Understanding the Web Industry and Adoption in Canada (2 minute Video)

What I heard in the video was very much tied to Canada's challenges, culturally, as a country (I'm in Montreal + Canadian.) With a relatively small population spread out across a very big chunk of land, we end up with small pockets of people that have quite distinct cultures.

Without a bigger population you won't get the same Silicon Valley or Boston vibe where the communities are huge and boiling over.

VC & angel investment is also, generally, more conservative in Canada, and we don't have quite the same inherent entrepreneurial drive as our neighbors to the South.

Having said all of that, there's a lot going on in cities like Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. Oh, and Calgary (yup, more than oil there!) We're behind culturally and we have to produce more successes in the Web 2.0 world (and try to keep the people here in Canada) for us to really be put on the map.

I think Ben is really onto something in his comment. Also, in the video, when it was mentioned that Canadians are fast to adopt Web 2.0, I think that's fairly accurate.

There was some last minute mentioned of Facebook & Toronto. This is a great example. 25% of the population of Toronto is on Facebook. I'm not sure if this is still the case but, for a while, at least, there were more people from Toronto on Facebook than any other city in the world (per capita, of course, not in terms of raw numbers).

I'm not sure how true the quick adoption is outside of Facebook, though.

On a side note, out of curiosity, I just checked the size of the Edmonton, AB network on Facebook (where I'm from). And, according to the numbers, about 22% of Edmonton is also on Facebook.

Given that Edmonton is, in a lot of ways, a very conservative city, I think that it provides further evidence to the fact that Canadians may be adopting Web 2.0 applications/services at a fairly quick rate.

hmmm ... I don't buy this. Canadians have an understatement in their approach. On the other hand show me any rails shop that is better than Unspace in Toronto. unspace.ca

Or read Marks posts on Canadian internet startups.
http://www.mapleleaftwo.com

Or finally, check with Canada's evangilist David Crow, and all the BarCamp* stuff. http://davidcrow.ca/

Canadian VC's are constrained by Canada's market size but Canada isn't behind in the industry. More stats [sources available]:
- Canada leads US in online banking usage
- Canada leads US in blog readership

I don't think Canada necessarily lags behind the US in either the adoption or the development of Web 2.0 technologies, and I can offer up stats and examples that would support the argument that, in many ways, we're actually ahead of the US up here.

Of course, it depends on where one chooses to make the comparison - is the whole of Canada aggressively adopting the read/write Web at the rate of, say, companies in Silicon Valley? Well, no. And are large Canadian corporations adopting Web 2.0 environments as fast as some of their counterparts south of the 49th? Again, no - often because their budgets are simply so much smaller.

But in the development and wider geek communities there are some incredible centres of innovation and enthusiastic adoption right across Canada.

It's a different market, for sure, with a very different VC climate, but I don't get the feeling that we're lagging, except perhaps in one critical area.

I don't know if anyone discussed mobile data rates at your meetup, but this is the one huge and significant impediment to both innovation and adoption that we continue to face in the Great White North.

As Tom Purves eloquently pointed out, the mobile data rates offered by Canadian carriers are worse than a number of 3rd World countries (http://tinyurl.com/324qd4). The kind of unlimited data plans needed to make a product such as the iPhone commercially viable simply don't exist in Canada.

Until the Canadian telco monopolies' stranglehold is broken somehow, the true promise of the mobile aspects of Web 2.0 will never be realised. That's one very important area in which we will continue to lag and fall further behind both the US, Europe, and many other parts of the world.

Colin - I don't disagree in terms of all the activity here in Canada. I do think it's dispersed, unlike in the US where it's centralized in a couple places (and no one really talks about the rest of the country.)

As for VCs, you said: "Canadian VC’s are constrained by Canada’s market size but Canada isn’t behind in the industry."

I don't think VCs are constrained by our market size, because they should be funding projects that will have US-based and International success, not just success in Canada.

They might be constrained in terms of how much money they can raise from limited partners (because there's only so much in terms of investment dollars in Canada) but there are plenty of funds of decent-sized amounts. The investment focus isn't into Web/Web 2.0/Internet early stage startups...

I know it's a bit late to comment, but this is an interesting post Jeremiah. Reminds me a lot of the introspection that Singapore has on social media.

By the way, I love that little trick where you twist the camera in the final shot!

Since my comment comes late, it seems only fitting that it confirms the opinions of much of your web 2.0 participants.... that Canadians are slow adopters of some of these new tools.

But that is our business culture in general... much smaller companies and a more conservative investment climate means fewer risks are taken on new technologies.