Perpetual Beta

NOW Magazine cover_Aug.27 - Sep.02 / 09

Stuck in Version 1.0
by Joshua Errett

Toronto’s a tweet capital and a start-up hot spot, but while the rest of the technoverse zooms ahead, our city’s in perpetual beta. Can our hardware handle an upgrade?

Standing at the podium at City Hall, Mayor David Miller whips out his BlackBerry, his fingers dance around the keypad, and he faces the crowd.

The most tech-positive politician in Toronto’s history, Miller is usually at ease talking to the normally adoring group gathered in front of him for last November’s Web 2.0 summit.

But this question vexes him: when will Toronto get its own Google Transit map?

After a quick smartphone consult, he’s got a reply.

Google Transit for the TTC, a Toronto version of the much-loved map that puts public transit routes, schedule and service info in an at-your-fingertips format, would be ready in the spring, he said to applause.

For transit enthusiasts and those just wanting to know the quickest route from Chinatown to the St. Lawrence Market, it was about time. The Google partnership is already in place in nearly every other Canadian city with public transportation, from Fredericton to Victoria and Vaughan, just north of Toronto.

Only now, almost a year later, there’s still no map, and it would take another map to retrace the failed promises, starting in 2006.

For its part, all the city would have to do is hand over TTC data to Google to produce the useful map – at no cost to taxpayers.

But when it comes to technological advancements like sharing data, Toronto is one tardy jurisdiction.

It’s in the world's top 10 in Twittering, in the top 20 in overall Internet use, and has loads of Web start-ups. Tons of small tech conferences like ChangeCamp are held here, with the online activists to go with them. Mozilla, maker of the popular browser Firefox, even has an office in Toronto.

But when it comes to ranking the most cutting-edge cities in the world, T.O. is a pretender – from the failure of city-wide wireless to the absence of big-name Web firms and the lack of work-friendly Internet cafés.

Most importantly, while cities like Vancouver, Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh (of all places) zoom onward to the future, Toronto’s moves toward more participatory city government, using democratizing open-source technology, are snail-like.

Is it time for an upgrade?

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To get a sense of how other jurisdictions manage to incorporate online activism, consider what happened with Vancouver’s garbage pickup earlier this summer.

Public policy expert and Internet activist David Eaves mused on his blog that trash service in his city was convoluted, involving zones and changing schedules. He wrote that email reminders or a map of pickup schedules would vastly improve matters.

For that to happen, he said, the city would have to make available all the data – the digital information around its garbage service – to the community of Web developers. Vancouver had recently passed an openness initiative, so the trash schedules were handed right over.

Two young Web developers made the program Eaves described, calling it VanTrash, and gave it to the city.

Another participatory breakthrough is Pittsburgh’s iBurgh, a mobile application that lets residents instantly upload photos of potholes, unremoved snow and other problems to the city from their iPhone, minus the bureaucratic run-around of trying to phone some office. (This app was also donated free of charge.)

In the digital age, “openness” has a new definition. It not only means making information available, but also doing so in a technically accessible format – that is, opening the source data. Toronto makes lots of information available on its websites, but not in a usable format to build online services. The TTC data requested by Google is a prime example.

Web developers, essentially working for free in exchange for exposure, could build Internet-based solutions to civic problems with that data. Imagine the outcome: interactive maps of restaurants charged with sanitary violations, historic neighbourhood walks, searchable databases of swimming pool hours, Facebook widgets of city festivals.... The possibilities are endless.

Free data also makes social activism that much easier; think of having all committee or council minutes or city staff documents relating to a hazardous condo project, for example, arriving in your email in an easy-to-digest format. Stopping unwanted developments could be a matter of touching an iPhone screen.

By these standards, Toronto is closed.

But according to David Wallace, T.O.’s chief information officer and leader of the Toronto.ca redesign, the process of freeing up data has begun, and local developers will be invited into the fold.

“Toronto has a very good software development community, larger and more in-depth than any other city in Canada,” says Wallace. “That means we have a large advantage, as we get our data out there, to get very advanced products developed.”

Thus far, Wallace says, there has been some reluctance to “just throw stuff out there” for fear that no one will do anything with it. He complains that when developers were asked what data would be useful to free up, there wasn’t much of a response, much like when the city appealed to the public for input into its site redesign and got a paltry 90 replies. (Go to toronto.ca/comment to add to that number.)

Regardless, Wallace says the city will put some of its data on a labs page in the fall, where developers can submit different programs.

Good news. The downside, though, is that Toronto will pick and choose which data it releases. He mentions one idea that’s unfortunately dated: an events calendar that citizens and organizations can upload, something like the one that appeared on blogs like Torontoist and BlogTO in 2006.

Compared to the complexity of material in the city’s domain, the TTC’s mandate is straightforward: release its routes, schedule and service data so developers can make online and mobile transit tools.

Last year, a developer in his early 20s, Brian Gilham, created TTC Updates, a service to deliver updates about delayed trains, detoured streetcars and any other TTC disruptions. Riders could get reports delivered to their cellphones via Twitter.

On the site, a disclaimer reads: “TTCupdates is not affiliated with the TTC. I mean, well, please don’t sue me.” Gilham is referring to the TTC’s nasty reputation for suing those who use its name, logo or subway map to create transit guides, mashup maps or other tributes.

“It used to be a lot tougher for developers, but things are slowly improving,” says Gilham.

The TTC has never integrated Gilham’s service, which he provided free of charge.

As for the Google Transit map, the arrival time is apparently approaching. TTC chair Adam Giambrone says the data the search engine company would need to build the map – routes, times, schedules in technically accessible form – simply did not exist and therefore couldn’t be shared. Putting data in a shareable format and displaying it cost $2 million.

But there’s more. Giambrone says he’s reluctant to partner with a third-party company. This is, after all, publicly financed information – Toronto can’t just go making deals with multinational corporations. What if Google were to change its mind and charge for the map?

Giambrone bristles at the suggestion that the TTC isn’t open. “The TTC Website may not be as sexy as other sites, but it scores high in accessibility.”

Like the team rebuilding the Toronto city site, he agrees with open-sourcing solutions. He promises the TTC will release the data to everyone, including Google, in the fall.

“By January 2010, Toronto will have the most wired transit system in the world,” he says. Expect “a pretty impressive suite of applications” that will make an outing on the TTC easier to plan, like an SMS message service that will alert riders when to expect the next two vehicles at any given stop.

Also coming is an interactive trip planner, evidence of which can be seen on the TTC home page. It has read “Future home of the trip planner” for months.

This translates into a years-long delay for the handy Google Transit map, already in use in more than 400 cities. But it’s also an indication of Toronto’s unpreparedness. Sharing data was the future when cities like Washington did it in 2005. Now it’s the norm.

Also worrisome is the fact that key corporations are missing in action. In the last year, Google moved to town, but its location at Yonge and Dundas is, alas, strictly a sales office. Any creative or development work takes place elsewhere, like Waterloo.

Apple opted to take its offices outside Toronto as well. Not far outside, but it is Markham.

This scattered approach is the anti-Silicon Valley, according to Richard Florida, creativity guru and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute.

“Northern California, specifically the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, has benefited from clustering. Technology talent in those areas have the opportunity to share information and communicate face to face,” he says.

“This, in turn, is causing human capital and highly sought-after talent to concentrate in select communities, causing the clustering effect.”

Does the presence of companies like Google attract Internet types?

“Toronto isn’t as well known as a technology hub,” says Mark Surman, exec director of the Mozilla Foundation, a Web firm dedicated to open sourcing. “We don’t have a strong identity, but community and industry and movement are all here.”

Surman says that’s the reason Mozilla, which hails from Mountain View, the same California town Google calls home, runs a 15-person space over a Beer Store south of Bloor on Spadina. (It should be noted that ValleyWag, a popular Silicon Valley blog, rated it as one of the worst tech offices in the world.)

He says that convincing governments, business and the public that Toronto is a hub of innovation is the main hurdle. For example, do Web users know that the bulk of the work on the globally popular Firefox browser happens in Toronto? Surman thinks not.

But he disagrees large companies will serve any purpose. “People look for Google or recognizable companies. Those are not the story of the Web. The Web is a small patchwork of people. They tend to be independent developers,” he says. “That’s fabric of the industry in Toronto, and the fabric of the Web itself.”

He points to the dozens of small, informal conferences held all over Toronto, often called camps, as in TransitCamp for transit innovation, and ChangeCamp for social change technology. These are tech events where ideas are tossed around and keynote speakers interact with audiences. They’re more like storytelling sessions than lectures, like where the mayor promised Google Transit.

In both public and private space, the Internet is about the individual. Behemoth organizations are always outsmarted by a chorus of independent creative minds. But what happens when ideas have nowhere to go?

That’s Toronto at present. There’s no local outlet for innovators – at City Hall or at big Internet companies. There’s not even a popular local technology blog.

What’s needed is support, recognition and places to direct our online efforts. Once those are in place, just uncork the talent.

COMMENTS
[NowToronto.com]
Nice analysis. The most troubling is Wallace's reluctance to "just throw stuff out there for fear that no one will do anything with it." I certainly hope this quote was taken out of context.
The whole concept behind open data is that you *don't* know what people are going to do with it. The city already knows what developers want - they demanded it in an extensive session at ChangeCamp last year. We crafted a list of at least 50 different types of data that would enable us to build cool stuff for the city.

Toronto - we're ready to start building this stuff for you. Now it's your turn. Open up.

If you look at the history of tech innovation over the last thirty years, a couple of things stand out. One is having a university that encourages innovation and that has a strong tech background. Stanford was the incubator for HP, Apple, Google. Also you need a good VC market. You need to have money to get the start ups going.

You may knock Pittsburgh but CMU is one of the top engineering schools in the nation and it has developed a good reputation in encouraging technological innovation.

Mozilla was originally developed at the U of I but Andreesen took it out west in part due to lack of VC money.

So does U of T have anything that can match that? Does it encourage its engineering department to be innovative and develop new products? Does it try to partner with the business community to develop new products?

You have RIM up there which is one of the most successful tech companies out there right now.

Is it involved or encouraged to partner with other startups or the university?

Chicago is a case in point we have some very good universities but none of them have done a good job of spurring innovation or partnering with the business community. The result is that Chicago is more of a user of other peoples products than a developer.

Are TransitCamp and MyTTC so under the radar that they don't even warrant a mention here? Surely if you're discussing ChangeCamp there was an effort to reach out to the organizers to ask if any transit related Camps had happened.
In any case, http://myttc.ca was a product of the first TransitCamp and is under ongoing development, including discussions and efforts with the TTC to gather the best data available. In other words, there's no need to wait on Google but if David Miller isn't aware of MyTTC, it's time to send a Tweet and get him behind it.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
I am a small business owner in the Toronto Business Development Centre's self-employment training program. I've developed a platform for streaming video and Internet radio to smartphones and mobile devices.

Your article "Stuck in Version 1.0" hit me hard because of my experiences in Toronto. WTF is going on?

We are stuck in Version 1.0 for two main reasons: 1) advertising agencies have a stranglehold on media; 2) Toronto is about making money and stamping out the little guy.

It's become next to impossible to carve out an existence as a small digital media company. Getting through the front doors of Toronto companies is next to impossible.

Thank you for your amazing article and insightful analysis. I feel less alone and more sure of why Toronto is a place where I cannot continue to work. --Kevin Grant
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Map of the World's Techutopias
by Joshua Errett

There's a world of ideas to steal from cutting-edge digital capitals

Portland
Home to the first-ever interactive transit map, Portland leads in developer-made transit applications. The firm TriMet even assisted Google in preparing data for maps. Creative apps tell you when the next vehicle arrives, find the nearest stop to your location and alert you when you’re nearing your destination.

San Francisco
What about copying the Bay Area’s most cherished invention, the Internet café? Sitting down to a high-speed connection on a brand new iMac with a chipotle fish taco in your hand is one of life’s great pleasures. Anyone looking to copy one of SF’s better Interweb spots should research Quetzal, Golden Gate Perk or Chat Café.

Austin
As well as hosting SXSWi, North America’s definitive Web conference, Austin has a reputation as a smart place to launch a tech start-up. That’s because the city’s attracted successful tech venture capitalist firms like YCombinator and TechStars, but also because the city itself acts like a VC: Austin’s Capital Factory initiative funds five new tech start-ups a year.


...They give their time and energy to help you with nothing expected in return.

Washington, DC
A historic DC walking tour on your iPhone. A Facebook widget that checks where city money is spent. These are the types of Internet applications submitted to Apps for Democracy, a program under DC mayor Adrian Fenty inviting local developers to identify city problems and solve them online. The project yielded 47 apps in 30 days – a $2,300,000 value.


"Park it DC" actually makes parking in DC a lot easier: if you put in an address you can see whether or not cars have been stolen in that area...

Vancouver
Vancouver is leading the way in Canada in the open government movement. A motion passed at City Hall in May for open data, open standards and open source means programs that map out all public washrooms in an area and email alerts for water quality on city beaches are in the works.

Munich
The capital of Bavaria is also a capital of open-source. In 2006, the city switched all of its 15,000 computers from proprietary Microsoft Windows to the open Linux system. A bold move, considering that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a desperation visit to Munich to convince the city not to leave his company.

Bangalore
A cluster of software, electronics and Web companies make this India’s version of Silicon Valley, though it’s not a valley at all, but a plateau. Three micro-neighbourhoods dedicated to tech work and the presence of multinationals like AOL and Qwest attract talent from all over the country.

Singapore
Apart from the heavily armed guards randomly demanding to see passports, Singapore’s Changi Airport is an easy place to work online. Internet kiosks are plentiful, with a fair five-minute usage limit. Or for those carrying laptops or netbooks, there’s free wireless. The airport’s site also has a an interactive map of the place to help you avoid last-second scurrying for a flight.

Seoul
WiBro sounds like a nickname for the beer-drinking, backwards-hat-wearing neighbour but is actually proof that our telecoms aren’t competing. WiBro, wireless broadband, is Seoul’s new high-speed wireless-everywhere coverage. It’d be like sitting on the 511 Bathurst dialing up Gmail and downloading The Hangover at the same time.

Tokyo
Any place that sells smartphones in vending machines deserves mention in a high-tech list, even if not many other ideas can be stolen (well, besides scramble crosswalks) from a crazy-busy city like this one. Tokyo also rivals London for top wages paid to developers and high-end Internet ITers, though that’s a bit of a red herring considering the cost of living.

Hong Kong
Cyberport is a city-made, brick-and-mortar space dedicated to IT and Web innovation. It’s as exciting to visit as it sounds. The world’s first Internet ’hood boasts local start-ups and houses a tech-savvy five-star hotel and close to 3,000 permanent residents in a futuristic city. Should T.O. create a designated online neighbourhood? (HK is also a great place for electronics, both buying and developing.)
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RELATED
The 10 Most Connected Cities in the World
1. Seoul, South Korea
Boasting a metropolitan area population of more than 22 million people, Seoul is the second most populated metro area in the world and second to none in terms of modern technology. Seoul is home to some of the biggest telecommunications and technology companies in the world, including SK Telecom, KT Corporation, Samsung and LG. If you're looking for the latest and greatest cell phone or miniature wifi gadget, Seoul should be your first stop.

When it comes to broadband penetration, South Korea is the world leader with an 83 percent penetration rate. This is in part due to the full blown broadband revolution that has been taking place in Seoul for the past 8 years.

Seoul is full of Internet cafés, wireless hotspots and gaming areas (called "pc baangs") making it the ideal city to use the Internet on the go. In most areas, a pc baang can be found on every corner. How's that for service?

Koreans have a fascination with PC gaming unlike any other country in the world. In South Korea, there are multiple television channels dedicated solely to broadcasting the day's video game events. Talented video game players are treated like celebrities similar to famous basketball players in the United States. At the center of all of the gaming is Seoul, which has played an important part in expanding Internet usage throughout all of South Korea.

Internet access in Seoul is extremely cheap, averaging around $20 per month for a 10Mpbs connection -- that's more than 4 times as fast and half the price of the average broadband connection in the United States. Some areas of Seoul boast commercial Internet speeds of more than 100Mbps for merely $30 per month. With speeds that fast it would only take you 5 minutes to download a two-hour high definition movie.

Seoul's current expansion plans include a $439 million project to add wireless Internet access to the subway trains. "The plan would be to create a wifi network, and then charge roughly $20 per month for access."

With such a huge broadband presence and a dedication to offering cheap, fast Internet solutions, Seoul is the definition of wired.

What is a 3G Network?
Japan and South Korea were the first countries to successfully launch this (3G) network. The Japanese company FOMA launched in May 2001 and South Korea's SK Telecom launched in January 2002. British Telecom in the United Kingdom and Monet Mobile Networks in the United States followed suit. By 2007, most countries had implemented the technology.
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ART
An average day on the streets of Shibuya.