This week's update is a quick one. Thanks for those who've contributed thus far - as always, if you have some Vancouver game industry news, contact me via my website.
Diving right in...
Klei Entertainment Signs with CAA
Jamie Cheng's company, Klei Entertainment, has signed with Creative Artists Agency. CAA represents well known people and companies such as thatgamecompany, Wil Wright and Steven Spielberg, among others. Klei are the developers behind Eets: Chowdown, the unpublished Sugar Rush (still in limbo after Nexon Vancouver, its publisher, folded), and their upcoming title, Shank.
New Media BC Seeks President
With New Media BC President Kenton Low set to move on to a new post at Bardel Entertainment, the organization is now actively seeking a new President. Just this week the job description went live and the search has begun. The #1 and #2 priorities for the next President, as listed in the job description, deal with increasing revenue for the association, most likely so more progress can be made in NMBC's efforts to establish interactive incentive programs similar to those in Eastern provinces.
Threewave's Dir of Prod Dev Resigns
Stephane Morichere-Matte, Director of Product Development at Threewave Software for the last 3 years, left the company recently to start his own consulting firm. Catchy Consulting specializes in risk management and project management for various publisher clients. The firm is already working with EA on an undisclosed title.
Artery Featured in The Escapist
On Tuesday, The Artery, Su Skerl's community for local artists and graphic designers, was featured in the well known game industry web magazine, The Escapist. If you're an artist not already familiar with The Artery, check it out. Every Thursday evening The Artery hosts "Draw Jams" at St Augustine's bar, an event that is well attended by not just artists, but producers and designers as well.
Adrian Crook is a game consultant based in North Vancouver. With over 14 years experience, Adrian designs and produces social, casual and AAA games for a variety of clients. He has spoken on the subject of free-to-play games at GDC and SXSW and writes articles for trade publications.
Threewave is The Multiplayer Game Development Studio. Our goal is to work closely with the world's finest game studios to provide services that... [more]
New Media BC is the association devoted to promoting and connecting BC's thriving digital media companies. Through networking events, peer-to-peer... [more]
Klei Entertainment is an award-winning game development studio based in beautiful Yaletown, Vancouver, BC. Starting from our humble beginnings as a... [more]
Adrian Crook, senior producer of Triple-A videogames and entertainment, lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife Lara, sons Oliver and Shepherd,... [more]
Open source software development has brought us many wonderful things. From Mozilla's Firefox web browser to free Microsoft Office alternative OpenOffice.org.
However, some have compared the movement of giving away products for free, sharing source code and collaborating with anyone who wants to pitch in to, well, communism.
With that perception in mind, Andrew Ross of the Free Open Source Software Learning Centre moderates a panel of industry, government and community representatives and asks: Is open source pro or anti-capitalism?
See the discussion in the video below.
These days everyone wishes they started the next big social media network, and the expansive online universe, in its enduring esoterica, hardly
fails to offer up new untapped niches for the social media model. That’s why Seattle startup Timu is taking it upon themselves to provide the connective and community-building capabilities of social media to the world of organized amateur sport.
Think about it, playing for sports team in the past (for those of us who found that sort of thing appealing), what communicative powers did we have? Team meetings? Phone calls from the coach? The always satisfying Team Banquet? Timu, led by social media veteran Matt Heaton, has built a platform that will allow amateur athletes, teams, and leagues to coordinate schedules and rosters, post stats and pictures, and generally engage the sports community. Imagine being able to compare your batting average to hundreds of thousands of sporting amateurs in the world, and then, provided your average is sufficient, sending a few cheeky remarks to tomorrow’s opponents. Or watching bowling video posts from last night's local league play to keep an eye on the tournament. Sounds like fun.
Of course, Timu aren’t the only people who have thought of this; there are scores of social media networks in the making out there, even in the sports genre, such as WePlay -- endorsed by LeBron James himself-- Sportsvite, and Vancouver’s own TeamPages. And we can’t forget that that heavyweights like Facebook will be hoping to keep sports groups in it’s enormous, multifaceted fold. But for Matt Heaton there’s is much inadequacy in the existing platforms out there, and he would know a thing or two about social media building, having co-founded the popular Active Rain real estate network.
Timu launches this week.
TeamPages is an online social network and utility for amateur sports that makes it easier for coaches, team managers and players to: manage their... [more]
Timu provides a social networking platform for amateur athletes and sports teams at Timu.com [more]
The ongoing debate over the relevance and value of social media was auspiciously added to last month, with an inventive job-hunting campaign that has many observers scratching their unemployed heads. We’ve all been in the depths of a particularly nasty job hunt; blaring through job postings until they transcend our dreamscape, endlessly typing out applications from an inbox full of no-replies. So it’s been refreshing to many to hear the story of Vancouver creative Chris Kahle, who landed his dream job through a twitter campaign he devised for himself.
Coveting a creative position at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a Colorado ad agency, Chris posted a clever online job request imploring CP+B to hire him, and he invited the twitter users to help him out by re-tweeting the link to his would-be bosses Alex Bogusky and Jeff Benjamin of CP+B. As a show of good faith, he committed himself to donate $1 to charity for the first 200 tweets.
A couple weeks later with 80 tweets sent on his behalf, his project site had received 10,000 visitors and he found himself accepting the position he had so desired at CP+B. What’s more, he started a whole twitter debate over his campaign, with hundreds of commenters responding and giving their opinion. Predictably, the spectrum was represented from those who felt compelled to denounce him and all he stood for, to those who thought it was clever and fun, and probably a few people who didn’t quite get it.
The real success was that it managed to ignite conversation, which gave it legs to spread far and wide, and garner attention. It’s a perfect example of how the collective intelligence of the online community can be harnessed for a focussed goal, and how decentralized communication modes are beginning to blaze trails through the conventional mediums and their power bases. Now if only I had thought of it.
In a nondescript office at Airport Executive Park in Richmond, Vancouver, one small company is looking to shape the future of mobile media.
Disternet, headed by CEO Fay Arjomandi, is planning for the day when cell phones don’t just hold your music collection but also open up your phone to the world’s media in real time. And Arjomandi doesn’t just want to stream video to your phone, she wants to personalize that content specifically to you.In fact, the company has created software prototypes that assist telecom companies to accomodate personalized content and customization.
While Disternet has yet to make a profit, it comes with a decent pedigree. Arjomandi founded L3 and Mobidia before starting up Disternet, which boasts an advisory board including execs from Cisco and Telus.
But even with an impressive resume, competition in the mobile space is heating up like never before. Everyone acknowledges that not only is mobile THE destination platform for development (after all, it’s the only platform that’s always with you) but the new generation of smartphones are pushing the space forward in ways that seemed inconceivable even a year or two ago.
Mobidia provides wireless operators with the ability to better monitor, manage, and monetize IP data traffic and offer their mobile subscribers... [more]
We are building an exciting product; an innovative breakthrough solution for the broadband operators worldwide. We are a group of successful serial... [more]
Here are five job opportunities that caught our eye on the Techvibes Vancouver Job Board this week. Check out the full job descriptions and get your resume in asap if you're interested.
If you're hiring and would like your job opportunities profiled here, add them to our Job Board and we'll see what we can do.
Hays Specialist Recruitment Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hays plc, which has been at the forefront of recruitment for over thirty-five... [more]
Simply put, our creative thinking and strategic approach enables companies to elevate brand equity. Combined with the ability to fuse proven and... [more]
We are the leading software company in our niche of the entertainment industry with clients that include major motion picture studios in Los... [more]
The British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) is a not-for-profit member services organization with more than 792, 310 members in British... [more]
SoMedia Networks is building Broadband Network Three (BBN3) websites in major cities across North America and then internationally to provide a... [more]
There's more than the Stampede going on in July in Calgary. While it's true that the tech scene does slow here are some events to sate the appetite.
Google Book Settlement Luncheon - July 14. A one hour luncheon put on by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. John King, Senior Editor of University of Calgary Press and President of the BPAA, will present a session on the Google settlement and what courses of action to take as the deadline to register with Google approaches. Details on event here. The latest news on the Google Book settlement.
Digital Painting Workshop - July 18. Digital Alberta is presenting a one-day workshop with Jaysin from DPI Studios. A quote from Jaysin's blog.
I will be primarily focusing on Photoshop and how to use it as a digital painting tool. I’ll take students through the completion of a painting from preparing the line art to the finishing touches and all points in-between. I’ve been using Photoshop for 13 years, so I’ve got a tip or two to share that I have learnt along the way.
You can find all the details here.
Casual Connect - July 21-23. Digital Alberta is accepting applications from game developers to attend Casual Connect - Gamers Conference. If you are interested email Rene Smid to receive an application. Applications are due by July 10. If you are chosen you receive $1,500.00 upon completion of the event and submission of all required activity reports and receipts. Last year Digital Alberta sent people from Games Cafe, Ph03nix New Media, Light Box Entertainmen tand Hire Line of Action.
Quick Note - This program is still waiting on funding.
Digital Alberta is an industry-led organization devoted to promoting and connecting our thriving digital media community across Alberta, Canada.... [more]
The City of Edmonton's IT branch is slowly but surely transforming itself from an inefficient, closed part of the City's corporate services department to an innovative, efficient, and transparent entity. On Friday, June 26th, the first ever IT Vendor Open House was held at the Shaw Conference Centre downtown, bringing local technology professionals together with City employees to discuss how to do business with one another. It was a big success, and was just the first of many new events being organized by the IT branch.
I think a more open IT branch is vital for Edmonton to become an open city. They're working to share more of what they do with the community, and more importantly, are starting to participate (City of Edmonton CIO Chris Moore spoke at TransitCamp in May, and is attending a number of other community events) and crowdsource. I'm encouraged by the changes they are making, and look forward to more in the coming months!
You can read more about Transforming the City of Edmonton's IT Branch here.
Edmonton-based youth social netowrking site Nexopia is taking on Classmates.com head on with a new Facebook app that helps users find and connect with former classmates ranging from elementary school to university.
Of course, you've heard of Classmates.com.
I'd guess that every high school graduate in North America with an email address has at some point received an unsoliticed email from Classmates.com. You know the ones - "a former classmate is trying to contact you" and if you are naive enough to click-thru, you'll be upsold a premium Classmates.com membership only to find out that school's out for summer... and your high school buddies are somewhere else online. And it turns out there are quite a few lonely grads that aren't happy with Classmates.com's antics.
Well, we all know where your former classmates are now - on Facebook. And Facebook and Classmates.com just might be the best way to describe Web 2.0 and Web 1.0, respectively.
Smart move by Nexopia. As a social networking site specifically targeted to the high school demographic, it isn't likely even their most faithful power users will be using the site ten years post-graduation to organize a high school reunion. A Facebook app with some traction will allow Nexopia to keep in touch with its youth roots for years to come.
Facebook and free classmate-uniting apps should make Classmates.com's parent comany United Online, Inc. very nervous. They've built up a business with over 50 Million registered users, 4.6 Million subscribers, and $200 Million in annual revenue.
No doubt they're regretting pulling their IPO that was planned for late 2007.
A true internet success story, Nexopia grew from a small online community of teens in Edmonton Alberta to become Canada’s largest social... [more]
To celebrate Canada Day, Vancouver startup AdHack launched a new version of their site yesterday. The new site marks two bigs steps in the evolution of the People-Powered Advertising solution.
For the nerds out there, AdHack migrated from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6.
For everyone else, AdHack has added features to help both ad buyers and ad creators rock their respective businesses.
AdHack users will now notice two feedback mechanisms - Cred and Badges. Cred is simply reputation currency that you build up by doing good work. Badges are virtual badges that are displayed in your portfolio as rewards for achieveing milestones (selling an ad, etc.) on AdHack.
Most importantly, AdHack has moved yet another step closer to their ulitmate vision of being a marketplace for advertising creative. The new AdHack also includes more information on ads - media types, industry categories, location information, "For Sale" status, pricing, and client & product info to help match ads to the right buyers.
AdHack is part of the inaugural intake at Bootup Labs and is set to graduate in September 2009. Stay tuned.
AdHack is a community and market for people-powered advertising. Anyone can create an ad. Anyone can buy an ad. Like an eBay for advertising,... [more]
Bootup Labs is a startup accelerator in Vancouver, BC that helps founders and companies go "from zero to fundable." Bootup Labs recruits promising... [more]
