Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
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Brandon DonnellyHow smartwatches will augment location
So the rumors were right. Apple released a watch today. There will be 3 different “collections”, but lots of flexibility in terms of how each can be customized. There’s a big emphasis on health and fitness monitoring. Prices start at $350. And you’ll need an iPhone. Though you won’t be able to get one on your wrist until next year.
Who knows whether or not it’ll catch on in the same way that iPod and iPhone did, but I think it has a damn good shot (more on this below). They’ve clearly put a lot of thought into both usability and the whole fashion side of the equation, which obviously needed to be done. Given that most people today use their phone for the time, the watch market strikes me as being heavily about style.
In case you were wondering, here’s the watch market size as of 2013 (courtesy of Benedict Evans):
A lot of you might be skeptical about the need for a computer on your wrist (remember those watch calculators from the 80s?). But I think this time is different. Consider the number of people that now walk around with their phone in their hand and/or immediately pull it out whenever they have a free moment. We’ve become reliant (okay, addicted), to notifications and information.
But in many of those cases, the smartphone isn’t the most efficient medium to be delivering those messages. Just like it’s not ideal to have to reach into your pocket to figure out what time it is, I think the watch could emerge as a new and better medium for a bunch of other pieces of information. And the big one could be location-aware or contextually-aware notifications.
Here’s a tweet from Dennis Crowley – founder of Foursquare (Swarm) – talking about that exact thing:
For the record, still think that *contextually aware* notifications are the key to interesting wearables pic.twitter.com/XelR71XbEu
So the rumors were right. Apple released a watch today. There will be 3 different “collections”, but lots of flexibility in terms of how each can be customized. There’s a big emphasis on health and fitness monitoring. Prices start at $350. And you’ll need an iPhone. Though you won’t be able to get one on your wrist until next year.
Who knows whether or not it’ll catch on in the same way that iPod and iPhone did, but I think it has a damn good shot (more on this below). They’ve clearly put a lot of thought into both usability and the whole fashion side of the equation, which obviously needed to be done. Given that most people today use their phone for the time, the watch market strikes me as being heavily about style.
In case you were wondering, here’s the watch market size as of 2013 (courtesy of Benedict Evans):
A lot of you might be skeptical about the need for a computer on your wrist (remember those watch calculators from the 80s?). But I think this time is different. Consider the number of people that now walk around with their phone in their hand and/or immediately pull it out whenever they have a free moment. We’ve become reliant (okay, addicted), to notifications and information.
But in many of those cases, the smartphone isn’t the most efficient medium to be delivering those messages. Just like it’s not ideal to have to reach into your pocket to figure out what time it is, I think the watch could emerge as a new and better medium for a bunch of other pieces of information. And the big one could be location-aware or contextually-aware notifications.
Here’s a tweet from Dennis Crowley – founder of Foursquare (Swarm) – talking about that exact thing:
For the record, still think that *contextually aware* notifications are the key to interesting wearables pic.twitter.com/XelR71XbEu
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyHow smartwatches will augment location
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
— Dennis Crowley (@dens)
So what does this even mean?
It means walking into a restaurant and having a tip pop up on your watch telling you what the best dish is (as shown in the tweet above). It’s driving down the street and having your watch notify you that there’s an open house 3 blocks away (and then giving you directions). It’s walking into a condo building and having your watch tell you that one of your friends is having a party on the 23rd floor. And so on.
All of these notifications are currently already possible on your phone, but it’s not the ideal place for many of them. Which is why we’re all walking through life looking down at our phones. So while a computer strapped to your wrist may feel like we’re going further down that rabbit hole, it may actually free up more of our hands and our attention.
And I’m sure there are many other possibilities that nobody has even thought of yet. Location just feels like a big one to me.
— Dennis Crowley (@dens)
So what does this even mean?
It means walking into a restaurant and having a tip pop up on your watch telling you what the best dish is (as shown in the tweet above). It’s driving down the street and having your watch notify you that there’s an open house 3 blocks away (and then giving you directions). It’s walking into a condo building and having your watch tell you that one of your friends is having a party on the 23rd floor. And so on.
All of these notifications are currently already possible on your phone, but it’s not the ideal place for many of them. Which is why we’re all walking through life looking down at our phones. So while a computer strapped to your wrist may feel like we’re going further down that rabbit hole, it may actually free up more of our hands and our attention.
And I’m sure there are many other possibilities that nobody has even thought of yet. Location just feels like a big one to me.
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