Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Free Call on Electoral Reform in Ontario

by alec on September 18, 2007

One of the things we did when we created our Facebook Free Conference Call application was to allow people to create public conference calls. The idea behind this feature is that you will be able to create public events that happen on a conference call. Market research showed that Facebook users would be interested in being able to hold live events with sports stars, musicians and political figures… just to name a few.

So I've created an event. On the October 10th ballot in Ontario, we're going to be asked to vote on whether to change our system of elections from the current first past the post model to a mixed member proportional model. What does this mean? What are the pro's and con's?

If you're on Facebook today, join me on September 20th at 10 AM to discuss this topic. And if not a Facebook user, but you still want to join the conversation, drop me a piece of email and I will send an RSVP link. And for more information about the ballot, visit the Referendum Ontario site.

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fbFund: grants to build Facebook apps.

by alec on September 18, 2007

It must suck to be Bay Partners or Altura right now. After tons of great press about their new Facebook specific venture funds, along come Facebook, Accel and Founders fund with a $10 million pot of gold for grants to founders. That's right, if you're a worthy founder you can get up to $250K from fbFund provided you give Accel and Founders first right on your next round.

As a founder, of course, it's terrific. You can keep all those small pre-seed investments (which tend to be very expensive) off the books, and relieves you of the need to set valuation or raise funds on a convertible note. What's not to like?

With $10 million in grant money available from Facebook, Accel and Founders to skim La Creme, the teams at Bay and Altura are no doubt asking themselves if their funds are large enough. After all, they've just been repositioned as later stage funders.

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Cubic's revolutionary services launch

September 18, 2007

I've been chatting with Pat Phelan about Cubic Telecom's MaxRoam SIM and phones, which which were launched yesterday at TC40, for a while. Pat says "it's a game changer", and I tend to believe him. The offer is pretty compelling. The phones are 99 euros (or 159 euros for the Windows Mobile version), with all the usual accessories – headsets, [...]

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InMedialog: a new blogging voice.

September 18, 2007

"It's done! The circle is complete. The monster lives!" I suppose if I was a mad scientist I might say something like that. But I'm not, so I'll just welcome the team at InMedia to the blogosphere. Francis Moran, the big cheese at InMedia, blames it all on me… and I suppose I might have had [...]

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