The Tyranny of Distance
Quote from Rod Drury, founder and CEO of kiwi web email company AfterMail (which was acquired by Quest Software for US$45 million in January 2006):
"We demonstrate globally from our office in Wellington, install our products remotely and receive funds electronically. We have US phone numbers in our office. The barriers to global commerce are minimal. We don't really even think about, we just do it."
New Zealand is a tiny country of just over 4 million people, on the other side of the world to the US and Europe. We've historically had a chip on our shoulder about the distance we are from all the action, but in recent times Internet technology has improved our lot. As the NZ National Library wrote, when explaining their Digital Strategy:
"For generations we have laboured under the real or imagined burden of 'the tyranny of distance'. With the Internet comes 'the death of distance'. A recent report noted that 'for New Zealand, the Internet is the modern equivalent of the freezer ship that revolutionised our economy last century'."
I share Rod's optimism about the Internet enabling us kiwis to earn a living virtually. Still, I would love to attend some of those TechCrunch parties, or be able to work at a big Internet company in Silicon Valley, or pop round to a local wifi-enabled coffee shop and write my book (there's no free wifi anywhere near where I live). I guess location still counts for something, huh... :-)
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Most of my work is based in the US, but I too would love to be able to attend launch parties and grab a coffee and just chat together in person. In my experience, nothing beats a brainstorming session in person for bouncing ideas off each other.
Location still counts for internet pricing :-|
Posted by: Rachel C | February 22, 2006 2:46 PM
PS, Quite ironic to hear an American woman reading aloud your blog posts :)
Posted by: Rachel C | February 22, 2006 2:48 PM
Hi Richard, If you want free wifi hang out at Ground Floor cafe, on the corner of Customhouse Quay and Waring-Taylor street. It can be a bit noisy at times, but the coffee is not bad
Posted by: Joseph Lindsay | February 22, 2006 3:03 PM
Thanks Joe and yes I agree with you on the brainstorming point Rachel.
ps Thanks for reminding me re audio Rachel, I didn't have the audio link on the post pages - fixed now! :-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | February 22, 2006 3:34 PM
Richard,
What is the wifi footprint like in NZ? How about EV-DO?
Posted by: Alex Hutton | February 22, 2006 4:53 PM
Yeah, Rod Drury's post resonated with me also. Thanks to the internet I can a run web service developed in the Ukraine, designed in Indonesia, hosted in the US, with a payment processor in the US, bank accounts in Australia, and customers from just about every continent...in my spare time. The world has really changed (got real flat) in the last 10 years or so.
Posted by: Charles | February 22, 2006 7:01 PM
Ha ha, we share your frustration. We are also a NZ based business, even further afield, designing websites (and last year a web based business management suite) from Ohope beach in the Bay of Plenty. While we love and planned our move away from cities specifically to enjoy the ability to go for a surf, soak up some Kiwi summer then jump on high speed wireless connection, sometimes being this far away from 'the action' is noticable. However, on the upside, nearby Whakatane now has free wireless in one of the cafes, and we do have Webstock coming up in Welly :)
Posted by: Natalie | February 23, 2006 12:17 PM
Interestingly, I wrote about similar issues on my blog (and the same title no less) that I'm experiencing being based in Tasmania, and working with a team all over Australia, NZ and Singapore.
While you can get the work done and communicate with the rest of the team thanks to the internet, it's easy to get jealous of the "San Fransocial" scene, and the chances for networking outside of IM, IRC, skype, blogs, etc.
Still, I wouldn't trade my current lifestyle for the Valley... :-)
Oh, and I can totally relate to the Kiwi's here, after the NZ jokes are exhausted, my "mainland" Australian friends will happily start in with the Tasmanian jokes... ;-)
Posted by: Warren | February 23, 2006 3:29 PM
Alex, unfortunately I don't speak telecoms-geek, so I'm not sure what EV-DO is. :-) But maybe another kiwi will pop up in the comments to let us know. I do know there's planety of Wifi options to choose from, but widespread 'free wifi' hasn't yet reached our shores... apart from some isolated examples - e.g. the cafe Natalie spoke about. Nice location you're in Natalie - sun, surf...
In Wellington, CafeNet provides good coverage at reasonable rates: $20 for 70Mbytes or $80 for 350Mbytes. Well, reasonable for us anyway :-)
Warren, if those aussies start getting uppity - I like to remind them who holds the rugby TriNations Cup and the rugby league one too :-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | February 23, 2006 4:24 PM
I had nothing but good times, OK good times and really late nights demoing web software up into Aisa and the US, and making them feel like you're a hundred person wonder. While it took some solid initial travel, we got Energy Intellect's (energyintellect.com) web services delivered into Aussie and South East Asia from Wellington. And developing from NZ was always a positive part of the pitch when touring the US invesmnet banking and VC scene, everyone knows you need balance to generate great ideas.
Now in Ohope with Natalie, working on web design and teh web office great place for ideas, and to look after customers, skype calls are just that little bit better when you can gaze up the coast 200 k's and and admire the volcanoe offshore.
Posted by: Tim Norton | February 23, 2006 7:43 PM
Richard - CafeNet also does a "24 hour pass" for $10.
I think EV-DO is what Telecom calls "T3G".
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=3653
Posted by: Phillip Pearson | February 23, 2006 8:07 PM
"The price of data plans have dropped too. Rather than paying NZ$3 per megabyte, you can now get data at NZ$1 (US$ 0.69) per megabyte on the flexi plan, or buy 100 MB for NZ$52.44 – or NZ$0.50 (US$ 0.34) per megabyte. 100 MB might sound like a lot, but with EV-DO speeds averaging 500kbps, you can consume data at a much higher rate than previously."
Ouch! Verizon sells unlimited EV-DO for $65 per month! US $65 would only be, what 190 mb?
Oh well, it's nice to know that it's there if I finally pull the trigger on immigration.
Posted by: Alex Hutton | February 24, 2006 8:57 AM
The world is certainly changing and I hope to be on the other side of the world myself someday, managing my company in the states.
Posted by: big dog | February 24, 2006 11:38 AM