amorfix Life Sciences Inc. to develop the first effective blood test for alzheimers. The deal is structured as follows: Pursuant to a term sheet executed December 22, 2005, OGI has executed a subscription agreement to
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 03/06
Web 2.0 World Map
 Want to know where the hottest Web 2.0 development is taking place? This site uses GoogleMaps to tell the story.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 03/03
Social Networking Companies
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 03/02
Creating Innovation
 Let's face it. If all companies knew how to manage innovation GM would still be worth investing in and WestJet would be no better at making a profit than Air Canada. It has been my experience over the years that financial barons so highly touted in the business press are good at managing resources once there are resources to manage but generally are not good at creating value where no value previously existed. That takes true innovation. So, when I saw this article on how Canada's "Flickr" started the revolution in online photo sharing, I recognized a certain honesty that is rarely seen in media. They tell the truth: Flickr came from an attempt to solve another problem. Call it the penicillin approach to innovation where hard work, good luck, and preparedness come together to create a success story. Take a look.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 03/01
The Coming Boomer Market
 This article explores the growing markets created by an aging "Boomer" generation. Over the next ten years we'll see billions generated - especially in infrastructure related products - by products and services for this demographic phenomenon. Two years ago I spent a three or four months working on a product for this market. I.T. based, it was slightly ahead of its time but social networking technologies may have matured enough to reintroduce the idea. Is there anyone else providing I.T. driven services for aging Boomers?
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/28
Business 2.0 - How to Find Angel Investors
 Business 2.0 has a useful article on how to find angel investment. Did you know Google started off with a $100,000 investment? Not a bad return. Amazon (Research).com, Apple (Research), the Body Shop (Research), Kinko's, and Starbucks (Research) all got their starts with the help of angel investors, as did current rising stars such as Digg, LinkedIn, and Simply Hired.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/28
London Stock Exchange’s AIM
 London's Alternative Investment Market is becoming a popular way for Canadian startups to access capital without the regulatory constraints associated with local alternatives. The National Post has a good story on Kitchener-Waterloo based Sandvine Corp's IPO launch on AIM.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/27
eBay Investing in Startups
eBay is investing in international startups.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/27
Taxonomies of Social Networks
Early & Associates is offering free webinars on the Taxonomy of Social Networks. The topics covered include:Introduction to Social Network Analysis (SNA)
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/24
Revolution in VoIP
 There is a revolution taking place in the VoIP industry. An open source solution, Asterisk by Digium, is offering the functionality only seen before in proprietary systems. The Internet is once again proving the axiom that information wants to be free - this time by accelerating the time it takes for a high-end technology to become available to anyone with a computer. The US market is reacting to this product as a number of small, low overhead companies launch their own VoIP services in competition with the larger players. Asterisk
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/24
Green Adhesives?
 Ecosynthetix is a Canadian company at the forefront of the green adhesive technologies industry. I met the two local entrepreneurs behind the company last night at the Schulich/MIT Enterprise Forum. CEO John van Leeuwen explained that Ecosynthetix is ready to revolutionize the packaging market that has traditionally used petroleum based adhesives in its cardboard products. The company's solutions will significantly reduce the environmental impact of paper packaging through the use of nanotechnology based adhesives derived from water soluble starch. Ecosynthetix is definitely a company worth watching as environmental products gain traction in the marketplace. It also will benefit from the need to decrease our dependence on oil-based products.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/23
MIT/Schulich Enterprise Forum Tonight
 Tonight the Schulich Enterprise Forum Presents: Record Year for Public Venture Capital + 3 Successful Ontario Capital Pool Company Presentations In 2005, TSX Venture Exchange saw growth in all aspects of operations: - Financings up 46% Tim Babcock, Manager of Listings for the Toronto Office, will the provide details on the final results for the year. He will also discuss market trends, particularly in Ontario and with the Capital Pool Company Program. Moderator: Tim Gallagher, President Inflection Capital Inc.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/22
Staying On Top Of Trends
 Micromarkets are spawning thousand of new consumer products every month. Having trouble keeping up with the latest trends? Trend Watching has the answer. With more than 8,000 contributors from around the globe, Trend Watching is a one-stop resource for the latest news and analysis on consumer trends from Miami to Mumbai.
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/21
2nd TorCamp is Big Hit With Local Entrepreneurs
 About 100 people came to the TUCOWS office at King and Dufferin streets last night to network and hear six presentations from local tech start ups. The evening's TorCamp presenters were: DrProject: a classroom-friendly branch of Trac Torcamp, organized by David Crow, is the Toronto chapter of the very successful BarCamp series. What is BarCamp? "BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees."
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Posted by R. Ouellette on 02/21
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Local News
GigPark announced on August 24th, that they had been purchased by the Yellow Pages. Hey Noah, congratulations to you and the team there.
The Ontario government is doing something truly unique and laudable says John Albright of JLA Ventures. Last week Ontario's Ministry of Research and Innovation announced a new $205-million fund to help stimulate the province's early-stage ventures. According to a University of Laval Professor, Canada's Labour Sponsor Funds kill innovation rather than create it. Read the press release here. MediaScrape lands new venture round of $3.2 million. Chris Dingle has been appointed President and Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Dingle was the founding CTO of 24/7 Real Media which sold recently to WPP for $637 million. University Technologies International (UTI) - IGNITE - announces the closing of two first-round financings for two IGNITE companies, Profero Energy Inc. and Circle Cardiovascular Imaging Inc. Kleer Inc. based in California but with a plant in Ottawa landed a $28 million round for its wireless audio product development. The Ottawa Citizen ran this story a few days ago. We've been saying this for years now. When will the public sector make it easier for investment in the province's tech sector? Rick Nathan of the Canadian Venture Capital Association has an optimistic view of the current credit crunch. MSBi Capital announces the addition of two new partners François Gauvin and John Elton. Celtic House Venture Partners of K-W invested in Dublin-based RedMere last week.
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