This month's Business 2.0 magazine has a distinct BC flavor and confirms that Canada's Western most province is a hotbed for tech startups. The cover story titled 'The Next Disruptors' features not one, but two Vancouver companies that are getting set to roll up traditional markets.
NewspaperDirect's Adget promises to throw the newspaper advertising industry for a loop. Adget is a new kind of ad that allows online readers to interact with a business - make an appointment, book a restaurant table, even order a product - without ever leaving the newspaper website. Want to arrange a test-drive at a local car dealership while flipping through the sports page? Adget can do it.
Photo Violation Technologies is boosting city parking revenues while making coin-only meters obsolete. The Photo Violation Meter (PVM) will allow you to swipe a credit card rather than hunt for quarters, but it will also call your mobile phone before your meter expires and give you the option of adding minutes to the meter without returning to your car. PVMs are currently installed in San Francisco and Vancouver as part of a $1 Million trial with IBM. Parkers beware: if you fail to pay, the PVM will snap a photo of your license plate.
PressDisplay is an aggregated information service which provides instant access to over 350 leading newspapers from 60 countries, in 35 different... [more]
Photo Violation Technologies Corp. has developed the patented PhotoViolationMeter™ Solution that Perfects How People Park™. Our new solution is... [more]
As least Vancouver went out with a bang - this may be the last issue of Business 2.0. It's a sad day.
http://mashable.com/2007/07/16/business-20-getting-the-axe/
And it looks like Photo Violation Technologies is going out with a whimper.