So, you want to know what people are talking about at VON Canada? Well, it's not Vonage because they're not here. It's not Skype because Niklas Zennstrom bailed on his keynote. The most buzz is about...wait for it....Slingbox. Jim Courtney is walking around showing off Slingbox on his new Dell laptop and his Dell Axim. He was tempting Jon Arnold by showing the Boston Red Sox home opener. The Slingbox was officially unveiled in Canada last week - buy one at your local Future Shop or Best Buy for $299. The one question I have is: who's the target market? Is it just road warriors? Iotum's Howard Thaw said he believes it's anyone who wants to watch TV while away from home - whether it's teenagers with laptops and wireless devices, or people waiting for a doctor's appointment. Perhaps the most intriguing comment about Slingbox was made by Manitoba Telecom's Kelvin Shepherd who speculated about striking a partnership deal. This makes complete sense because Slingbox encourages people to use their broadband service more often and consumer more bytes, which is just the kind of consumption habits that broadband service providers like to see.
Update: In response to a comment about highlights from the first day of VON Canada. To be frank, there wasn't much to get excited about.Alec Saunders of Iotum talked about the changing landscape within the telecom industry and the growing importance of applications vs. connectivity. Bell Canada's Ron Close delivered a peppy sales pitch for Bell Digital Voice, which he described as "simply better" than offered by rivals such as Rogers, Videotron and Vonage. And there appeared to be some buzz about building APIs for Skype.
     To be honest, the most interesting "news" was delivered by Jeff Pulver, who opened a panel on blogging (on which I participated) by talking about how he's moving the "V" in VON from voice to video. This makes total sense given VoIP is losing some of its buzz and, more important for Pulver, its ability to attract people to conferences. Pulver clearly sees the writing on the wall and he's scrambling to embrace video as quickly as possible. He's had a wonderful 10-year run with VoIP and, in the process, build a thriving conference, consulting and publishing empire. But Pulver is also smart enough to realize if he doesn't morph VON out of voice, the business is going to fade away. Hence, the aggressive move into video because video=growth=$$.
Update: IP Democracy has a post on an interview that the L.A. Times did with Jeff Pulver on his move from voice to video. Give Pulver credit, he's a first-rate marketer.

There are a variety of ways to gauge the health of the high-tech sector: industry sales, the thickness of Wired magazine, the number of launch parties with open bars, etc. Another tool is looking at the number of conferences. After the dot-com and telecom booms went bust a few years ago, corporate travel nearly disappeared and the conference business struggled. In fact, the mother of all trade shows, Comdex, bit the dust because of declining attendance. Today, with the high-tech industry bouncing back, the conference industry is thriving again. This week alone, there's VON Canada in Toronto, F2C: Freedom to Connect in Washington (both of them involving Jeff Pulver) and CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas. This resurgence in conferences - complete with high-profile, keynotes, $1000 to $2000 registration fees, etc. - is interesting given the whole unconference movement, which are low-cost or free affairs organized by participants rather than a single organizer such as Pulver. The conference vs. unconference debate makes for lively discussions but they are different animals than happily co-exist with each other. While there are obviously big differences, the common denominator is people attend to talk and engage with other people with common interests. This is increasingly important at a time when e-mail, Webcasts, cell phones and Web-based presentations such as Webex makes it easy to do things virtually. Sure, there is a the convenience factor but there is nothing like putting a face to a name or having a great conversation with someone during a panel or over coffee. That said, conference organizers need to be careful about balancing their business goals with putting on a good show with solid content. A $1,500 conference fees quickly turns into a $3000 price-tage after flights, hotel, etc. are included. If something costs that much, it better have bang for the buck.