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Mark Evans

the blog - examines the world of telecom  and  technology  from  a distinctly Canadian perspective.

the person - lives in Toronto, CA with  his  wife  and  three children, and  works  as director of community with PlanetEye Inc.
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View Article  Happy Birthday Firefox!
In the name of hyperbole, November 9, 2004 could go down as a seminal moment in the Web's history. On that "fateful" day (how's that for some hype?), the Mozilla Foundation launched Firefox 1.0 and life has never been the same for Microsoft's Internet Explorer ever since. With more than 100 million downloads and about 10% of the browser market, Firefox has become popular and reinvigorated the market by giving IE a real rival following the "demise" of Netscape. Hopefully, this will mean a better IE when version 7.0 is released. At the same time, there seems to be more activity in the browser market with the recent launch of Flock (albeit a lame out-of-gate beta release that did Flock more harm than good). The future for Firefox is exciting not only because of additional market share gains but how the Mozilla Foundation and third-party developers can push forward the innovation envelope. What I'd like to see is Firefox create different versions aimed at different market segments. For tech-savvy users, there could be a lite or no-frills version that would let them add the extensions and features to create a custom-made browser. For people who can't be bothered with the DIY version or don't have the interest and/or aptitude, there could be a fully-loaded Firefox or, at least, one with all kind of standard features. I wonder whether more Firefoxes or Flocks wil emerge. If you look at the search market, there's plenty of new players despite Google's dominance. Perhaps the browser market will evolve in a similar way with products aimed at specific niches - i.e. a browser with a built-in media player for music lovers; or a browser with a built-in audio publishing tool for podcasters.
 
 
View Article  Riya Raises $4M
The Web 2.0 venture capital market is still alive and well with Riya Inc. raising $4 million from Leapfrog Ventures and BlueRun Ventures. I'm always intrigued by VC investments in companies trying to break into an already-crowded market. For people unfamiliar with Riya, it is developing an online photo search service - a market where major players such as Flickr (Yahoo) and (Google) also play. Riya aims to establish a foothold with artificial intelligence and photo-recognition technology that can apparently distinguish between twins. The service is still in alpha (invitation-only) but I'm hoping to play with it soon. Michael Arrington (a.ka. TechCrunch) is hoping to stoke interest in Riya by hosting another one of his increasingly popular launch party this Friday.
 
 
 
View Article  I've Got That Uneasy Henry Blodget Feeling
No offsense  to the "Rehabilitation of Henry Blodget" (sounds a lot like a Lowest of the Low song) but every time I see him quoted or read a blog entry, it makes me a cringe a little. There is little doubt he knows the Internet space but there is this thing called credibility that goes hand in hand with knowledge. You can be the smartest person in the world but it means squat if you've got no credibility. So to see The Economist quote Blodget, who's now running his own research boutique, on the portal wars doesn't seem right. There is something unsettling to quote and promote someone who told his clients wonder things about dot-com stocks only to bash these companies within the hallowed confines of Merrill Lynch. When Blodget did that and then got caught, he lost one of his valuable assets - his credibility. So now he's on the comeback trail, which includes a blog to re-establish the "brand". To be honest, it's the blog that bothers me because it suggests the pursuit of a public persona. If Blodget was truly interested in restoring his credibility, he would take more subtle approach by quietly working behind the scenes - rather than trying to quasi-act as if bygones are bygones. Sure, he's made mea culpa claims on his blog but this is a guy who is banned from the securities industries. With more money than he will likely ever need, Blodget doesn't need to re-build a public profile (blog, media relations, etc.) to make ends meet. If he wants to re-establish his career, he should do it quietly and show clients that he can offer valuable insight. A few years of good advice will go a long way in restoring his street cred. Blodget has already had this 15-minutes of fame so it's time to let someone else take over the spotlight from a guy who established his reputation, credibility and jump-started his career with one lucky call in 1998 - Amazon hitting $400 within the next 12 months.
My blog has moved. Check out the new Mark Evans. It's part of my mini-blog empire that also includes All About Nortel and Twitterrati. You can subscribe to Mark Evans Tech by clicking on the RSS symbol above.
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