The cable explosion in the early 1980s showcased the public’s desire for variety, but Bruce Springsteen was largely right. There was “57 Channels (and nothing on).” Remember those days?! There was nothing but Pro-bowling on the sports channels and station after station of infomercials. Who can forget Ronco’s GLH (Great Looking Hair) and the George Forman Grill. Now I have some 700 specialty channels. I can time shift. I can watch whatever, whenever. I can watch a Return of the Jedi, Aliens, and Star Trek II all in the same night; in 1995, I’d have to run to the video rental place to borrow three VHS tapes.

It took some 20 years for the desired content and technology to converge. We’ve solved the whatever and the whenever, and only the wherever remains. The wherever explosion is mobile applications which are bringing together content, social networking and feedback in a meaningful way. There are over 1,000,000 apps in the Apple App Store. Each application is like a TV channel. There are a lot of channels with nothing on, or with static content that never changes. Purple Forge is paving the way to build compelling broadcast channels with the mechanisms to spread good content, and gather relevant feedback that can be used to make content better - something it took the cable industry over 20 years to figure out!

Last week a controversy erupted on Parliament Hill in Ottawa tied to how parties use government resources to mail partisan messages into their ridings, as well as ridings they don’t hold (called 10-per-centers) as a means of creating a ground swell of support. The Globe and Mail covered it, including a link to Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff’s letter to the Speaker of the House outlining the practice (http://tinyurl.com/ydxapkn) and his call for it to end.

I think the real travesty is not the act of delivering a partisan message, as pointed out in the note, but in parties using taxpayer’s money on these mailers, of which 90% ends up in the bottom of the recycling bin without ever being read! They aren’t cheap either. Each one costs about a dollar, and one-half of that goes to a printer and the other half to Canada Post or a paid service to slide them into your mailbox where they will be quickly passed over in favour of the latest Wal-Mart flier. By the way, is that movie the Bachelor Party out on DVD out yet?

Politicians must realize that if they want to deliver their message to the home, the mobile web is the place to go! It sits in the pocket of every household member, and will never get tossed in the recycling bin. For those that like to read the information (and that’s about 10% of us), the mobile format even makes the information easy to forward onto your friends using social networking.

I’m a huge proponent of environmental consciousness, but even more so about getting value out of my government. Why not allow people opt-out of receiving printed rhetoric from the government, and agree to have it sent to them through mobilized, socially networked applications? The Canadian Banks do this with their printed statements. After heaping praise on our banks during the financial crisis for their fiscal management, why wouldn’t the government follow their lead? My brother is the director of environmental affairs for one of these banks and has explained how it’s one of their best cost recovery programs. That would be a better headline than the ones last week!

“Government institutes cost savings measures for communicating with the public.”

The technology is available to bypass the cost, expense and rapid transition of printed flyers and my company just happens to provide it.  Hey, you can call me biased, but don’t call me wasteful!

This message was endorsed by the campaign to get more people to buy Purple Forge (www.purpleforge.com) mobile application services for community engagement.  Natch!