It has only taken seven or eight years but the Inukshuk network - which uses Wi-Max technology - has finally been launched by Rogers and Bell. In a sense, it's a sad day for Canadian broadband consumers because Inukshuk had the potential to be the third high-speed competitor to keep Bell and the cablecos (Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco) in Ontario and Quebec honest. Instead, the Canadian government watched Rogers and Bell take control of Inukshuk - and then approved the deal. This meant the idea of more competition in the broadband market has pretty much evaporated. Instead of a vibrant marketplace, Bell and Rogers get to retain their stranglehold on the market. Anyone expecting a deal on Sympatico Unplugged or Rogers Portable Internet will likely be disappointed - Bell is charging $45 a month for a high-speed lite-like service (512kbps) and $60 for 3Mbps service, while Rogers is charging $49.94 for 3Mbps service. Where Inukshuk could be competitively interesting is Western Canada where the service will battle broadband rivals Shaw and Telus. As for other jurisdictions, competition could come from Toronto Hydro, which will launching a Wi-Fi service later this year. Barrett Xplore is also in the game with a fixed wireless and satellite-based service.

I've been online since 1995 (pre-Netscape) and consider myself a creature of the Web (obsession to e-mail, willingness to try just about any Web 2.0 application/service, blog-oholic, etc.) but I was blown away impressed earlier today by a presentation given by Jeff Cole, who is director of the USC Annenberg School Centre for the Digital Future. (The event was sponsored by eBay). Cole is heading up an ongoing study looking at how the growth and growing use of the Internet impact what people do online and offline. The audience, which is pretty Web-savvy, was entranced by some of the findings that Cole presented. For a newspaper journalist, however, it was a little depressing because Cole believes newspapers face a declining future over the next 20 to 30 years. Rather than read a newspaper, people will more and more of their information from the Web. So what does this mean for newspapers? Well, it means they need to leverage their brands and credibility to create Web sites/services that generate revenue. Cole also had some ominous news for television industry. He argues television advertising has been in decline since the 1970s when the remote emerged as the way to consume television. A particularly troublesome reality is only 5% of people actually watch television commercials. Does this mean product placements will be the new way to reach consumers? No. So what does the television industry do to survive? Cole said if he knew the answer, he'd be on his private island rather than giving presentations in Toronto in late-March. In any event, it was a fascinating presentation that rasised more questions than answers. If there was any consolation from Cole's presentation is he touched on many of the questions and areas (business, politics, marketing, advertising) we'll be trying to answer at the mesh conference on May 15/16.
Update: I'll augment this post on Sunday with some more facts and figures.

My column in the National Post this week takes a look at Time Inc.'s recent hiring of Andrew Sullivan and Ana Marie Coxe to write for the magazine and the Web site. The big question is whether Time's embrace of blogging and bloggers suggest blogging is coming out from the cold. If this is, in fact, happening, how do newspapers and magazines leverage blogs without institutionalizing them? In other words, how do they absorb blogs into their traditional ways of operating (editing, hours or days before they appear) and culture without affecting the vitality and personality of blogs? If newspapers and magazines try to institutionalize blogs, then they risk losing the essence of what makes blogs work. That said, there are forward-thinking newspapers. In a recent study, NYU said the Guardian has established a good reputation as one of the leading blogging newspapers in the world, while NYU recently cited the Houston Chronice, USA Today and Washington Post. Meanwhile, NYU said Canada - surprise, surprise - is lagging behind.