September 16 |
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A Troika of Mini-Shills for Local Web Whizzes
Source: Straight.com: Dot Comment
Every now and then, I learn about a local technology-based company that genuinely intrigues me. It might have developed some nifty software, figured out a smart way to deliver information, or just spotted a market opportunity in a communication gap between businesses. I always get really enthused about the potential of these firms, but when it comes time to write a column, I usually can't get very far. The problem is that after describing what a place does, I find I have little more to say. To me, the core idea is the whole story, perfect and complete in itself, and I'm uncomfortable just shilling for someone's entrepreneurial venture. Anything additional would only be a bunch of fluff and hype whipped up to fill space. If I could write that kind of stuff, I assure you I would've sold out long ago and gotten into the PR business instead. But since I can't, here's a condensed summary of a few local stars.
NewspaperDirect is the company that's been rotating through my story-ideas folder the longest. It was founded in 1999, but I only heard about it sometime in 2001. What the company does is license regional publishing deals with real-world newspapers, a couple of hundred of them, and makes them available (via franchise operators) in more than 50 countries. The company has some newsstands in retail outlets, but the main promotional focus is hotels in order to reach travellers who might want to read their hometown paper while in another city or on a cruise ship.
So far, it just sounds like someone has reinvented a little thing called the magazine store, but the methods are entirely modern. The newspapers are printed on demand from the same electronic files used to produce the delivery editions. Each paper is individually laser-printed (shrunk down to fit on 11-by-17-inch sheets), then delivered to hotels or (if you're local) you could have a regular subscription appear each day at a participating local outlet. I don't know how all the international agreements were hammered out or how the affiliate network has grown so large, nor do I care. It's just a good idea. As an added bonus, the ink doesn't come off on your hands.
The next overlooked business is the Ad Wizard. I feel compelled to mention that the company founder is David Ball, who was the advertising sales manager for this paper from 1985 through 1988 and, in addition, bought me lunch the day he showed me the operation. However, I assure you his idea is better than the bribery value of the meal. In fact, all that the prime-rib sandwich lunch special did was answer the question of what the restaurant did with the prime-rib dinners they didn't sell the night before.
Ball's idea is actually a cluster of things. One part is a Web-based publishing platform that lets someone create ads for print publication without having to learn a bunch about desktop-publishing software. You pick a style template, then just type in your text and upload your graphics. All the ad elements self-centre and auto-size, and it's ready. Next, it's an ad-delivery service that can ship the final electronic version to whatever paper you want. If there's a conflict with your ad's size or shape, you'll be prompted to automatically resize it.
By virtue of delivering ads, the Ad Wizard is also an advertising booking service, so you can distribute your message to all kinds of publications that you might otherwise not have heard of. The corporate focus is on the U.S., where Ball says there are some 7,500 small papers alone. Although the ability to make ads on-line is somewhat nifty, it's really the booking and distribution features that make this interesting. All they have to do is print the downloaded ad and cash the cheque.
Finally, there's People Line, a local company doing phone calls over the Internet. I first wrote about voice-over-Internet protocols (VoIP) in January, about the time the service was debuting commercially. In fact, that very week Primus sent around its first ads for their service. The basic idea is that you can route your phone calls over the Net using a high-speed connection and save a bunch on long-distance charges. Way back in those early days (nine months ago), I predicted that this would be another step in the deconstruction of telephone monopolies, but I wasn't expecting things to develop so quickly.
I also wasn't anticipating another effect of VoIP: that a new herd of smaller companies would emerge to compete with both the original telcos and the discount long-distance providers that have been nibbling off market share since the 1980s. In other words, I expected that some day I'd see a flyer from Primus offering VoIP (although I didn't expect it to show up that very week), but it never occurred to me that a local firm could spring up so soon.
People Line's Web site acknowledges it is a small local fish, but it claims that by being from outside the telecom mainstream it can do things like offer customer choice in an individualized way instead of the usual bundling of services you have to buy from the old-time firms. How does $9.95 a month sound for unlimited local calling, and another $5 per for a package that includes voice mail and call-forwarding? Sounds cheap.
The company practically functions like a consumers' bulk-buying club for long distance as well, because it can choose among different service providers based on prices. Finally the benefits of deregulation are reaching the little people. There are currently more than 30 countries (plus parts of Brazil and Russia) that you can call for a nickel a minute or less. Interestingly, People Line uses the PayPal on-line payment system, which means it has no need to establish an in-house department to handle credit cards. It's a well-thought-out alternative to the big companies, a real reinvention of what a phone company is and does.
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