April 16, 2004
Dissecting Telstra's web of confusion
Attempting to understand Australia's awkward marriage of telecommunications and politics has been difficult at the best of times. But the antics dominating the headlines here over the last two days have served to demonstrate that ultimately it's still the shareholders that count. And further, core business activities such as phones and bandwidth provision still matter most.
An update for those of you not following domestic affairs: Telstra, 51 percent owned by the Australian Government, is still reeling after its chairman Bob Mansfield effectively stuck his fingers up at the company's board by publicly resigning before the official Telstra press release emerged.
Mansfield, and his buddy CEO Ziggy Switkowski, have lost the confidence of the board – and shareholders – for repeatedly trying to diversify Australia's largest telco with all sorts of crazy ideas. They've had failed Asian investments that lost millions, an undersea cable project that still needs a massive injection of funds to stay afloat (as it were), and the purchase of local IT services companies including ASX listed Kaz.
But what's really riled the board and shareholders was when Mansfield took it upon himself to talk to Australian Prime Minister about the purchase of a media company he once managed as CEO for just 4.5 months. John Fairfax, publisher of national titles including the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review (our WSJ if you like), would help Mansfield turn Telstra into a communications company of sorts.
Hang on. State-owned media? Sounds a bit socialist to me, and very dodgy in a Queen's English democracy. The BRW thought so too, and published a report back in February detailing Telstra's plans for the media empire based on information leaked by an unhappy board member (see Crikey for a wrap of events.). It was the beginning of the end for Mansfield.
Now that the deed is done, shareholders voted with their wallets yesterday increasing Telstra's stock value by 3.3 percent. That meant valued Mansfield's exit was worth something like A$2 billion to shareholders (SMH).
So what’s next? On the business side, Telstra's CEO might also get the boot despite backing from the Aussie P.M. who called Mansfield a "good chief executive".
What I'm hoping, and what shareholders seem to be asking for, is something of a return to basics. Telecom services including broadband underpin the ability of any country's ability to compete on a global scale, and must therefore top the list of investments. And on that front, Telstra has attempted to ramp up broadband adoption by dropping its pants on pricing (although the Mansfield-backed $29.95 a month deal is not without controversy).
The broadband push is working to some degree because competitors and resellers of Telstra's broadband advertised new cheap services to the extent that the topic is a dinner-time conversation. A personal barometer for mass adoption is when my non-technical in-laws and siblings ask me for IT advice (broadband the latest subject).
But we're still not at the end of the road. Apartment-dwellers still cannot get broadband access unless they pay for an expensive (around (A$150 a month) wireless service like iBurst. And many country areas in Australia are still without broadband.
Sure, Telstra's problems are not on the scale of a company like WorldCom that also changed course thanks to a whistleblower. But I'd like to think it can at least get back to the main game of building the core infrastructure that runs this country.
Posted by markjones at 12:57 AM | TrackBack
April 14, 2004
Amazon.com steps on Google's toes
The day’s just getting underway here in Sydney, and the big Net news of the day filtering through from the US is Amazon's new A9.com search service.
It seems ex-Standard honcho John Battelle was first with the news in the blogosphere, although despite his best intentions I saw the news on WSJ first.
A9 is a spin-off company that promises a raft of new features not currently on Google. These include A9's own toolbar, and the ability to search "Inside a Book."
I've not read too much commentary on A9 yet' but one thing is immediately apparent. Amazon/A9 is continuing to build on its strategy of collecting and analyzing user information.
For example, in order to use the toolbar, and enable the (very cool) user search history feature, you need to sign in using your Amazon.com account. I of course could not remember my password, and in the process of recovering it needed to enter the last five digits of the credit card, plus the zip code last used to purchase something at Amazon. A9.com and Amazon.com might be separate companies in name, but they share the same back-end processing system.
Then we have the toolbar’s EULA, which includes this statement:
By collecting URLs, A9.com tracks and collects a record of users' web browsing activity within and across websites. A9.com also collects and stores other user information you give A9.com when you download and install the software and information you enter into the toolbar service. Because A9.com is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., A9.com is able to correlate information it collects with personally identifiable information that amazon.com has, and Amazon.com has access to information collected by A9.com. Among other things, A9.com and Amazon.com use this information to customize, personalize, and otherwise improve the services they provide to you.
I’d love to know what the “other things� are.
Another observation: If you want to view specific pages using A9’s “Inside a Book� feature, the site asks you to enter your credit card details, promising you won’t be charged (at least not right at that moment).
Contrast all this with the amount of personal information I've given rival Google: zero, nada, or as we Aussies would say, “bugger all.�
I'll be on the lookout for what other privacy-minded people have to say. Hopefully given Amazon.com's good track record with privacy it will avoid the knee-jerk "Evil" accusations that people love to throw around these days.
Update: Another cool feature I've been using in the search results is an icon called "site info." In this example, I've done a search for A9 news and the pop-up information listed with each search result includes traffic rank, site access speed, and three sites listed under the heading: "People who visit this page also visit." That's cool.
Update 2: I'm now using two toolbars - Google and A9. One of the most useful features of both is the popup blocker. Google's blocker automatically blocks pop-ups and gives you a visual tally of how many are blocked. A9 on the other hand gives you a pop-up of its own that gives you the option of accepting or rejecting a pop-up. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a pop-up blocker?
Posted by markjones at 10:40 PM | TrackBack
April 13, 2004
Spam, eggs and spam
Remember that story about South Korea's spam curfew? I still smile when I think about their naiveté - to borrow from the famous Monty Python spam skit, it assumes spam is something you can choose to leave off a cafe menu.
Well, Australia has gone one better. As of April 11, it's now a breach of the Federal Spam Act 2003 to send out unsolicited email at any hour. Here's Computerworld Australia's story. Fines can be up to AUS$1 million for repeat offences.
Fortunately for companies like IDG Australia, we are already in a position where we've received permission from people to send them our email newsletters. And we can prove it should the government come knocking. But many companies will get nailed for failing to comply - probably out of ignorance.
And this is where the whole law-making thing falls apart. Email is a push mechanism. It's like the telephone in the sense that it's hard to prevent commercial interests from exploiting the medium. In fact, the Washington Post has just posted a story drawing the connection between the "Do not Email" and "Do not Call" lists. Bascially we're trying to patch up a broken communications channel.
An alternative is RSS, a "pull" medium if you will. I'm an avid consumer of RSS feeds for various reasons, primarily because of its ability to save time and open up new sources of information. But ultimately the biggest draw for me is control. I can subscribe to RSS channels on my own terms. I don't need to request anyone add or remove me from an email list.
So in that context, RSS avoids the complications brought about by Australia's spam law. But is that enough to tip the scales in favour of a wholesale switch to RSS?
As much as I love my RSS newsreader (Bloglines), returning to Australia has taught me one very important lesson about email. It's completely pervasive (even instant messaging is scarce). Unlike my experience in San Francisco, RSS is only receives surface-level attention in Australia. Email rules the roost, particuarly when it comes to internal communication. Jon Udell's column on "Email's special powers" springs to mind here: replacing email is easier said than done.
As we collectively incorporate RSS into the fabric of corporate communication and test the waters (I'm testing a Wiki from SocialText, for example), it will be interesting to see if there's a new business model here.
I hope so. Yet there are many nay-sayers, as illustrated by the second comment after this post by John Battelle (yes, the link's to an old point, but it's just an illustration).
Posted by markjones at 05:37 AM | TrackBack
VCs on the rebound?
The SMH has an interesting story that suggests Australian VCs are spending money again. Are the good times back? Sort of.
Private Equity Media director Victor Bivell said the trend to buy-outs had been evident for some years as the tech collapse had dented confidence in greenfields investments.
"Early stage investment has yet to emerge from its out-of-fashion status of the last few years," Mr Bivell said.
Compare this with a general feeling in the US that VCs are holding back on making funding commitments (here's one example), and you have to ask what's holding them back.
Posted by markjones at 03:59 AM | TrackBack
Looking up from Down Under
Ah, you've gotta love Australia, land of the public holiday. I’m back at work after savouring a four day Easter weekend.
That’s probably the last thing you want to hear on a Monday night in the US, but hey, I’ve got golden beaches on my mind. As a repatriated Aussie, I seem to spend a lot of time making Australia/US comparisons. Sydney and San Francisco have so many similarities it’s scary.
One man in a similar boat to yours truly is Altnet's chief executive Kevin Bermeister, who returned to Australia six months ago after five years in the US. Altnet's paid music download service is one that the Hollywood establishment loves to hate. Bermeister said he's extended many an olive branch to the music industry's Old Guard with little success.
Two great quotes:
Our principal claim in the United States is that the music industry has colluded, and been anti-competitive, and breached many anti-trust legislation issues in the United States
There is just no way to fight the progression of technology. If you believe that you can slow the progression down through the process of litigation to defend your own business assets and your terrestrial distribution, your old models, then you may be able to make life very uncomfortable for a lot of people but in the end you'll fail miserably.
The full interview at Linuxworld Australia also makes reference to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the rise in Australian music sales.
This is the news the record industry doesn't want us to hear:
In (1998) Australian record companies sold 39.6 million CD albums. Five years later the figure had gone up to 50.5 million. That makes it hard to argue that downloading and CD copying has been killing sales.