The 3rd annual Canadian New Media Awards were held recently in Toronto as part of the nextMEDIA conference. The event was MC-ed by the comedian Sugar Sammy at the gorgeous CiRCA nightclub. The winners at the event included Viigo, a Toronto-based mobile RSS startup, and marblemedia, among others. The complete list of the winners (along with the finalists) is below:
COMPANY OF THE YEAR
MOST PROMISING COMPANY OF THE YEAR
EXCELLENCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITES
EXCELLENCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS
EXCELLENCE IN GAMING
EXCELLENCE IN CHILDREN'S
EXCELLENCE IN CROSS PLATFORM
EXCELLENCE IN NEWS/INFORMATION
EXCELLENCE IN CULTURE, LIFESTYLE ARTS
EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING
EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR
PROGRAMMER OF THE YEAR
PRODUCER OF THE YEAR
DESIGNER OF THE YEAR
Viigo Inc. develops and markets one of the world's most popular mobile content and services applications for smartphones. With over 5,000 channels... [more]
marblemedia is a content creation company on the forefront of television and new media production, devoted to telling stories that entertain and... [more]
Big news earlier this week when Canwest Global Communications Corp announced initiatives to reduce their annualized operating costs by approximately $61 Million. The move translated into 560 layoffs - about five per cent of the company's workforce through voluntary buyouts, attrition and reductions. Canwest management pointed to the current economic environment as well as the structural challenges in the conventional television model as the reasons why.
Interestingly, CEO Leonard Asper stresses in the announcement that Canwest is still eager to transform into a multi-platform media company and build its audience using digital media.
"Having completed an assessment of our Canadian operations and, after careful consideration, we are implementing a number of initiatives that will provide savings that will allow us to better compete in the current economic environment, without compromising our core products and services,” said Leonard Asper, President and CEO, Canwest. “It will not impact our strategy to invest in growth media like digital online, mobile and specialty channels.”
I'm not sure why Asper felt the need to assure shareholders and employees that the operating cost reduction wouldn't impact their digital media strategy... until yesterday.
Word on Vancouver streets is that NowPublic is about to be acquired by Canwest. While a NowPublic acquisition may not seem like a significant transaction, keep in mind that Canwest's current market capitalization is a paltry $80 Million - down from $700 Million only one year ago. NowPublic raised $10 Million in venture capital in July of 2007.
This rumour may have legs. NowPublic Co-founder Len Brody has advised Canwest in the past.
Canwest is Canada's leading international media company. Representing a portfolio of world-class brands, the Company creates and distributes some... [more]
NowPublic is a participatory news network which mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world. In twelve short months,... [more]
Professors might scoff at the herds of students wandering campus with those signature white iPod earbuds, but starting this semester at the University of British Columbia, those students may have been learning. This fall, UBC joined Apple's iTunes U program , wherein school content is made available for free download through their own section of the iTunes Store . Files can be restricted to enrolled students-only, but the majority is available free to all.
"If you are a student, you probably don't know how to find UBC web content because it's spread across university websites... We know students use iTunes, so this collects what UBC has and takes it to their environment," says Alfred Hermida, who helped to pioneer the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) news website as a journalist before joining UBC in 2006.
Other Canadian institutions doing the same include the University of Western Ontario, the Banff Centre, Queen's University, and Université de Montréal. UWO also started this semester and doesn't have any lecture content up, but has used it for other content like convocation addresses, school news, and recordings of student council meetings. Pacific Northwest schools on iTunes U include the University of Portland, Pacific University, and Seattle Pacific University. In total, over 75,000 audio and video files are hosted on iTunes U from 150+ institutions in the US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the UK.
It's great to see schools embracing new technologies, and that they can be presented in a way that's accessible to both instructor and student. Students get learning materials through the media player that they probably already have installed. Instructors are given an easy platform on which to host their content; UBC's page provides basic audio recording and editing instructions using free software. And everyone gets the benefit of all the free educational content available through iTunes U.
Tonight was without a doubt our best DemoCamp ever here in Edmonton. With six fairly solid demos, nearly 150 people in attendance, and no technical glitches in sight, it’ll be hard to top DemoCampEdmonton4 but we’re certainly going to try! It’s just amazing to see the community grow like this – thanks to everyone who came out.
Tonight we had six demos:
It wasn’t planned at all, but all of the products that were demoed tonight seemed really polished. The interfaces were all slick and professional looking!
I think my “demo of the night” goes to ODIL’s Surveyor. I really like the interface, and the application itself seems pretty solid for something so early-stage. ElectionBuddy and Edistorm also had great demos, and have lots of potential. I think PureInbox could have been a great demo, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the app itself. The History Books was entertaining, but as I said on Twitter, it seemed like something that came out of a few late night domain name purchases. Grant did a wicked presentation, showing us eight different projects that his Flash design firm has been involved with. He was definitely the most captivating presenter.
Tonight was also the first public announcement for Edmonton Code Camp! It’s going to take place on Saturday, November 29th at the MacEwan campus downtown. You can find more information here, and the domain will be http://www.edmontoncodecamp.com (working through some DNS issues currently). We’ll share more details soon.
The venue worked well again this time, and once again I had Free Wifi going (though it could have been a bit more reliable). I live-twittered the demos, which you can find at Twitter Search along with updates from others in attendance.
I think lots of people like DemoCamp just for the networking opportunity afterward, and again we had a full house at The Windsor Pub. Was great to see a bunch of new faces in the crowd too! Thanks to Smibs for sponsoring tonight’s event.
If you’d like to be notified about future DemoCamp and BarCamp events in Edmonton, sign up for the mailing list here.
See you at DemoCampEdmonton5!
If you were trying to find something to do before DemoCamp Edmonton 4 tomorrow evening, look no further! Digital Alberta will be hosting an iPhone networking event and Kelly Marples, an Applications Consultant from Rogers, will be on hand to talk about:
The presentation starts at 5:15pm in common's area in the Computing Sciences building at the U of A. the same room as DemoCamp. Here are all the details:
Digital Alberta iPhone Presentation
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 5:15pm
Computing Sciences Building, University of Alberta
DemoCampEdmonton4
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 6:30pm
E1 017, ETLC, University of Alberta - map
Come learn about the iPhone, then find out what local entrepreneurs are up to. More info here.
I know there are a few events taking place at the same time (VenturePrize Seminar Series, for instance) so if you’re unable to make it to DemoCamp, don’t worry! We’d still love to have you out for “beers and cheers” after. Check Twitter to see where we’ve gone. See you then!
The history of the Internet is littered with ideas that don’t quite gel, from the clunky consumerist nightmare known as boo.com to the Cuecat barcode scanner. But a Museum of Internet Failures would have to dedicate a special hall to the quest to create a stand-alone Internet radio, from the aptly-named Kerbango, a product of dot.com madness, all the way to current network streaming devices. Now Sanyo Canada is making a bid for the internet radio market (such as it is) with the imaginatively named Sanyo Internet Radio R227.
To be fair, the compact unit does boast decent specs, with the ability to integrate MP3 players, built in Wifi and Ethernet, support for multiple sound file formats, and a $219.99 price tag. It’s even set up to mimic a clock radio, so you can wake up to whatever station you’d like, rather than insipid local news. But the question has to be asked...why?
Part of the reason for Internet radio’s popularity is a gradual shift for much of the population from a world where media is consumed in discrete chunks at scheduled times to an always-on, hyper-connected society where we’re more likely to be in front of our laptops or accessing mobile devices than to need the presence of anything as old-fashioned as a radio. In fact, the $5.99 Tuner Internet Radio iPhone app does just as good a job as Sanyo’s stand alone radio, and it’s accessible on the go. Internet radios, like the quest for a 3d, game-like Web interface and video chat services like Seesmic seem like a solution in search of a problem.
SANYO Group's corporate philosophy is the guiding principle in accomplishing the key management policy of ensuring products and services that are... [more]
The Wall Street Journal today boldly proclaimed that Twitter is going mainstream. There’s nothing new in the article for anyone who’s been paying attention to Twitter, and I’m fairly certain that the WSJ feels Twitter is mainstream because of its article (maybe to an extent that’s true). Here’s what the article offers as evidence:
All of that aside, the article does point out that businesses are starting to use Twitter. I think this is a much better sign that the service is going mainstream. Dell, Zappos.com, and Comcast are all mentioned as organizations that have large numbers of employees using Twitter.
Here in Edmonton, there are a growing number of organizations using Twitter. I posted a list of official accounts today:
There are also a large number of organizations without official accounts that are represented by their owners and/or employees. I’ve created a page on the EdmontonTweetup wiki to track all of these organizations – feel free to add to it.
Don’t forget - the third EdmontonTweetup is taking place this Thursday (October 30th) at 6pm at Devlin’s on Whyte Avenue. You can find all the details here. Hope to see you there!
DemoCamp 11, already?
This Thursday at 6:30pm is DemoCamp 11. It hardly seems like any time has passed since the last DemoCamp and we are already getting set to watch another group of founders show us what is new in Calgary. Come out and join everyone at Critical Mass (map), I hear there is even going to be beer!
Also, the Calgary UX Meetup is taking place at Vicious Circle at 5:30pm. Stop by on your way to DemoCamp, they are only a few blocks away from each other. Convenient, or just good planning?
For more details head over to the BarCampCalgary page. See you on Thursday.
The Canadian New Media Awards take place November 18, 2008, as part of the nextMEDIA conference. In the lead up to this event, I'm going to profile the categories and finalists, one per day. Today's category is Excellence in Cross Platform.
Postcards from Crystal is an interactive Flash app with video. It follows Crystal Shawanda, a country music artist, as she makes it out of Northern Ontario and to Nashville and records her first album. The site was done by Lifecapture Interactive of Toronto.
Mobile Stories is a production of iThentic of Toronto. iThentic aggregates online and mobile video content from independent filmmakers and performers.
The Odd Job Jack site is a companion to the Comedy Network's animated series of the same name. The site includes video clips, a game, and downloadable wallpaper and screensavers. The site was done by Smiley Guy Studios of Toronto.
