Entries from the 'Digital Media' category
Electronic Arts gets an Agent
Historically video game producers have relyed heavily on established comic book and literary franchises for game concepts but it seems the tables have turned and the list of films based on video games continues to grow.
Electronic Arts (EA) announced today that it has signed on with Hollywood talent and literary agency United Talent Agency (UTA) for representation in motion pictures and television. UTA will help the company develop a comprehensive strategy for moving its intellectual property into the realm of large-budget motion pictures and television series.
EA’s portfolio of titles includes top-selling franchises such as Army of Two and Need for Speed as well as eagerly awaited new titles such as Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge. The relationship is expected to significantly ramp up EA’s film and television slate, which currently includes a feature version of the popular The Sims game in script development at 20th Century Fox with producer John Davis and a MySims animated television series in development at Film Roman. EA is also in production with Starz/Film Roman on an animated DVD feature version of its new title Dead Space to launch with the game.
IAB Canada presents MIXX Conference
Knowing that the interactive media advertising landscape is changing at a faster rate every year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada is gearing up for their MIXX Canada Conference Series (formerly Interactive to the Max) this fall. MIXX Canada is designed to keep marketers and advertisers ahead of the curve, by focusing on leading-edge speakers, from both within Canada and around the globe.
The speaker line-ups are taking shape and the Toronto event looks particularily strong with Jacque-Hervé Roubert, President and CEO of Nurun, serving as a keynote. Nurun is a Quebecor Media company specializing in Interactive communications and technology services.
Full-day conferences take place in Toronto on Monday, September 29th at the Carlu and in Montreal on Monday, October 6, 2008 at the Marriott Château Champlain. Half-day roadshows will make their way across Canada immediately after - Montreal (Oct. 7th), Halifax (Oct. 8th), Ottawa (Oct. 15th), Calgary (Oct. 16th), Vancouver (Oct. 17th) and back to Toronto (Oct. 20th).
BarCampVancouver goes September 27th
The event organizers have polled the Vancouver tech company and the people have spoken - BarCampVancouver08 is set for September 27th. It’s the third annual event for Techcouver and should be bigger and better than ever with the registration capped at 225. As always, registration is free, so be sure to sign up early to avoid disappointment.
It’s going to be a busy week in Vancouver. BarCamp will also be playing host to two smaller mini-camps - WordPressCamp and PhotoCamp and Thursday, September 25th is National Digital Media Day which will wrap up with LaunchPartyVancouver5.
Toronto Social Media Group Grows
Toronto’s Social Media Group (SMG) has signed a letter of intent to purchase Washington, DC-based Livingston Communications, a highly respected social PR firm. Former CEO Geoff Livingston, author of Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs, will continue to head the DC office and join SMG’s global team as Executive Vice President, Americas. The acquisition will bring SMG’s collective staff to 20, making them the world’s largest independent social media marketing and communications firm.
SMG’s collective client list is impressive - Ford, SAP, Network Solutions, Yamaha, Harlequin Publishing - and Founder Maggie Fox is ready to go toe-to-toe with any traditional agency’s social media practice.
In the process, SMG will acquire the popular Buzz Bin blog (if you’re wondering why Livingston sold out, of course he’s blogged his Top 10 Reasons Why I Sold Out) and Blog Potomac conference. Add this all to Fox’s blog (named one of the Top 10 technology bloggers in Canada) and we’ve got a serious Canadian powerhouse in our midst.
Cambrian House Makes Good on Greedy or Needy
Calgary’s Cambrian House and Vancouver’s MakeGood Technologies announced today that MakeGood will license the Cambrian House’s Chaordix crowdsourcing platform and acquire Cambrian House’s GreedyorNeedy peer-to-peer charity community. Cambrian House will receive a combination of cash and MakeGood equity as proceeds for this transaction.
MakeGood is a Vancouver-based firm specializing in applying crowdsourcing to charity, dubbed Giving 2.0. The agreement with MakeGood is a natural next step in Cambrian House’s Chaordix strategy. The Chaordix platform allows organizations to use crowdsourcing as a critical business process and was a natural fit for underpinning the MakeGood offering.
MakeGood’s CEO is Richard Goossen, the author of E-PRENEUR: From Wall Street to Wiki: Succeeding as a Crowdpreneur in the New Virtual Marketplace. As part of this transaction, Shelley Kuipers, President of Cambrian House and Michael Sikorsky, Chief Executive Officer of Cambrian House, have agreed to join MakeGood as advisors, collaborating as thought leaders in crowdsourcing to assist MakeGood in its business and community strategies.
Apple Store opens in West Edmonton Mall
This morning the brand new Apple Store in West Edmonton Mall finally opened. Sharon and I arrived at 9:15am, and found ourselves at the back of a line roughly 200 people long. A few of the people I talked to near the front of the line had been waiting since 6am, and apparently one guy camped out overnight. That’s the kind of dedication one would expect for the launch of an Apple Store.
As the grand opening time of 10am neared, the sales associates exited the store cheering and proceeded to run the length of the line, high-fiving everyone as they went. It was a nice way to say “thanks for waiting!” Eventually they opened the doors and started letting people in. Before we knew it we were entering the store, shaking hands with the greeters who continued to cheer. Each person received a little white box which contained a black T-shirt that reads “West Edmonton” with an Apple logo beside it. I was amazed that they just continued to let people in…there were probably fifty employees to begin with, so the place was just packed!
My first experience with an Apple Store was at the flagship outlet on Fifth Avenue in New York back in December. The WEM store is quite a bit smaller (and doesn’t have the wicked glass cube overtop) but it still contains all of the elements that I love about Apple Stores: free Wi-Fi, the Genius Bar, roaming sales clerks with wireless payment devices, and of course, lots of excellent Apple gadgets.
We hung around for a bit, used the free Wi-Fi, chatted with people we ran into, and eventually I bought a Universal iPod Dock (had to buy something!). They were still giving out free T-shirts when we left just after 11am. We’ll have to wait and see what effect, if any, the Apple Store has on Westworld Computers but either way I’m glad that Edmonton is now a “have” city.
There were lots of people with digital still and video cameras (lots of Flips actually) so it’s safe to say that the grand opening was well-documented. You can see all of my photos and videos of the grand opening here.
BC’s Organ Donor Program goes Electronic
The touchy subject of organ donation has been rife with legal and moral issues; most notably, the rights of the donor being overridden by well-meaning but short-sighted family members. Now BC Transplant has partnered with Vancouver’s Recombo to eliminate these issues and revolutionize the way Canadians approach organ donation by going online vs. standing in lines.
BC Transplant has fully integrated Recombo’s technology into its organ donor registry, allowing donors to electronically complete forms with a legally binding digital signature that cannot be contested once signed. Implemented on a wholly digital platform, this technology makes BC Transplant the only fully functioning, legal, paperless organ donor registry in Canada, providing a cost-effective and green solution to upholding the rights of the donor.
British Columbians can now register their decision on BC’s Organ Donor Registry more quickly and efficiently using the customized donor registration form that offers a legal and paperless online alternative to mailing in forms. The entire registration process is housed online in a secure system that functions similarly to online banking systems. Once a form is completed, registrants generate a legally binding digital signature verifying their organ donation decision. Consent cannot be overturned or changed by anyone else, other than the registrant at a later date.
This is an incredibly smart use of web technology - Congrats to BC Transplant and Recombo. And remember Organ Donor Stickers on your CareCard are useless - you must register with the organ donor registry to make it official.
Great Northern Way Campus Open House
Vancouver’s Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC) is hosting an open house tomorrow (Saturday, June 21st) from 10am until 3pm in their Centre for Digital Media.
GNWC is a unique, collaborative university campus environment that combines the strengths of four leading academic institutions: University of British Columbia; Simon Fraser University; Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. An urban campus, GNWC has the mandate to intersect arts, technology and the environment in a manner that bridges academia with industry, artists with technology, and innovation with development. It is an integrative environment that builds community and celebrates innovation.
Come celebrate Vancouver’s emerging centre of innovation in sustainability, arts & culture, and digital media with live performances, an exhibition of works by local artists, and fun hands-on activities.
Canadian Start-Up Index coming July 1st
Our Techvibes Start-Up Indexes have been a huge success to date, so we’re listening to our readers and launching a Canada-wide index on Canada Day - July 1, 2008. The comprehensive index will incorporate all of our current city indexes as well as start-ups in smaller communities.
So if you know of a worthy start-up that is located in Vancouver, Victoria, Alberta, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, or Atlantic Canada, be sure to visit these individual indexes and add your suggestions to the comment strings.
Even more importantly, if you know of any start-ups that don’t fall within the previously defined regions, add them to the comments of this blog post and we’ll be sure to add them to the Canada-wide list.
The Canadian Top 10 should be the who’s who of web start-ups - the only question that remains is whether Vancouver’s MetroLyrics will be able to hold off Toronto’s rapidly improving b5media for the #1 spot.
Canadian DMCA is a MASSIVE FAIL
The Canadian DMCA has just been tabled by the House of Commons, and from what I can tell (gleaned from Michael Geist’s excellent blog post) it’s a complete and total ruinous mess for the future of electronic media in Canada. Let’s, just for a second, get past the spectre of evil pirates stealing content from hard-working, impoverished studios and record companies. This bill makes it illegal for anyone to transfer music they bought off a CD and onto their own iPod. It also makes it illegal to unlock an iPhone or other locked digital devices, to the tune of a $20,000 fine. So the fact that I’ve been carting around said iPhone for the last six months is apparently more important than the fact that our representatives in Parliament consort with gangster molls or that the Alberta tar sands are an ecological disaster area. No, people downloading the latest Coldplay album is what our law enforcement services should concern themselves with.
The real irony here is that the studios are the authors of their own destruction. If these laws are actually enforceable, all that will happen is that people won’t bother to watch copyrighted material anymore. The means of production are cheaper than ever, and more and more people are watching amateur video, citizen journalism and other user generated content. The drive for self-preservation will actually accelerate the decline and fall of big media, by its own hand.
And the potential damage from this bill doesn’t just affect individuals. Companies in the business of moving and storing content, like Domain7, have already expressed concerns (check their news section for their take on the bill).
What can you do to voice your concerns about this bill? Email your member of Parliament (I just did, for the very first time), join online groups like the Fair Copyright for Canada group on Facebook, and join the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, and other groups advocating for digital rights.
