Web
“shomi” the new way to watch TV for Canadians
Last week on August 26, 2014, Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications unveiled a new subscription video-on-demand service similar to Netflix, available only in Canada. The service called shomi (pronounced ‘show me’) will be launched in November of this year, initially for Rogers and Shaw cable and internet subscribers only at a suggested monthly retail price of $8.99. shomi will have both TV and movie offerings, with 30% Canadian content.
The service will be accessible online (desktops/laptops), on tablets, smartphones, Xbox 360, and set-top-boxes. For those people who do not have a TV subscription, or those who would like access to more TV and movie content, this is something worth a try. And if you already have Netflix, you may also want to subscribe to this as it will have content that is not available on Netflix.
Will you be subscribing to shomi?
Disclosure: I work for Rogers, however, all the opinions on this site are my own and do not in any way reflect my employer’s.
Peering Database
Something new I learned today is that I found that there is a Peering Database which contains details of different peers who are setup in various Internet Exchange points (IX or IXP) around the globe.
So basically, it contains information on what networks are peering, where they are peering, and if they are likely to peer with you. The site is PeeringDB.com .
An Internet Exchange is where Internet Service Providers (ISPs) exchange internet traffic between their autonomous networks. The primary purpose of this is to have direct interconnection of networks via the exchange, rather than through one or more third party networks, thereby reducing cost, latency, and bandwidth.
Some of the IXs I’m more familiar with (through my workplace) are the TORIX (Toronto Internet Exchange), NYIIX (New York International Internet Exchange), SIX (Seattle Internet Exchange), and AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange). Some peers have different policies according to their needs. Some have an open policy which means that they can establish BGP peering sessions with those networks who request to peer with them, while others have a selective policy which is attributed by varied reasons.
The data that you can find from the Peering Database are the company information, peering policy information, contact information, public peering exchange points, and private peering facilities. I have to mention that a specific company may be available at several IXs. It depends on the need of the company that wishes to peer, whether they want to establish sessions with all, some, or just one of those IXs where they have a mutual presence.
Photo Credit: Fabienne Serriere
The New Internet Domain Names
What do you think of the idea of having internet domain names written in other non-ASCII character sets such as Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc? It would definitely make the World Wide Web made for the world now instead of just made for the English-speaking people. People won’t be forced to learn English now when using the web because websites can be made in their own language or characters.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) made this decision which they herald as the biggest technical change to the Internet since its birth. The Internet and email addresses could be in each country’s own language now. The problem that arises however is how are we able to access all these websites if we don’t have a keyboard that supports all the character sets. I guess you wouldn’t really need to go to all those websites now, would you? If a particular website wanted people speaking other languages to visit their website, then they’d probably have an alternate domain name and a fully-translated site.
Is this a good thing? I guess so because this makes the World Wide Web more diversified. If every website wanted to have a domain name in all the character sets available, then this also means more public IP addresses will need to be used. This makes the IPv6 definitely useful then.
Related Article: PC World – Will New Internet Domain Names Change the Web?
Photo Credit: altemark
Companies and Social Media
There is a great need for social media in business today. The use of social media is part of the marketing strategy of companies that helps them to communicate with their customers in a more efficient way aside from the traditional media that include print and broadcast. A few companies have started integrating this in their strategy, while others are still starting, and still others not quite there yet.
It’s pretty cool that companies can interact with the consumers using the web 2.0 tools used in social media, get feedback directly from them, and be able to respond back more promptly, especially when there are issues that need urgent attention. It can be painful to read what the people say sometimes, especially when people can be really harsh online, but it is really helpful.
When you deploy it right and when you use it right, using social media will really help you get ahead of the competition. Keep in mind that companies in the same industry you are in may not use the same tools that you use. You may be ahead of them, or you may be behind in this technology. Whatever the case, strive to continually improve and keep abreast of the latest technology.
From my observation, print ads, broadcast ads, and website ads are not enough, especially if you are a major corporation and are one of the major players in the industry. I am actually surprised that some companies haven’t fully utilized the web 2.0 tools that are so popular and are most useful right now. Think about it – if it is so popular, then the consumers that you so want to keep and/or acquire might be there. They might be talking about your brand, and they might have some major influence to other consumers as well. For instance, a discussion starts in a blog, people comment on the blog post, and these in turn might inspire others to start posts on other sites in relation to the topic/discussion. Are you there to see it and able to learn and do something about it?
Monitoring social media is largely important because it can help you identify key influencers and evangelists that can help you with your brand. Using social media monitoring and analysis tools/platform, such as Radian6 for example, will help you gather social media metrics and generate reports with that. Let me repeat: tracking the conversations about your brand/business is important. Do something about it.
Here’s an idea. Once you’ve identified the key influencers and evangelists (e.g. bloggers with a large audience), you need to contact them and establish good relations with them. You can then try to ask them to start a blog contest for example and your business can sponsor the prizes. The topic for example can be something like: Write a blog post about Company X’s product on how it has brought a major impact to the community. Or something better.
There might be a lot of talk out there about your brand and you better be efficient in monitoring them – not only the talk about your brand, but also about the industry and issues that are relevant to your business. Monitoring these conversations will help you know what makes your customers happy, and what makes them mad. What’s good about it is you can now track all these conversations in real time, so you can be there right away to intervene especially in preventing unpleasant things from getting worse (like a pissed-off customer who was tweeting about the poor service he has received today and you were able to stop him from further writing a blog post about it).
Disclaimer: I am not a Social Media Expert and these are just my thoughts and tips based on what I’ve learned from other people, my readings, and observations.
Image Credits: Tech Writer Boy , Hikingartist.com | Photo Credit: wetwebwork
Gazelle Browser from Microsoft
Gazelle is a “multi-principal operating system” but it is not exactly an operating system, but a web browser. Gazelle’s architecture is loosely modeled on the underlying concepts of operating system design that is why it has been misinterpreted as such. It is a browser prototype that runs on Windows Vista, is coded in C#, and has a conventional user interface that is built with .NET’s WinForms framework.
It shares some similarities with Google Chrome (and recent versions of (IE) Internet Explorer) such as multiprocess browsing, but aims to have more security and stability.
Read HERE about Ars Technica’s analysis on Microsoft Gazelle.
This looks promising. Since IE has been more prone to security attacks, it is a good thing Microsoft is thinking up new ways to have a more secure web browser. I personally don’t really use IE anyway but if Gazelle is released for the public’s use, it should be fun to just test it out.
Tech-Life in Pink 