Canada doesn't have too many exciting dot-com plays - perhaps because investors up here tend to be conservative by nature, which makes the Internet a very scary place. That said, Tucows Inc. stands out because it's based in Toronto and it's the fourth largest domain name supplier in the world. (Makes me want to belt out a rousing rendition of "Oh Canada"). The company gained a big supporter earlier this year when Mark Cuban acquired an 8% stake. This is Cuban's second stab at a Canadian dot-com. His initial foray - Mamma.com Inc. - ended rather inauspiciously when Cuban abruptly sold his 6.6% stake after taking issue with a private equity offering done by Mamma. It probably didn't help that Mamma is being investigated by the SEC. Anyway, I'm digress. Tucows picked up analyst coverage - well, one analyst - after long-time shareholders decided to unload 22 million, or about 30% of the company, three months ago. One of the reason that Desjardins Securities analyst David Shore is bullish on Tucows because of its Blogware blog publishing tool, which competes against TypePad, Blogger, etc. What makes Tucows interesting is it doesn't sell directly but through a 6,000 network of ISPs and Web hosting companies. The stock is selling for less than $1 a share, which means Cuban probably spent his daily per diem on his stake. For more details about Tucows, check out my story in today's Financial Post.

I saw a photograph in a newspaper yesterday in which Bill Gates was handing out the Xbox to a customer (white geek-looking male wearing glasses and a bad hat). The photograph and Gates' decision to personally hand over the first Xbox is just more evidence of Microsoft's brilliant and well-executed marketing campaign. In many ways - be it leaks,  "frank" discussions with major business publications or reports Xbox is already sold out (easy to do if you decide to "manage" the shipping process) - Microsoft has convinced the media and consumers the Xbox is a revolutionary product that is not only going to shake up the gaming industry but jump-start the company's growth prospects. In many respects, Microsoft has no choice but to put its marketing machine behind Xbox because it's not like the new version of Windows or Office 54 is going to blow away investors and consumers. Xbox is about buzz and sizzle, which Microsoft desperately needs more of. From a financial perspective, I'm not sure how much weight to put on a research report by iSuppli, which suggests Microsoft is losing $153 on every Xbox sold based on the cost of the components vs. the $399 retail sales price. If you're as big as Microsoft, you are likely get big volume discounts. Then again, the action is probably not in hardware but the software needed to use the new Xbox: it's the old razor and blades game. In any event, the fact I'm writing this post on Xbox just demonstrates how even the skeptics (and non-game players) out there have been caught in the Microsoft PR machine.