0.46 – Mark and Kevin jump into the special all-you-can-eat holiday buffet being served up by Skype.  Does this mean that eBay is getting serious about Skype as a business?

1.31 – Mark’s company, b5media has already paid the 13.95 for his year’s service.  Skype is moving into the mainstream after being a disruptive technology.

2.29 – Kevin predicts that Skype will find the VOIP market to be a crowded one and will keep it in the back of his mind, despite Seaboard using Vonage.

2.50 – Mark crunches the numbers and comes up with an extra $80m in revenue for Skype.  How does this make the $4.2bn eBay paid for Skype look like now?

4.10 – Kevin segues into Craigslist who’s CEO, Jim Buckmaster, recently announced it wasn’t interested in profits.  Mark says Buckmaster’s comments raised interesting comments – is “The Listâ€? a business or a public service?

5.55 – Mark revisits an interview he had with the founder and the CEO of Craigslist.  They’re not interested in taking over the world in the same way as Google is but they’ve created a product that resonates with people all over the world that’s competing against the traditional newspapers.

7.20 – Kevin says newspapers should be grateful Craigslist isn’t raising more money to directly compete against the mainstream media.

7.45 – The guys move onto a favourite subject, BCE.  In a recent investors day, George Cope predicted 3-5 per cent revenue growth in 2007 when the telecom market could be deregulated and face a price war.

8.35 – Kevin was there and saw the love investors have for Mr. Cope before going through the reasons why he’s so bullish about 2007. He predicts better packaging, innovative marketing and more compelling bundles next year.

The interrogate Kevin Restivo session starts here:

9.45 – Mark wants to talk IPTV.  Microsoft is pushing its platform and there are trial pockets over the country.  Kevin doesn’t know why it hasn’t taken off yet.

11.10 – When will carriers get serious with VOIP and when will the cable co’s get serious? Kevin doesn’t think there’ll be any big changes in the short term so the carriers don’t cannibalize their existing customers and the cable co’s are focused on the low-hanging fruit for now.  Steady as she goes seems to be the message.

12.58 – Mark and Kevin got an offer to try out Microsoft Vista this week.  Mark is a recent Mac convert but was impressed by the beta he saw.  Kevin is curious but not as excited as Mark, they both want to see if it’ll live up to the five year hype.

14.10 – Mark reveals Talking Tech has abandoned Starbucks and is now in Café Doria.

Audio comments for Mark and Kevin can be left on the Talking Tech hotline: 1 206-333-1327 or emailed to heytalkingtech@gmail.com.

Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.

0.30 – Mark and Kevin welcome technology analyst Duncan Stewart as their first ever live guest.

0.50 – They dive into the split between Nortel and its accounting firm, Deloitte.  Kevin bemoans the fact that Nortel was once interesting but can’t shake its accounting woes.

2.47 – Duncan believes it was an important step to move on from the accounting mishap to partner with a firm that investors will have (more) trust in.  Mark notes the amount of accountants that were embedded within Nortel made it a messy, protracted split.

3.57 – Mark brings up the one for 10 stock consolidation which Duncan rigorously analyzes.

4.50 – Troubled stock prices leads into a discussion of Yahoo! and the succession of Sue Decker.  Duncan likens her promotion as a sports team’s towel manager being announced as new starting quarterback.

5.45 – Mark asks Kevin if he knows what Yahoo! is, and whether it knows it is.  Kevin references the infamous peanut butter manifesto and points to the string of convoluted acquisitions as evidence of confusion.

7.16 – The news release that anointed Drecker referenced Jerry Yang, but not co-founder David Filo.  Duncan calls Yahoo!’s approach “a mile wide and an inch deepâ€?.

8.08 – What does Yahoo! want to be when it grows up? 

8.30 – Mark gives some thought to the slew of acquisition and what it means to the tech start-up industry in Canada – he’s disappointed by the lack of innovation happening at the moment.

9.05 – Kevin think the Canadian start-up scene is in a valley and can’t see the next RIM out there.

9.58 – Duncan points out that people we thought had died, Wi-Lan and Servicom, are coming back and making some ripples, if not waves.

10.10 – The trio turns their attention to getting Kevin some nice gadgets for Christmas.  He’s excited by video game consoles, the LG Chocolate phone and the Blackberry Pearl.

12.10 – Duncan reminds everyone that tinsel and assorted Christmas decorations will cut your wireless network’s performance by up to 75 per cent.  Geeks may be interested in D-Link’s new wireless router which provides gigabit Ethernet for under $200 (CDN)

12.53 – Mark has mixed feelings on the Zune but likes the idea of an iPod stressball for under $10

Audio comments for Mark and Kevin can be left on the Talking Tech hotline: 1 206-333-1327 or emailed to heytalkingtech@gmail.com.

Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.

0.31 – The story of the week is Microsoft Vista.  The hype is over, the product has been shipped and Mark defers to Kevin for an expert opinion.  Vista is groundbreaking, but only from a product development perspective.  This will be better than most of Microsoft’s first tries but it’s still worth waiting for the kinks to be ironed out

 

1.55 – Neither Mark or Kevin think customers will be jumping on board right now, but as the saying goes, they’ll either pay now or they’ll pay later.  The upgrade cycle means Vista will be a success eventually; the only question is whether Microsoft can afford to wait for that revenue

 

4.27 – Mark thinks the next big cash cow for Microsoft will be Office 2007.  Enough time has passed since the last upgrade for users to be wanting more from their office suite

 

5.45 – Kevin moves onto the beleaguered newspaper industry, one of Mark’s favourite topics.  Last week Kevin Meaney (USA Today) asked hi-tech entrepreneurs/investors how they would improve the newspaper industry but surprisingly, they couldn’t come up with anything radical

 

6.58 – Mark believes the answer is in changing the culture of the newsroom from reporters to content producers.  In addition to writing articles for the paper, they should also be blogging, writing small, snappy, instant opinion pieces and recording video

 

8.33 – Kevin brings up file sharing and the fact that BitTorrent raised $25m (U.S.) and now looks to be legitimately moving into the mainstream

 

9.27 – Mark isn’t sure what to make of it.  Licensing deals have been made with content owners to distribute their content with BitTorrent technology.  There’s no network, so where’s the VC money going to go?

 

10.10 – Will the licensing of content really drive people to download legitimate, rather than pirated, content?  Kevin thinks it’s a great move and that the standoff between “rogueâ€? file sharers and content owners is coming to an end

 

12.18 – Mark believes most people want to do the right thing when it comes to accessing content, but at a reasonable price.  iTunes hit the sweet spot with the 99cents price point.  Can BitTorrent, and the movie/TV industry, access this market as well?

 

13.20 – However Mark’s been watching free episodes of My Name is Earl on French file sharing site, DailyMotion

 

14.25 – The  guys end the show with another plea for Starbucks sponsorship

 

Audio comments for Mark and Kevin can be left on the Talking Tech hotline: 1 206-333-1327 or emailed to heytalkingtech@gmail.com.

Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.