Montreal-based Transcontinental Media announced quietly last week the launch of weblocal.ca - an online search site for finding and reviewing local businesses, products or services in communities across Canada. Weblocal.ca is driven by content shared by users such as recommendations, ratings and reviews, as well as pictures and videos.
Sounds a lot like ZipLocal - "Canada's new online search directory that provides a rich, user-defined local search experience. ZipLocal provides relevant search results from over 1.3 million businesses with maps and capability for users to review, rate and tag business listings."
The Canadian local online directory space is certainly getting crowded. Don't forget that Yelp is now North of the border and BrownBook.net has crossed the Atlantic.
In the case of weblocal.ca vs. ZipLocal, we're looking at David versus Goliath. ZipLocal was formed in August 2006 from the merger of redCity Search Company and Zip411.net and is currently trading publically on the TSX. As of today's close, shares are at 1 cent with a total market capitalization of just over $750,000.
Transcontinental Inc. is a Billion dollar company.
I'm cheering for scrappy upstart but with Transcontinental’s established local sales force of over 400 reps and an online portfolio of over 125 websites - it's not going to be easy.
ZipLocal is the difference between getting advice from the phone book vs. your trusted friends and neighbours. ZipLocal makes it easy to find what... [more]
weblocal.ca is a local search company offering research and information about businesses in Canada. Information has been collected from throughout... [more]
On Monday, November 24, 2008, the High-Tech Communicators' Exchange is hosting another great speaker session titled Crowd Sourcing: Using mass collaboration to inject creativity and innovation into your organization.
Join us to hear Monica Hamburg, a Vancouver-based writer and social media consultant/evangelist, deliver a lively presentation with real-life, intriguing examples of Crowdsourcing in action.
According to Monica, no one business can employ staff who, even collectively, possess every possible skill or experience. The public, however, is filled with experts in all fields and disciplines. Businesses who recognize this fact are asking people outside their organization to provide input and work with their company in some fashion. This type of collaboration has produced innovative ideas, inventive solutions, and increased profit for many businesses. Monica will share with us the benefits and concerns about Crowdsourcing. Come prepared for an interactive discussion at the end of the presentation.
Monica Hamburg is a writer and social media consultant/evangelist. Registration and networking start at 6:00pm at the YWCA on Beatty Street and Hamburg's presentation starts at 6:30pm. RSVP here.
The High-Tech Communicators’ Exchange comprises corporate, marketing, visual, and technical communicators primarily serving the high-tech and... [more]
UK-Born Brownbook.net has landed in Canada and they're building their wiki business directory one entry at a time. I had the pleasure of talking to their Canadian Community Manager, Basil Berntsen, earlier today and he's excited about their progress across Canada to date.
Brownbook.net is the free local business directory that anyone can edit. We're building a global business directory and anyone can participate. You can add business listings, update them, and review businesses free and instantly. It's an ambitious project and one that you can contribute to.
Brownbook.net launched initially with over 2.2 million UK business listings and has quickly expanded to add over 25 million listings in USA, Canada, and Australia. According to Berntsen, there are currently 1.2 Million Canadian businesses in the directory.
Wikinomics Blogger Denis Hancock profiled Brownbook.net last week and was very impressed after interviewing Brownbook.net Founder Marc Lynne for his piece. Of course Hancock is always proud when a wikinomics-enabled company is successful but he seems particularly intereested in their business model and new User Earnings program.
The business model for the company is straight forward. Businesses can pay a small - and I do mean SMALL - annual fee to “claim” their company listing on the site, and thus control the messaging (users can still post their own reviews, etc.). They can also get additional services like notifications when reviews are added, videos, search priority, etc. This fee is many, many, MANY times (I can’t emphasize this enough) lower than what a company would pay to be listed in (say) the Yellow Pages - and could more or less be considered trivial for most companies. But if Brownbook can scale globally, the potential revenue for them is not trivial at all.
FYI... by small, Hancock is referring to a $10/year fee.
Last week the company rolled out their “User Earnings” program. It’s very simple, and quite compelling. Any time a businesses comes and “claims” a listing (i.e. pays for control of it), the last prosumer to have made a significant change is rewarded. This reward is 20% of the lifetime value of that customer. That’s where my clever title of “getting prosumers invested for life” comes from.
Sounds like a pretty compelling way to build up a business. If you're interested in learning more, check out Berntsen's recent demo from October's Montreal NewTech Meetup and Lynne's launch of their User Earnings program. Brownbook Limited is privately funded and incorporated in the UK.
Brownbook.net is the free directory that anyone can edit. We put the power of peer produced content to work for the business directory market. Add,... [more]
Could you be an entrepreneurial leader and not be socially responsible? Not likely. That was one of the major themes of an event held recently in Vancouver. The Centre for Entrepreneurial Leaders, Trinity Western University held its 4th Annual Entrepreneur Forum on October 29th at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre.
The annual event focuses on entrepreneurial leadership and attracted a sell-out crowd of 500 people across a wide range of business, including the high tech sector. The event is believed to be the largest of its kind in the world, drawing attendees from throughout Canada, the US and Europe.
The vision of the CEL is “to empower entrepreneurial leaders for global impact.” The focus is on using entrepreneurial skills in a non-profit context, not only to have an impact in their businesses and in society, but also in charitable organizations.
The crowd feedback was that the program, speakers and networking was excellent. Kris Krug of Raincity Studios noted: “It was great to connect with such a bright group of entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneur Forum. I saw lots of old friends from TWU who are up to interesting technology business ventures and projects. I also met a couple companies I'm interested in working with.” TWU grad and principal of Burnkit Creative, Josh Dunford, was sharing table space with Krug.
Prior to the keynote speaker Peter Heslam, director of Transforming Business, a research centre at the University of Cambridge, talked about the importance of enterprise solutions to poverty in third world countries. He highlighted the notion that funds are only one part of the capital required for success in developing countries. In addition, there must be the active contribution of social, moral and reputational capital. This requires the involvement of individuals who will implement social responsibility, whether motivated by faith or other reasons.
The keynote speaker was Larry Farrell, of Farrell International, a company that has likely taught more people about entrepreneurship than any other in the world. Larry, based in Staunton, VI, spoke about the essentials of entrepreneurship: sense of mission; customer/product focus, high-speed innovation and self-inspired behaviour. One of his key examples is the storied career of Steve Jobs of Apple.
Shelley Kuipers, President, Cambrian House noted, “The keynote again reminded me of the basic entrepreneurial instinct and key guiding principles that we must retain, in good times and bad times - keep it simple, don't over complicate your business, high-tech included. I also believe that this is the time when we can create amazing opportunities for our ventures and us as entrepreneurs.”
One of the sponsors of the event was Domain 7 Solutions, a growing web development firm in Abbotsford. Fluevog Shoes was a contributor to the silent auction.
One of the major sponsors was MakeGood Technologies. MakeGood allows businesses to effectively convey social responsibility to the market and to build their business. Doug van Spronsen, Interactive Technology Analyst, noted, “Excitement over the product was high, as people loved the branding and concept.” Many of the entrepreneurs had heard about social responsibility, and most were actively practicing it, however few were actually communicating it to their customers.
The Forum continues to gather momentum, having more than doubled in size over the past four years. As one attendee said, the CEL “has targeted the right niche—the desire for people to understand and to be inspired by entrepreneurial leadership.” And social responsibility is one key component of entrepreneurial leadership.
(NOTE: By way of disclosure, I am the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leader and the founder of MakeGood.)
MakeGood enables companies to communicate their social responsibility effectively to their customers. Through the MakeGood website, companies are... [more]
Do you want to increase the chances of your Startup's success? If so, you need to sign up for Startup School this weekend!
Startup School is a practical, how-to course about starting, financing, marketing, hiring, growing, and exiting your startup. It is taught by Michael Sikorsky, CEO of Cambrian House and poster-child for the global Crowdsourcing Community.
The thing I like about MJ's approach is that he is not there to inspire you over the two day course...he is there to significantly increase your chances of being successful. Two full servings of reality smothered in steaming facts.
Another great take away are the take aways...Michael provides most of the files, documents, spreadsheets, termsheets, grant applications and presentations he has created over the last 12 years...including ones that worked and ones that didn't. He's raised over $10 million for his ventures so I'd consider this information priceless!
Much more info and how to register can be found on Michael's site here.
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
Web 2.0 is the future of communicating social responsibility. Not everyone knows it yet, and only a few are practicing it, but Web 2.0 will revolutionize how social responsibility is practiced.
The International Association of Business Communicators Conference in Vancouver on communicating Social Responsibility, held on October 16th – 17th, hinted at the potential of Web 2.0.
The interest in social responsibility continues to increase even in today’s environment—it is part of the landscape regardless of economic gyrations. What is social responsibility? It is defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as: the “responsibility of an organization for the impact of its decisions and activities on society and the environment through transparent and ethical behaviour.”
James Hoggan, President of PR firm, Hoggan Associates noted that the environment became the #1 issue in late 2005 and still remains important today. One of his initiatives was to set up www.Desmogblog.com. DeSmogBlog exists to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.
Hoggan’s view is that an overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world's climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. According to the site, “We know that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, we understand that the solutions are affordable.” Hoggan wants to get that message to the public.
Robert Safrata, CEO, Novex Couriers, aspires to be the greenest courier company in the world (they offer Vancouver-area same day courier). He wants his company to be an engine for change—and at the same time be a profitable business. His triple bottom line focus is people, planet and profits.
His website is largely an open book. His business plan is online (just short of showing his EBITDA). Part of his open disclosure is the use of “See-it” “a real time sustainability reporting system.” All of Novex’s stakeholders can see their environmental initiatives online; this has replaced the traditional sustainability report
William George of PR firm Edelman Canada, noted that consumers want to do good through their spending. People are mobilizing to say good things about companies; in the past they got together only to complain.
George pointed out how the online environment changes how people form decisions. The Globe & Mail is useful as a way to keep up to date for some one who has already formed a view. However, if a person is doing research and hasn’t form a view yet, then they are more likely to go online.
Further, people give direct sources more credibility. A blog can become a powerful way to create a peer or direct relationship, much more so than reading a newspaper article. A blog facilitates interaction.
Of course, not all companies are paying attention to conversations going on in the online environment. Companies may struggle with giving up control when they open up an online conversation, but it is necessary to create trust. This concept was explained masterfully in The Clue Train Manifesto a number of years ago.
William Azaroff, Director, Online Banking & Engagement, Vancity, spoke about corporate social responsibility as a key differentiator for companies. We are moving to “the social age.” People want to do good and be connected.
One of their initiatives is www.changeeverything.ca. They originally thought of a Facebook page, but couldn’t figure out how to add value in that environment so they went with their own site. This site has garnered much traffic and attention and has had an overall positive return for Vancity.
Azaroff noted the challenges of getting a presence online. People today have “profile fatigue,” so it is hard to get them plugged into yet another site. In addition, the site has to truly get the public involved. A key point is to ensure that people who are commenting are not part of the company otherwise credibility is gone.
James Tansey, Associate Professor, UBC, explained that businesses have to change the way they operate; today’s markets are more connected to consumers. Likewise, social responsibility has evolved over the last 10 - 20 years from being a “fig leaf” application to part of a deliberate strategy.
Tamsey is also co-founder of Offsetters.com which provides “carbon offsets.” These are investments in projects that prevent greenhouse gases from being emitted into the atmosphere. A company can purchase carbon offsets to counterbalance it own direct emissions.
Tim O’Reilly is among the most influential thought leaders in the Web 2.0 field. O’Reilly has been referred to as one of the gurus of the participation age. His firm coined the term “Web 2.0” and they host pivotal summits and expos in the Valley and around the globe.
When it comes to the crowd, O’Reilly uses the terms “collective intelligence” rather than “crowdsourcing.” What does that mean? O’Reilly has identified a couple of important concepts that are connected to the idea of harnessing collective intelligence.
First, is the idea of what he has called the open source paradigm shift. In today’s environment, there is a process of commoditization where the value is going out of many classes of software that people used to pay for. But there is still value; it is a question of where on the stack the value is located. This led O’Reilly to rethink the nature of the web and to come up with some new ideas around what is now referred to as “Web 2.0.” Moving up the stack includes using the internet as a platform, software as a service and harnessing collective intelligence.
By contrast, there is what O’Reilly calls moving down the stack, such as “Data is the Next Intel Inside” concept. This analysis is based on what Clayton Christensen calls “The Law of Conservation of Attractive Profits” (I discuss this in e-Preneur in the discussion of Christensen’s writings in Step #2 under “Classic Insights on Innovation”). The basic point is that every time you see something for free, then something else is becoming expensive. The impetus for this development was Linux and other types of open source software, which was a disruptive force that changed the game. Open source software leverages the power of network effects, enlightened self-interest, and the architecture of participation. But the trend didn’t stop there. O’Reilly noticed that many of the most successful websites were also harnessing user participation and the network effects that ensue.
Second, the internet is the platform. O’Reilly explains that once you realize that we’re in a new platform era, you have to ask yourself what makes for success on that platform. On the PC, it was all about building applications for individual user productivity. On the network, it’s about building applications that enable shared activity. But that’s not just explicit collaboration. It also includes implicit collaboration.
O’Reilly’s view is that to the extent that any Web 2.0 company uses network effects to their fullest potential they have harnessed collective intelligence. Google’s realization that links were a kind of user generated “voting” on the best site for a topic (i.e. Page Rank) and could be used to deliver better search results was arguably the real beginning of the Web 2.0 revolution. But each in their own way, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Craigslist and Wikipedia all are showing different ways to harness collective intelligence to add value. Amazon, for example, has doggedly and persistently pursued the notion of users adding value. They didn’t have a built-in architecture of participation, but they worked on it.
O’Reilly explains that, “the key is to work together; harnessing creative intelligence is the heart of Web 2.0.” O’Reilly notes that the key question for companies to get involved in Web 2.0 is to ask, “what can we do on a shared network?” The objective is to build networks that get better as more people use them; this is the basis for the next generation of internet companies.
TechCrunch managed to post another incorrect story over the weekend. Serkan Toto made it to the last paragraph before he misspoke, calling Cambrian House “now-defunct”. Let me tidy up some facts: VenCorps, for those who follow these things, is a site built by the not-defunct Cambrian House.
Luckily, the “not-defunct at all” Cambrian House team was on top of the situation and released this blog post to combat the misinformation. This post contains an official letter from their counsel, a detailed FAQ, and the wit and humor we have come to expect from the Calgary company.
Thanks for clearing things up... again!
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
The Globe and Mail covered Canada's most well-known trendspotter today, Calgary-born Jeremy Gutsche of TrendHunter.com.
As founder and chief trend hunter of the popular style website TrendHunter.com, Toronto-based Gutsche is the go-to guy when the marketplace needs a fresh dose of cool. Reaching millions of viewers a month, his site delivers the "what's next" in everything from business and technology to design and fashion. He also uses the research data generated by his website to guide corporations as they target markets and develop strategies.
TrendHunter.com works with a huge network of trend hunters around the world that are constantly searching for what is cool or new. We're not talking what's popular with the mainstram - that's obvious to most. TrendHunter.com searches for the cutting edge - micro trends and viral innovations. Check out this clip from Global TV earlier this year to get a feel for what TrendHunter.com is up to:
TrendHunter.com will be included on the upcoming October Toronto Start-Up index and shouldn't have any trouble cracking the Top five. According to their 'fun facts', TrendHunter.com gets 7.9+ million monthly views.
Trend Hunter is the world's largest community dedicated to trend spotting and cool hunting. We are unique breed of insatiably curious people,... [more]
What is Web 2.0? Is it a sideshow for small companies or a worthwhile strategy for the mainstream? KPMG hosted a session last night in Vancouver on The Corporate Adoption of Web 2.0. The evening session introduce some of the core concepts behind Web 2.0 for an audience that may be familiar with the terms but not with the core principles and whether they have value for large companies.
One featured speaker was Mike Sikorsky, CEO, Cambrian House, Calgary who addressed, “How crowdsourcing is changing the way companies do business.”
Sikorsky, in his inimitable style, explained the difference between two ways to tap into the crowd: “implicit” is by people clicking on links and “explicit” which is by deliberately voting in response to a posed question. Thus, people may be contributing to the wisdom of the crowd without being aware.
He distinguished different methods of pplication: from tapping the wisdom of crowds (which can be quite passive), to participation (which requires a crowd of interested people) and commerce (where there is some potential to make money). Sikorsky gave examples of larger companies (such as Starbucks) that are integrated crowd participation into their websites.
Another speaker was Leonard Brody, a partner of Vancouver success story, NowPublic, who focused on “The truth about user generated contents and the future of news.” Brody gave his customary candid and insightful views on his sector and the web in general.
He noted that the news business has been devastated by the internet. The challenge for traditional news organizations, such as newspaper chains, is that the source of news is no longer controlled. Brody explained how it’s all about eyes and ears and experience. For NowPublic the assumption is there is almost always somewhere to record the news when it happens. Their objective is to build the next generation of Reuters/AP.
In this fast-changing environment it is hard to define new companies. NowPublic is a good example. They are often referred to as a “citizen journalism” site. Brody points out that this is a term invented by journalists. He explained that NowPublic is not in the news business - they are instead a “global news intelligence network.” They have cracked the code on how to gather information.
NowPublic functions because society has evolved from a “witnessing population” to a “participating population.” People are involved in the process. Brody notes that, “The events of our time will be captured by amateurs.”
Another insightful comment was that our society has gone from “hyper local” to “hyper personal;” in other words, geography is not the determining factor in what people are interested in. Instead, they want news that relates to their interests. As an example, Brody cited Facebook which dominates news feeds—people only get the news that they think is important.
One of the issues that come up around Web 2.0 is to determine why people are involved. Brody admitted that if it was just about money, then the tasks of companies would be easer. However there are varied motivations. The list according to Brody: money (this is the smallest); vanity and ego; discussion about a specific issue; accidental bystanders; and people who are simply nuts (the last was a crowd favourite).
This KPMG event session is a positive development that reflects how web principles are seeping into the mainstream. This is a standard method of the diffusion of innovation. The new ideas typically appear on the fringes and then work their way into the mainstream. This is the path to “intrapreneurship”—innovation within larger organizations.
As with innovation generally, it may be a game changer in some contexts and in others it can be an additional tool. As I point out in ePreneur, Web 2.0 principles, such as crowdsourcing, may be the basis for a company (such as Cambrian House or NowPublic), but they can be a strategic tool of implementation for other companies.
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]
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
