Verdict: PARK ANYWHERE, AND DON’T PAY EVERYBADY!!!

Verdict: The Court ruled against UBC, and ticketing is illegal, and people are allowed to recoup their losses.

More details to come (check this post for constant updates as they come).

• 4:47pm- full verdict document: Judge Goepel Re: Barbour v. The University of British Columbia (warning: it’s long)
• 8:19pm- areas of verdict to pay attention to:

[73]
Considering the merits of this matter, it is noteworthy that almost half of UBC’s tickets go unpaid. The person who has been penalized by UBC’s regime is the good citizen whose natural instinct is to trust that UBC has the power to impose the Parking Regulation Fines and pays the fine when it is demanded. There is something fundamentally unfair that those good citizens should not recover the money that UBC had no right to collect in the first instance.

[80]
The Parking Regulation Fines are ultra vires. UBC cannot enter contracts or licenses that incorporate the Parking Regulation Fines. UBC’s common law proprietary rights authorize the towing and storage of vehicles parked contrary to the Parking Regulations. UBC is entitled to collect the costs arising from such towing. UBC cannot, however, rely on its proprietary rights to charge or collect the Parking Regulation Fines. The plaintiff and other class members are entitled to restitution in the amount of the Parking Regulation Fines subject only to applicable defences under the Limitations Act, towing and storage charges and the applicability of UBC’s claim of set-off which has yet to be resolved.

• 10:27am – April 1st – CBC article about the verdict here.

Credit: Fubiz.net

• Cut, copy & paste
• Voice memos app
• Landscape typing on major apps
• Stream music over bluetooth to devices (i.e. wireless headphone, wireless speakers)
• Push notifications (instant messaging notifications while your app is off)
• System-wide search (spotlight for the iPhone)
• MMS!
• Tethering!!!!
• Play peer-to-peer games over bluetooth and wifi
• Ingame voice chat!
• Turn-by-turn directions for certain apps that choose to build it in
• Some apps can now charge you more money INSIDE the app for additional game levels and other features, etc etc. (this will be really annoying)

Jason Calacanis (founder of Weblogs, Inc., Mahalo) caused quite a stir today when he offered a serious sum of money to Twitter to be listed on the “suggested users” list on Twitter. A little bit of background: the suggested users list has catapulted people like Britney Spears and Kevin Rose to 250,000+ followers. I can understand Jason’s offer and his frustration as well – this user list has been seemingly arbitrarily put together and has converted to a phenomenal amount of followers for the people in question. There is immense value in a massive list of followers that are genuinely interested in following you and your updates – for example, let’s say that 10% of your followers list will view your link or view your message details – that’s almost 25,000 people at that instant. And that’s not counting retweets, social bookmarking, and digg referrals.

This 10% number is not out of thin air, however. I measure the clicks on the links that I tweet out through Hootsuite every so often. Out of the 160 followers that I have, on average – I usually receive 25-30 click throughs. Assuming that some of these clicks might ahve been for fun, a 10% rate is a conservative amount that could maybe be applied to other users and the nature of their followers. No one’s saying that it can’t be higher, however.

This has also serious implications about a potential revenue stream for Twitter. If people or even companies are willing to pay to be on this list – maybe, just maybe, there can be a sponsored users list. I’m jumping to naming this list the “sponsored” users list, because once the online community realizes that this list has been tainted with users that are paying themselves in, the genuine suggestive nature of the list can be seriously compromised.

Link: The amount and value of Twitter traffic