A1 - In Ontario – Cell Phones with Bluetooth Voice Dial.

Q 2 - So what are the genius “marketing” folks at Bell, Rogers & Telus missing?

A2 – Opportunity. A giant opportunity - Missed.

Their collective web sites are almost void of information on Voice Dial. They continue to deliver hyper-babble mush about sleek features in hot pink, midnight black and pineapple white cases. ONLY Fido offered any close advice when doing a word search under Voice Dial.

For years these companies have pounded tens of millions of dollars expounding features that manufactures tear sheets said would sell more phones. NOW, HERE, TODAY – a reason – a change in the law – an easy reason to guide customers to an upgrade that the customer would pay for. No negotiating, no threatening to switch carriers, just a need – “help me continue to burn air-time minutes, while complying with the Law”. And they fail. Same old, same old marketing. Not an opportunity in sight.

Talk about “blowing” Investor Value. Solutions guys, this was your big chance to shine. Or at least look like you were awake. Silly gooses.

Hey, how’s the golf?

My jury still out.

Kindle – if laptop screens couldn’t kill it, will Kindle and the Sony eBook Reader be the Great Paper-Killer?

I’m thinking not. Yes, I really want a Kindle, but they just ain’t available in Canada (yet) so I went and played with the newest generation Sony Reader. Yes clear, easy to read text. Smooth fonts, non glare screen, light in weight and cool. But “it ain’t paper”. You can scroll, flip pages etc, but it’s missing the texture of how much more to read, by the thickness of the right pile, how much read, by the thickness of the left bundle.

I take zealous care of my books - their pages, even the corners of the cover. But on a beach, in the yard, I can drop a magazine as I snooze, Kindle, Sony – they’re not droppable.

And the price, for the small difference, if I wanted to carry a bundle of books these “e” readers, I’d save lots of weight. But for texture, I like a book, the art, the weight, the flipping of a real page, as I know pages. BUT back to price – a significant cost of publishing a book is printing the first copy and then the second, and so on, but the first copy …wow expensive to get to. So for Kindle books – which takes none of that financial horsepower, not even shelf space, the savings seem not there. Bravo to the author if they can reap more, but are they? Or is this really just a retail margin improvement – with loss of texture.

As for Kindle – I still really want one, and likely will jump at the chance, but like so many electronic toys, suspect I’ll tire fast and yearn to flip real pages, real fast.