Week That Was - 2007-04-02

By Dave Forde on April 2nd, 2007

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Well another April Fool’s Day has come and gone - thank goodness. It didn’t leave without this year’s round of jokes including Google’s “Google announces free in-home wireless broadband service”, which will give you “free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users’ pluming systems.”, do you think someone over there has a bit too much time on their hands? Even TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington gets in on things to give his own brand of humour or prank.

Fake blogs, we’re past that point, right? WOMMA has done a lot of work in trying to educate the advertisers why they just don’t work, Edelman has been critized in the media and on many blogs for their part in all of this but it looks like there are a few more shots to throw in as Jeffrey Goldbery from the New Yorker in his article “Selling Wal-Mart” (source: B.L. Ochman).

Tivo was the big thing in 2006, these days we’re seeing more and more content pushed to the web, companies such as YouTube (owned by Google), Joost, Rocketboom, Blogtv.ca and many other niche sites around the web are all trying to get their piece of the pie. Video enabled mobile phones will be the next place where we consume video content and companies such as Toronto based Quick Play Media are trying to be at the forefront in providing these types of solutions and already have deals with companies such as ESPN, CBC and Chum.

Scott Mac Donald reports about the new Digital Sister Cities agreement between the City of Toronto and the City of San Francisco over on our Toronto Tech Week channel and I had a chance to chat with Vernun Lun who’s one of the founders behind the popular blog widget TheGoodblogs.com. The Toronto Tech Week website is now live, check it out www.techweek.to and get involved.

Headlines:

TELUS Mobile Customer Self Service is coming to a ~~mobile~~ Telus mobile phone near you and the new service allows consumers to ” securely bank on the fly” without having to download any additional software. Canadian financial institutions, a new product that will let their customers bank on the fly on their cell phones.

With a host of local search engine offerings for consumers to choose from ZipLocal launched a new service last week to provide better targeting to match local businesses and a few days later announced a deal with Standard Interactive as their first distribution partner. As part of the new deal ZipLocal will tie in their business search capabilities into the various Standard Radio sites across Canada.

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