Mark Goldberg is on his way to Ottawa today for the CRTC’s hearings on Do Not Call. He wants to ensure that "charities and their related organizations, have a cost effective way to reach out to the community."
This is one area where I will disagree. I hate to sound niggardly, but we really don’t want the calls. In our household we research the causes we give to and we budget to support those causes. The most a telephone caller can expect from us is a small donation, and even then, we are unwilling to give out credit card information to a stranger calling on the telephone. The exception might be taking a call from a known organization that we already support.
Like many block / don’t block scenarios the issue of charitable organizations and good causes is not a black and white issue. It is a nuanced issue, by individual and household. That is the reason I oppose blanket exemptions from the Do Not Call list. That’s also the reason I believe that the only sensible solution is better technology — a spam filter for my phone.
by alec on December 11, 2005
Jeff Pulver’s predictions for 2006 have been languishing in my RSS reader all week. He paints a cautiously optimistic picture. Regulators will continue to "not get it", and the incumbents will continue to try to build walled garden business models. However new applications will appear, driven by the internet industry.
Jeff expects that 2006 will be the year that film and television start to go direct to the net, first. In other words, your favorite TV shows, and maybe even movies, will be available on the internet before traditional media. Although it will happen eventually, my view is that 2006 may be a little too optimistic. The cartel that controls media distribution (Hollywood) isn’t ready to see it be that democratic yet.
Jeff also writes that the sides in the communications war will be thrown into sharper relief — Access Providers vs Applications Providers will be the model. Absolutely. In the Voice 2.0 world we’re all heading toward, access, directory and applications will be the three services we pay for.
Read Jeff’s scorecard for his 2005 Predictions too.
