Alec Saunders SquawkBox

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. 

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.

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, chargers, synch cables and so on.  Dual mode WiFi / GSM phones, they can be used in any of thousands of hotspots worldwide, and Cubic has been busily cutting access deals everywhere in order to ensure that you have access everywhere. Calls from one Cubic subscriber to another are free when used in a hotspot. They also come with a MaxRoam SIM with 5 euros of credit. That's the kicker, frankly.  The MaxRoam LD rates will make anyone turn their head sharply… for instance, calls in Canada cost .0063 euros.  In the US, .0131 euros.  In the UK… .011 euros. In addition, you can get a local number wherever you're going, so that when you travel others can call you cheaply as well.  Each MaxRoam SIM can be provisioned with up to 50 numbers. 

As Pat said to me last Friday: "All we want is a world where anyone, anywhere can use a mobile phone to call anyone in any country for as long as he or she wants without worrying about the price."

I can hardly wait to try it out. 

"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 something to do with it.  Francis and I sat down over coffee about a year ago, and I encouraged him to write a blog. I happen to think that Francis is a pretty effective writer, and he can be very provocative.  Those are great traits if you want to build a highly trafficked blog.  I also thought him an old-skool journo-skeptic.  Not so.  He just didn't want to write another PR blog.  He was looking for a unique voice.  

Choose your metaphor — he dove off the cliff, jumped in with both feet… whatever suits you.  InMedialog launched yesterday, nearly a year after that fateful coffee chat.  It's conceived as a topical periodical, with an editorial strategy, staff and benchmarks for ROI.  Did you notice, by the way, that the name of the blog is InMeDIALOG?  I have a feeling that there will be lots of dialog about the things Francis has to say.  He gives a hint about some of what he will be writing about at the end of his inaugural post with this sentence.

Bottom line: Blogs may be a new form of communications. But many of the oldest rules still apply. You’ll see a lot from me on this issue. 

Francis brings the abilities of a journalist, and the sensibility of a publisher to this new medium.  That's very cool.