Is it ever a nice time to talk about bad people hacking our democracy? I don’t really know. That said, it was a real pleasure to take an interview one again with one of CTV’s most insightful reporters, Penny Daflos. This is a critical issue for democracies here and abroad. Here’s some of what I had to say in this report, ‘It’ll be something new’: Canadian election interference likely in unexpected places: We always are ready to fight the last…
Twitter, the decade plus old company is still trying to define what it is and how to make money. It is trapped in a business model of providing free service in exchange for our souls and friends. Based on the past performance there is little hope that Twitter’s future will be brighter. The number of free users is not growing fast enough (if at all) and the revenue from ads is not rising fast enough to stop the bleeding. What…
Facebook is now ready to dominate the online world of business with the latest announcement from its F8 conference. The company made it very clear that having 1.35 billion active users and allowing them to share bad selfies and cat videos is not their end game. I’m shocked. Really. True, Facebook is making some good money from advertising but hey – that’s just for the cash flow. Their strategy is to dominate businesses within the social networking site as well…
Back from an evening out you open your front door to discover that your house has been broken into, many valuables are stolen. You take out your phone and dial the police. To prevent this startling scenario, most people protect their homes with deadbolt locks, alarms, angry German Shepherds, and perhaps cameras. What most people don’t understand is that all of those things do precious little to secure their computers and their information on the Internet. Most people have likely…
As mentioned in the previous post, last week I attended the Data Leadership Summit – http://www.datasummit.ca in Vancouver. It brought together a diverse audience to see speakers from different industries with different perspectives and experiences. In my opinion, there were two presentations which were particularly compelling. One was from real estate brokerage Redfin, the other from the online dating service Plentyoffish. I found it interesting that both shared many common themes. For instance, the level of exaggeration when one describing…
Welcome to this week’s Technology Updates, a vibrant mix of hot topics and future trends. The future is here. Are you healthy enough? Have you heard of Wello or AliveCor? These are a new breed of devices which attach to your smart phone and claim to detect atrial fibrillation, track your blood pressure, temperature and even more. You can also get other devices that can measure your sleep patterns, oxygen level in your blood, and your overall physical activity. Our…
Welcome to this week’s Technology Updates, a vibrant mix of hot topics and future trends. The future is here Do you have a Facebook account? If so, you may be one of the almost 700,000 people Facebook used as their very own lab rats. Facebook decided to test how negative stories can influence your inclination to write negative posts. According to the authors of the study: “We show, via a massive (N = 689,003) experiment on Facebook, that emotional states…
Facebook, the place where you can find everything about your friends, is applying for permission from the Ireland’s central bank to allow its users to store and exchange money. There are few details to be worked out, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume they manage to satisfy the regulator requirements. It will mean that Facebook will know: who your friends are; your favourite things; your sentiment about causes you care; and provide you with an offer you won’t…
