Category Archives: Business

| Business, Opinion

Loblaws could do better

Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you’ve noticed Loblaw’s’s new ad campaign promoting locally-grown fruits as part of a green strategy. I applaud Loblaw for embracing greener policies, but there’s still a way to go.

Take, for example, this bike rack outside the Loblaws at Jean-Talon and Park. Notice anything odd about it? The fact that no bikes are attached to it? The fact that it’s at an odd angle? Well, that’s because there’s nothing anchoring this bike rack to the ground. Seriously. Go there right now and just walk off with it.

Instead, everyone hooks their bikes up to the solid railings nearby. Although that keeps the bikes relatively secure, it also interferes with anyone wanting to use the railings to help them up the stairs.

This has been going on for weeks now, which means Loblaws is either lazy or just doesn’t care.

Underground, meanwhile, is a large parking lot that can hold over 250 cars. It’s free for shoppers up to two hours.

I was surprised to find, at the far end, parking spaces for bicycles. No signage exists anywhere else to point cyclists here, which is probably why it’s empty in the middle of the day (while bikes are locked to railings outside).

For a store so close to Park Extension, Villeray, Rosemont, Mile End and the Plateau, areas where bicycles are perhaps the most popular in Montreal, this store could make even a small effort to make cyclists feel more welcome.

| Business, Opinion

Spot the green

Which of the following green-coloured products are made using recycled paper or make any other claims toward environmental sustainability?


The answer, of course, is none. They’re just green-coloured.

That’s the problem with greenwashing. There is no standard body to say what environmentally-friendly claims can be made and which ones can’t. And even if there were such a body with strictly-enforced rules, nothing prevents a company from simply using green-coloured packaging to subtly fool consumers into thinking that there is an environmental benefit to choosing a green product over a non-green version.

What’s the difference between these two products? They’re both from the same company, both weigh the same and are made from the same material. The difference, if you look at the numbers at the bottom, is that the green-coloured package has sheets that are half the size as those the blue-coloured package, and offsets that by having twice as many sheets.

In other words, the only difference between the two is that the one on the left has twice as many perforations. And yet there’s a sense that, because it’s green, it’s better for the environment somehow.

The one product on the shelves that does make green claims is this jumbo package of paper towels from President’s Choice. The paper towels here are printed on made using recycled paper, and I believe once you throw them away will explode into butterflies or something.

Whose bright idea was it to associate such a complicated, easily-abused marketing concept with little more than a colour?

| Business, In the news, Media, Opinion, Technology

Globe thinks colour will solve newspaper crisis

The Globe and Mail and Transcontinental have signed a $1.7 billion, 18-year deal for the Montreal-based printer to print the newspaper everywhere but the prairies.

The highlight of the deal (from the Globe press release) is a promise from Transcon to buy new presses capable of printing full-colour on all pages. Currently newspapers have to budget which pages get colour and which stay black, mainly because colour is a four-plate process (CMYK) and black requires only one plate and one colour ink. (The change will also mean a shorter paper and another redesign)

That sounds pretty cool. But spending $200 million on new presses to satisfy an 18-year deal (2010-2028) when we’re not even sure that newspapers are going to last that long?

Like the New York Times and other larger papers, the Globe will probably weather the crisis a bit longer than most (the fact that it hasn’t drastically cut the number of journalists recently certainly helps). But 20 years is a long time in the future, especially when you consider where we were 20 years ago. In 1988, newspaper staffs were at their peak, television production values practically nonexistent, and nobody knew what the Internet was.

| Business, Opinion

Another gigantic waste of money from Bell

Bell billboard on St. Jacques St. West

Bell billboard on St. Jacques St. West

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve been exposed to ads in print, television, online, outside, in the metro and elsewhere from Bell Canada, which recently changed its logo, dumped its beavers and has launched a massive ad campaign to … introduce their new logo, I guess.

As if to underline the pointlessness of the redesign and the ad campaign, Bell first put up anonymous ads in the metro, with little slivers of the logo. I’m sure some marketing genius thought that would get people’s attention (they certainly bought enough space to get noticed). But really, nobody cared enough to look into it, gossip about it, or put the ad puzzle pieces together to figure out their source. (Well, almost nobody).

When the ad campaign launched, it introduced taglines in both French and English. The French version is “la vie est Bell,” which is a cute but obvious pun. In English, the taglines all end with a bolded, coloured “er”, as in “today just got better“, which makes no sense and has no connection with Bell.

Combined with ads for Telus’s Koodo service, expect to be bombarded with cellphone-related advertising, expecially in the metro.

Bell is also heavily promoting the Samsung Instinct, which it paradoxically promotes as both the “hottest phone of the year” and an “Apple killer” (sorry, “killer“), all with a straight face, in a desperate (and desperately transparent) attempt to show that not having the iPhone doesn’t make Bell executives cry at night.

But the worst part for Bell customers: Every one of the millions and millions of dollars spent on advertising, marketing experts and website designers is a dollar that is not spent improving customer service, lowering rates or expanding the network.

La vie est Bell, indeed.

| Business, Montreal, Photos

NDG wants to change the face of St. Jacques Street

St. Jacques Street, looking east from Madison

St. Jacques Street, looking east from Madison

St. Jacques Street in NDG has a reputation, and not a good one. It’s lined mostly with used car dealerships, auto repair shops, seedy motels and deteriorating parking lots. The neighbourhood around it is known more for being on the “wrong side of the tracks” than anything else.

The borough, as part of its master plan, is trying to change all that. It’s proposing a by-law (PDF) that would disallow the creation of new gas stations, auto parts shops and car dealerships on St. Jacques between Madison and the Decarie expressway. Instead, it wants to see more other kinds of commerce (restaurants, grocery stores and the like) on the south side and more residential development on the north side.

Midas shop on St. Jacques

Midas shop on St. Jacques

While some major franchises are located in this area (such as this Midas shop and an Ultramar gas station), the vast majority are Mom & Pop shops with fading signs and improvised setups.

The draft by-law, which will see public consultation next month, would not force these businesses to close. But it would prohibit new ones from forming in their places if they do.

Continue reading →

| Business, Montreal, Opinion, Public transit, Technology

Koodo using crappy game to get attention

Interactive Koodo ad at Peel metro

Interactive Koodo ad at Peel metro

Last weekend, some metro station platform ads were replaced by a television screen inviting people to “train” with some Koodo-branded games. Koodo, you’ll recall, is the Telus-owned “discount” cellphone service which competes with Rogers’s Fido and Bell’s Solo Mobile services. It unexplicably uses cheesy 80s workout clichés as the basis for its branding.

A user interacts with a Koodo ad at Berri-UQAM metro station

A user interacts with a Koodo ad at Berri-UQAM metro station

Lo and behold, it worked. People on a metro platform waiting for a train are a notoriously bored bunch (even if they’re in a hurry). Shiny things with buttons will quickly find people willing to press them.

Unfortunately, the games themselves weren’t that good. In fact, one wasn’t even a game, it was just a menu filled with information about Koodo’s cellphone plans. The only actual “game” is a Where’s Waldo-style search game that requires the user to “scroll” through the map because it doesn’t all fit on the screen.

The game had clearly not been usability tested, because I couldn’t figure out how the scrolling worked. Tapping near the corner caused it to slowly scroll in that direction by about an inch. Dragging a finger toward the corner caused the screen to quickly scroll in that direction and then quickly scroll back. Dragging a finger away from the corner caused about the same thing to happen. (UPDATE Aug. 27: I’m not the only one to notice this failure.)

Also:

Unexpected click gives a 404 error

Unexpected click gives a 404 error

I’m not quite sure how I did this, but I somehow created a new tab in Internet Explorer (which this apparently runs on) and sent it to a page which doesn’t exist.

Closeup of Koodo ad 404 error

Closeup of Koodo ad 404 error

So apparently these ads are running on Windows servers using a two-year-old version of the Apache web server. (On the plus side, the system resets itself after a minute or two of inactivity)

I have to give Koodo credit for this one. After all, I’m blogging about it, which was the point. But it doesn’t make me want to get a Koodo phone plan any more.

| Business, Media, Opinion

Le Devoir sued for correctly reporting outrageous cookie claims

Le Devoir is apparently being sued by a cookie company because of an article that criticized the company for marketing cookies as encouraging weight loss and preventing cancer.

I can’t find the original article online, but the letter from the company in response is there: It says in no uncertain terms that the company has never suggested that its Praeventia brand cookies had these kinds of benefits:

Or jamais Leclerc n’a prétendu que les biscuits Praeventia avaient des vertus amaigrissantes.

…

Jamais l’entreprise n’a présenté ce produit «comme un aliment anticancer»

Well, I guess that settles that, then.

Here’s the thing:

Screenshot from Praeventia\'s website

This web page includes the words “prevent certain cancers” three times. And though the company may be correct that they don’t claim it’ll cause weight loss, they certainly imply it pretty hard here (the words “weight control” also appear in the text).

Note to Biscuits Leclerc: Before you file your lawsuit, be sure to scrub exculpatory evidence from your website first.

| Business, Media

Rates matter

The Gazette finally has its advertising rates posted online. If you check out its rate card (PDF) and do the math, a full-page ad (10 columns by 292 agate lines) will set you back about $10,000. If you want a colour full-page ad at the back of a section on a Saturday, that number is closer to $20,000.

Or, if you’re interested in online, rates are $15-30 CPM for the website, and the ad spots on HabsInsideOut.com are $750 a month each.

Or if you really want to throw your money away … why not just give it to me? I’ll totally whore myself out to your product.

| Business, Opinion

Conditioned

I’m glad to hear that the global warming/energy crisis has been solved, and local businesses can go back to cranking up the air conditioning full blast and throwing open their doors so they can cool the sidewalk in front of their stores.

I’m not sure what’s more outrageous: the fact that this happens, or the fact that consumers fall for it and/or don’t care enough to protest.

Not to mention the fact that air conditioners displace heat, so for all the air that’s cooled in front of a store, hot air in the back is heated even further. The result is a net increase in heat that just makes hot days in the city even hotter.

| Business, Media

Gazette call centre gets pink slip

The notice from the union was in my mailbox when I came in today: The Gazette and its workers union, the Montreal Newspaper Guild, have reached an agreement concerning workers in the Reader Sales and Service department whose jobs are being outsourced to a Canwest call centre in Winnipeg.

The deal essentially turns the layoffs into forced buyouts, with a deal similar to what many in the editorial department took in January. It comes after the union lost a bid to merge the RSS bargaining unit with the editorial and advertising ones, which would have leveraged the power of the latter to save the former.

It’s sad that the jobs are going, and that people calling about their morning paper are going to speak to a minimum-wage call centre guy on the night shift in Winnipeg than someone in the Gazette building who knows about the paper and the city and actually cares about readers.

| Business, Montreal

Forbidden burger…

Sunday is Free Burger Day at Harvey’s in Ontario and Quebec (for once, a promotion where Quebec is included!). One per customer, 10am to 3pm.

Enjoy your 35% daily recommended value of saturated and trans fats and 38% daily recommended value of sodium (assuming, of course, you don’t want any topings)

Harvey’s website has a store locator (link fixed). Downtown there’s a location on Peel below Ste. Catherine which will no doubt have large lineups.

| Business, Technology

Akoha is rich now

Austin Hill’s Akoha project just announced that they have $1.9 million in funding thanks to a dozen angel investors.

For those who don’t know, Akoha is … uhh … what does the “About Us” page say again? Something about fun and play and sharing and making the world a better place.

It could be a social-networking site for fundraisers or it could be a giant multiplayer Pong game with the Sesame Street theme playing all the time. They’re still kind of being coy about it.

I’m not much connected to the investor/rich-people market (if I did, I’d probably have a better apartment and/or life), so the names don’t quite impress me. The one I do recognize is Jonathan Wener, who sits on Concordia University’s board of governors and its real-estate committee. He’s a big reason behind the new buildings they have, to the point where I don’t know why he doesn’t have one named after him yet.

More importantly, he’s very rich and not one to waste money on some go-nowhere startup without a plan. That alone makes me think Akoha’s got something here.

| Business, My articles, Opinion, Technology

Don’t pay contributors (but don’t treat them like crap either)

In today’s Business Observer section, I have an article about whether or not companies setting up user-generated websites should consider paying those users for their content.

Revver tried it (paying users $1 million in its first year), but the overwhelming reach of YouTube has greatly limited their success. People who post videos to Revver have to also post them to YouTube or find someone else doing it for them.

And, of course, there’s Capazoo, whose business model involved having its users “tip” each other and getting a cut of that pie. This week, they appear to have died a horrible, horrible death, though it seems to have been more about bad management than a bad business idea.

I spoke to Evan Prodromou, who wrote an essay last July about the problems inherent with paying wiki contributors. The arguments hold true for video-sharing sites, blogs and just about anything where users are expected to work to give your site value.

His conclusion is that “it just doesn’t make a lot of sense” that websites pay for users, because payment makes it seem like work. Instead, they should focus on building communities, where work is valued in a non-monetary sense, and more importantly where the contributions provide value to the users themselves. YouTube allows you to share videos and give them a global reach. Same with Flickr on the photo side. These are user-generated websites, but they’re seen primarily as free services to users.

Many clueless latecomers to the user content game (and especially many media organizations) have been trying to push user participation to the point where they’re beating us over the head with it. Newspapers cut and paste uninteresting, anonymous comments from their message boards. TV weather presenters introduce photos of snow (and dogs in snow) taken by viewers. They all plead with you to share your news tips so they can get the exclusive (and not credit you for it) — provided that news tip doesn’t require too much investigation, of course.

When you try to share your family photos or stories about grandma, shocked that such dreck actually gets published/broadcast, you’re met with 1,000-word user agreements that state IN ALL CAPS that you give up all rights to your content including moral rights and (effectively) copyright, and they can do whatever they want with it without asking you or paying you a dime, even if it has nothing to do with the reason you submitted it. Oh yeah, and it also gives them the right to seize your home, take your dog and copy everything from your hard drive. Didn’t you read that part?

The result is that we get a lot of fluff, but very little useful information. Uninformed opinion, but little news. In other words, a whole lot of junk.

As a freelancer, I’m tempted to say that paying people is the answer. Forget this user-generated crap and get real journalists, photographers, videographers and writers to give you quality news and information. But that plea would fall on deaf ears of money-crunching media executives who see Web 2.0 as a magic ticket to free labour.

One of the lessons that should probably be taken away from this is that in order to get good content from your users, you have to respect them and at least not seem to be evil. They have to feel like they’re doing something valuable that’s worth their time (paid or not). Right now, getting your picture in the paper or on TV is still a pretty big reward for those seeking their 15 minutes. But if nobody reads that paper or watches that TV station because they don’t have quality content, will that continue?

As the article mentions, there are some coming out on the pro-payment bandwagon. Jason Calacanis says that top contributors (that 1-2% who represent the majority of content) are providing much more value to these websites than they’re taking back, and it makes sense to pay them if only to keep them loyal.

Even Wikimedia (which runs Wikipedia and related sites) is paying contributors for the first time with its Philip Greenspun Illustration Project. It’s an exceptional case, with money donated for a very specific purpose. But it represents a step toward paying users for their work.

Prodromou himself agrees that some work should probably be paid for. Administrative work, editing and other non-sexy contributions probably wouldn’t get done otherwise. It makes sense to have a small staff of employees to concentrate on that work. At the same time, web projects must be careful about not instilling a sense of resentment among its non-paid users. It’s a fine line to travel.

But what do you think? Does paying users cheapen what they contribute? Should only extreme superusers get paid for what they do? Or should the economy be allowed to give a monetary value to even the smallest contribution, even though for most people payment would be orders of magnitude less than what we would consider a minimum wage?

(Side note: This article sets a new record for the delay between filing and publication. I completed the article in November, and it sat on the shelf while the Business Observer section was being planned. Since it wasn’t particularly timely, it stayed there until just this week.)