Event driven adoption

In the wake of the World Cup finals driving enormous streaming video across the globe’s internet backbones, Canada is receiving the final submissions for its Digital Economy consultation.

There was a last minute extension granted that pushed the deadline to tonight at midnight. As an aside, there was a bit of ambiguity on what exactly was meant by “The deadline for ideas and submissions on Canada’s digital economy strategy has been extended until midnight, Tuesday, July 13.” After all, with all of the time zones we have in Canada, the time midnight varies. For that matter, the time “midnight” occurs twice each day: at 00:00 and at 24:00. Which was meant? Even the countdown timer was confused, showing 2 days remaining all day on both Sunday and Monday. It seemed humourous that a digital strategy consultation specified an imprecise analog time, rather than a universally understood specific digital time.

But I digress.

The last minute extension meant that some submissions are available early. I had a chance to skim through some, including a few that indicate that Canada’s infrastructure is doing pretty well; our adoption needs attention.

Which brings me back to the World Cup. Just as we Canadians experienced for the Vancouver Olympics this past winter, the World Cup drove spectacular levels of broadband usage on a global scale. Some of the more impressive statistics from Rogers were: More than 75,000 fans signed up to Rogers On Demand Online (RODO) to be able to watch matches streamed live; through last Friday, almost 225,000 hours of FIFA action was watched on RODO; more than 10% of the matches viewed were in a language other than English; nearly 10,000 fans downloaded a Rogers On Demand Mobile app, letting them watch live on their smartphones. According to an article in the National Post this past weekend, when Sidney Crosby scored the goal that earned Canada’s gold medal in hockey, “a torrent of texts, streaming video and other data requests” flooded Bell’s mobile network.

Use of technology increases when people see the value of (or at least they apply a value to) the technical capability. The assumption is that we are helping educate a new group of users among those who watched the Olympics on-line or streamed World Cup action to their computer or smart phone.

Step by step, event by event, we are increasing Canada’s digital literacy. Increasing broadband adoption will require increased engagement by people who haven’t been able to find enough value to justify the effort and cost of going on-line – up until now.