Why doesn’t Flickr let you tag your friends in photos?

Posted on November 20, 2007 by Thomas Purves

One of the favourite stories Facebook likes to tell is about their photos application. Facebook doesn’t even have a very good (by which I mean feature-rich) photo application. But what they will tell you is this. In just 6 months, Facebook’s photo application surpassed the usage all other internet photo sharing applications in the US combined. All this on the strength of one little, brilliant, why-didn’t-we-think-of-that feature called tag your friends.

In facebook you can tag your friends in photos, and when you do, they -and friends of that friend- are notified that a new picture has been posted of your friend. It’s great, it’s simple it’s been around now for a dog’s age now (in internet terms) so…. Why doesn’t flickr (the web’s original social photo site) allow you to explicitly tag your friends in photos too?

There can only be a few possible explanations why flickr doesn’t let you tag your friends, please choose your favourite:

(update: full text may not be visible in your feed reader click through to post the full post)

Posted in Archive, facebook, flickr, socialmedia, yahoo | Leave a comment

Wireless Data Getting Better in Canada, but a ways to go yet.

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Thomas Purves

Rogers cracks and offers (a rather unheralded) $65 1 gig wireless data plan in Canada. Here’s a link to that plan on a partner site, and apparently if you call rogers their agents will know about the $65 plan (thanks to farhan for the tip). No voice minutes included and plus system access fee, and not unlimited but this is a start.

Rogers’ new plan follows Telus’ introduction of a similar $60 1GB/ $100 unlimited plan (link) and a Bell plan for $75/ 1GB available for PC cards only.

Bell also recently added a mysterious $7/mo and “unlimited” mobile browsing while “However, a customer support representative said you can’t send big attachments with e-mails or download files from websites with the $7 plan”. A prize for anyone who can explain this to me.

And the mainstream media is starting to take notice, both the Toronto Star “Wireless data charges plummet as consumers embrace smartphones” and the Globe & Mail “Canadians pay more for wireless data” have taken note of the issue and a recent Seaboard report on Canadian Wireless.

“Our findings? Data rates in Canada have plummeted in recent months. It is now far more affordable to be a data user in Canada than it was as recently as this past June. Are there other places where you can get even better deals? Yes. The U.S. offers better plans for better rates, and some of the Euro plans, especially in the wake of repricing due to the introduction of the iPhone, are far more attractive than data options available to Canadians.”

So what other gaps remain? Widespread rollouts of highspeed networks have lagged in Canada. And handsets are an issue too. Canadian carriers, can I have my Nokia n-series please?

Posted in Archive, canada, data rates, datarates, wireless | 3 Comments

Upcoming Toronto tech/media events

Posted on November 19, 2007 by Thomas Purves

November 20th – CaseCampToronto6 – CaseCamp is back at the century room with presentations from: The Globe and Mail Online, Vortex Mobile, Treehugger.com, and Will super-star Pate of CommandN and ConceptShare

November 27-28 NextMedia Monetizing Digital Media – has what looks like an awesome and jam-packed agenda. I’ll be attending vicariously through Mark Kuznicki and hoping for some live swarm coverage [skype link].

December 3rd – DemoCampToronto16 – Back at the Board of Trade with 5 demos and 5 ignite presentations

December 3rd – Mobile Monday – 110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 700 – I don’t think I’ve been more frustrated with an event that I’d really like to attend, but have never been to. Maybe it’s the blog that just posts in the stilted language of repurposed press releases and why, why does this event keep conflicting with DemoCamp? I guess it wouldn’t be mobile Monday if it was on a Tuesday.

December 6th – StartupCamp Voting closes today on the presenters, expect an announcement soon.

January 17 – 18, Game ON Finance – presented by Interactive Ontario, 1 King west Toronto, A one day summit for financiers and entrepreneurs in the emerging indie game marketplace.

February 6-8 – The best tech conference of the year Lift08 in Geneva I hoping to raise a big Cannuck contingent again this time. Early bird registration prices until December 15.

whew. I need a nap already.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention some more good ones:

November 21 – LiveCamp – All about the WindowsLive development platform. WindowsLive as you know are a whole raft of Microsoft’s online services which don’t really have anything to do with Windows. Word is, WindowsLive is getting better all the time.

November 30 to December 2 – Facebook Weekend BETA – A whole weekend of Facebook/Startup goodness.

UPDATE: I’m going to be at MobileMonday

Posted in Archive, events, toronto, upcoming | Leave a comment