Half Informed

As of time of writing there is 27 days left on the auction of twitter.ca on eBay that is sitting at $75,000 Ameribucks, which only begs to ask to ask the question “WTF would you do with the $75,000 twitter.ca domain name?”.

Let us look at some comparisons between twitter.ca, twitter.com and matthewgood.org, the later being one of my favorite Canadian artists who just released a new album.

Looking at these numbers and ignoring the rising stats of twitter.ca it would take about 38,860 days (106 or so years) at a ad supported revenue stream of $1.93 to pay off that $75,000.

So looking at that biased number crunch what would you do with the twitter.ca domain name?

Possibilities are including but not limited to:

• Give it to Twitter
• Use it to run a phishing/Black Hat Ops site
• Create a Canadian Themed site using twitter API supported by ads
• Sit on it and sell it later
• Try and resell it right away
• Keep the ownership papers from CIRA and use them to pick up all the chicks

So what would you do with twitter.ca?

Source Tweet: @Kindle_eReader SaskTel might finally have the iPhone in 2010, but is it already too late? – Canada.com http://bit.ly/TSii7

Source Article: Canada.com

In this article Kevin Blevins examines SaskTel’s wireless upgrades from the technology perspective, how they effect the sales strategies (product versus service area) and  also compares the mobile site analytics for LeaderPost.com.

I believe the timing is great. By 2010 a lot of early Rogers iPhone customers will be just getting out of their contracts and will also give SaskTel some time to understand and establish it’s position in the iPhone market while more and more Rogers customers are coming to the ends of their contracts.

When it comes down to the GSM providers having first dibs on the phones Kevin is for sure correct.  With the upgrades to HSPA/UMTS to the Telus and Bell systems being ahead of schedule for the rest of Canada (Nov 2009). And  new market players coming soon like Shaw, I will be interested to see what RIM will do when everyone and their dog will want the iPhone.

But what Kevin didn’t mention here is that there is a lot of work going on all over northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. And reports from every “Rig Pig” I have ever talked to was that Rogers has the worst service out there, but the Bell and Telus CDMA system works great. Those hard working souls can’t afford to be bothered with a spotty carrier. While GSM is great for speed it’s reliability rating must be fairly low.

So maybe that 13 year old girl in Regina might get the iPhone if her parents don’t mind taking out an iLoan.  And the GSM provider will have the most phones. But anyone in Saskatchewan that plans on leaving the city on a regular basis might just have to use the second and third generation phones on CDMA for now.

As for the analytics of the mobile sight. I think those numbers just come down to the fact that the web is a much nicer thing to look at in Safari on an iDevice than on RIM’s disgusting browser.  Do the stats report iPod or iPhone? If web browsing on my Blackberry was nearly and rich as on my iPod Touch 3rd Gen then maybe I would surf more on my Blackberry.

At the end of the day the timing is perfect for SaskTel, RIM needs to make a iPhone killer and fast to stay alive,  and the Rogers service area in Saskatchewan is still lacking.