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]
For those of you out there that love stats and monitoring trends, here are the Top 10 blog posts published on Techvibes during June based on pageviews.
As you can see, the popluar posts were spread across a variety of contributors but Amielle Lake's post stole the show with over 5,000 pageviews helping Techvibes record is highest traffic month ever.
Thanks to everyone. If you're interested in seeing how you would fare against this all-star team of contributors, send me a note and become a guest contibutor.
Techvibes.com is the leading online community for technology professionals in Vancouver and across Canada. Techvibes.com provides an easy-to-use... [more]
The world-renowned Internet Marketing Conference (IMC) is returning to Vancouver for 2009 and they've nailed down a great keynote. Avinash Kaushik is the Analytics Evangelist at Google and people that have heard him speak before say that he can change the thinking of a company in just one hour. Check out his Web Analytics blog titled Occams' Razor for a little background.
Early-bird registration for IMC Vancouver 2009 is open until July 31st - so be sure to register now if you're interested.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission,... [more]
Techvibes is pleased to announce that Robert Janelle is our new Community Manager in Ottawa. Bob will be focused on covering local tech startups, news and events in Ottawa.
He also suffers from a mild addiction to video games. More of his writing and ramblings can be read on his personal blog and Twitter.
Feel free to connect with Bob by email at bobjanelle@techvibes.com if you'd like him to write about your startup, news, or event in Ottawa.
Techvibes is looking for Community Managers for all of our network cities - if you're interested, be sure to contact us now.
Techvibes.com is the leading online community for technology professionals in Vancouver and across Canada. Techvibes.com provides an easy-to-use... [more]
Victoria's Neverblue Media has signed an exclusive agreement with dating site eHarmony to expand its performance marketing in Australia. The exclusive arrangement in Australia expands Neverblue’s existing relationship with eHarmony.
Neverblue currently harnesses more than 10,000 publishers in a controlled and effective manner to help its clients efficiently grow their businesses by paying only for quality leads.
"We have a great partnership with eHarmony," stated Ryan Gerhardt, Neverblue's Business Development Manager for Dating. "They have a strong brand and their online matchmaking service has proven to be extremely effective. Together, we are poised to approach key international markets and help fuel their continued expansion.”
"The eHarmony and Neverblue relationship shows how joint strategic focus can drive growth and profits internationally for both clients and service providers," said Hakan Lindskog, CEO of Neverblue. "We are investing aggressively in Australia to accelerate profitable growth for both parties."
Neverblue has become a leader in the global lead generation and delivers millions of profitable customers to clients from all over the world. Neverblue is a wholly-owned, Canadian subsidiary company of Vertrue Inc., an $800 Million Internet direct marketing services company.
Neverblue is on a serious roll in 2009 - they picked up VIATeC's Employer of the Year Award and the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year Award.
Based in Victoria, British Columbia, Neverblue Media is a performance-based online marketing company that specializes in lead generation and client... [more]
Every year the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters recognize British Columbia's top exporters and The BC Export Awards include a couple categories that might be of interest to tech companies. The Leadership, New Exporter, Advancing Technologies, and New Media & Entertainment categories are open to all BC companies that have been exporting a product or service for two or more years.
The BC Export Awards is a great opportunity for the tech community to support their local industry and showcase entrepreneurialism from across the province. This will be the 27th annual BC Export Awards and previous winners will congregate in Vancouver in November to celebrate BC's Top 25 exporters.
“It was an truly an honour to be recognized as an export leader in British Columbia,” said Dr. John MacDonald, Chairman and CEO of Day4Energy, winner of Exporter of the Year award at the 2008 BC Export Awards. “The award has resulted in increased local awareness and support of our achievements and our employees are motivated by this recognition.”
You can nominate an outstanding exporter or apply for an award online. The deadline for nominations has been extended to July 10th and the application deadline is July 31st.
Day4 Energy Inc. is a Vancouver-based solar energy company formed in 2001 to revolutionize solar power use in industrial, commercial, utility, and... [more]
Student-powered startup EasyPlug is taking a page from Apple's playbook and applying it to a much bigger market. The Vancouver company has created the EasyPlug - "a patentable, innovative, magnetic technology for electrical plugs and sockets". No doubt inspired by Apple's MagSafe power connector which MacBook users worldwide are very familiar with.
The EasyPlug technology can be incorporated into electronic devices or used in a two-piece magnetic adapter. One piece of the adaptor attaches to the electric cord while the other piece plugs into a wall socket. The two pieces are held together magnetically, such that the metal contacts provide power to the device. When someone is about to trip over the cord, the adaptor separates at the magnetic connection, reducing the likelihood that the individual will fall down, as well as reducing the probability of the connected device falling to the ground and breaking.
EasyPlug's technology eliminates the tripping hazard presented by any power cord by detaching when the cord experiences an abnormal force - saving both the device attached to the cord and the person potentially tripping over the cord.
Congrats to the New Venture Design Program at UBC where EasyPlug was conceived. The program brings together outstanding business and engineering students with the goal of developing a new product and its alumni inclue Energy Aware and PeerFX. The EasyPlug team consists of Ryan Fetterly, Max Miller, Shane Miller-Tait and Jay Jagpal.
EasyPlug has received several awards to date including 2nd Place Nationally at Enterprize Canada, 2009 New Entrepreneur at TieQuest Toronto and Finalists at Hong Kong Polytechnic University Challenge.
Look out for EasyPlug in the news again this fall - they're in the Top 30 for this year's New Venture BC Competition.
The EasyPlug is a patentable, innovative, magnetic technology for electrical plugs and sockets. The technology mitigates the tripping hazard... [more]
