Finally, good news for Canadians who always get the technological shaft. This summer is gearing up to be a good one! First, Rogers finally announced they will be carrying the iPhone, then RIM announces the release of the Blackberry Bold which is set to be released around Christmas times although my sources say we could be expecting a release much sooner. (More likely around the time of the iPhone release, me thinks!)

Anyway, the latest announcement comes from Apple, who announced today that they will be finally bringing movies to iTunes Canada. This comes TWO years after the US iTunes launch.

So, fellow Canucks, go forth and browse; there are over 1,200 movies available for rent or purchase. You’ll be able to purchase movies on the same day as the DVD release, including 200 HD titles.

If you want to start shopping, make sure you have the latest version of iTunes (7.6.2).

Pricing:

Catalog Titles $9.99

Recent Releases $14.99

Recent Releases $19.99

The Magic Number is Five

You know, as we move way from physical DVDs and into a more digital age, the question of pricing and the value of the movies we watch came to mind. Would you be willing to pay $20 for a new release? That sounded a little bit high to me. I personally like the $5 mark. It’s around what you pay for a cup of coffee these days (alright, maybe it’s froufrou coffee but you pay it none-the-less) and most people don’t feel the impact of $5. In fact, I think that price would encourage you to pick up more than one movie.

With the burden of producing physical dvd’s decreasing, you would think that Apple would try to take advantage the limitless of volume. You reach more people that way. It’s why the iTunes store worked so well, I mean who is going to miss $0.99? I mean, sure it adds up over time, but at $20 bucks a pop, five movies will cost you a hundred dollars. It’s all a matter of value perception.

I guess the bigger question is what are these movies worth? With budgets and production costs increasing, will film companies be able to make the money back if we lower prices? On the other hand, having prices which make it reasonable to compete with…well…illegal downloading would also benefit the industry on the whole.

As Digital takes over…

Either way, the film industry is changing. The impacts are going to be felt by everyone, including video rental stores. I found this funny video from The Onion that pokes humor at this fact by turning a Blockbuster Video Store into a living museum where visitors can see what the world was like before the advent of iTunes. I laughed when I watched it, but really, are we that far off?
Historic 2018Blockbuster2019 Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past

As many of you know I’m working on the second edition of a book called “Everything I needed to know about business I learned from a Canadian.”

The book features profiles from leading Canadians on a variety of business topics. There has been a lot of conversation around the differences between the rise of new internet companies and the old dot com crash. One of the major differences is the launch strategy that many of these new companies use while getting started vs. the old dot com guys. Firstly, there are no early investment in office spaces etc. Instead we are seeing young entrepreneurs who are all living and working out of the same house.

In the past few days we’ve interviewed Stewart Butterfield (Founder FlickR), Garrett Camp (Founder StumbleUpon) and Debbie Landa (Founder Deal Maker Media) and I’ll be posting some excerpts of those interviews in the next few days, because I think they shed some valuable insights on how much the philosophy of starting a business has changed from five years go.

Check out the trailer for the movie called August that follows a young dot-com entrepreneur struggling to keep his start-up venture afloat during the dot com crash. It involves flashy cars, pretty women and mean, apathetic investors.

I think it’s interesting given the recent wave of dot-coms seems to feature shy-self professed geeks. What do you guys think?