Will it really take 5 years for Canada's mobile web market to catch up with the rest of the world? That's what Brian Fling, author of dotmobi Mobile Web Developers Guide, said recently when he spoke at Web Directions North. Hmm... I'm not so sure about that.

In my mind, it may not matter before long. Mobile carriers selling high-priced EDGE/EVDO service might end up losing out to WiFi. When devices like the iPod Touch become cheaper and more common, and public hot-spots become more pervasive, using a cell-phone to access the web will be like using a land-line to make a long-distance call (instead of Skype or iChat). And this could take way less than 5 years to happen. I for one have already gone that route. I hate using my cell-phone to browse. I carry my iPod Touch around wherever I go, and login to WiFi networks, giving me a real browser and a nice big touch-screen that makes browsing a pleasure. And with an SDK around the corner, there will be a flood of mobile widgets coming soon to do just about everything I could ever want. For someone who doesn't like talking on the phone, a device like this is perfect.

Seems like every startup these days is launching a new product or service with "social networking" features. And predictably, every old-school web property is either retooling their current offering (or acquiring another company) to provide similar features and functionality. So what gives? Why has everything suddenly become so... social? And more importantly, what does it mean for us as a species?

In the old days of the Web, one of the key selling points of this great new technology called the Internet was anonymity. For the first time ever, you could get access to, what seemed at the time like, an unlimited amount of information, without anyone else knowing what you were up to. Initially, this basically meant two things: porn and bomb-making. At least, that's what my peers were really excited about back in '94. But things really exploded when e-commerce came along and suddenly you could buy virtually anything anonymously, including everything from clothing (lingerie) to hardware (sex toys), to books (porn) and movies (more porn). Oh, and of course you could finally complete your childhood collection of ultra-rare Star Wars action figures. Life was wonderful back then, and none of your family, friends, or colleagues had to know about it.

There is an interesting article posted today on the iMediaConnection website that tries to put some "reality" behind the crazy hype that video is getting these days. While it's refreshing to read someone's theories on what's actually happening vs what is being hyped, I wonder how much is just conjecture vs truth based on fact. Unfortunately the author doesn't cite any data sources to back up his claims. So in effect, it's just another form of hype.

The Hilton hotel in mid-town Manhatten is *the* place to be this week if you're in the online ad business, and that's where you'll find myself and the ever-charming Chris Law. Chris and I caught the 6:20am flight from Toronto to NYC this morning, and went straight from La Guardia to the conference. Up since 3:30am and running on little more than a coffee and bagel, we dropped off our bags with the hotelier and proceded to the ad:tech registration booths. All hooked up with the requisite tote-bag (for all the brochures, product-sheets and kotchkas we would be collecting), we headed straight for the 9am keynote.

This morning's keynote topic was online video. The panel was made up of some pretty serious industry heavyweights: Paul Sagan, President and CEO of Akamai; Suzie Reider, CMO of YouTube; Jonathan Klein, President of CNN US; and Sarah Fay, President of Isobar Communications. Some of the key issues that were discussed included Measurement and Reporting, Billing and Rates, Products and Inventory, In-stream vs In-banner, and of course, Content Distribution and Copyright. A couple other topics that were discussed included Consumer Control: how much is too much? is there any way to manage the risks associated with relinquishing control of your Brand? The other thing that came up of interest was the growing need to re-evaluate how networks and sites are built, in order to be able to handle the bandwidth demands of millions of simultaneous video streams. It's a lot like the old days when a site's success could ultimately result in it's downfall: too many simultaneous connections, and the end-user experience suffers. How do we prepare for a future of video-on-demand at a scale that makes today's traffic look like a trickle? We're in for some interesting times ahead, no doubt!

Following the keynote, we decided to cruise the exhibition hall - or should I say halls. This conference is massive, with over 3 floors of exhibitors showing off their stuff, and of course, giving away free stuff. I'll provide a more in-depth post on some of the cool companies and products we checked out, but right now, it's time to head back into the fray. I'm hell-bent on collecting enough free pens and sticky-pads to last me till next year.

Till then...

This week both Internet Explorer and Firefox see major updates. IE goes from 6 to 7 with a few small hiccups, while Firefox releases v.2.0.

Both camps claim that the close proximity of their launches are purely coincidental but at any rate the buzz is all about the new Battle of the Browsers. In
the first week since its release Microsoft has seen 7 million downloads of IE 7. However, what is not known is how many people have had their systems re-imaged to remove the update after finding out that it was incompatible with their company's internal tools and sites. Firefox v.2 officially launches at 5pm EST on October 24th (today) but there have already been a number of positive reviews posted.