Woodbridge-based toy and gaming company Ganz, best known for Webkinz World, has introduced a "game-changing innovation in family-friendly virtual fun." Ganz has launched Webkinz Friends on Facebook, a teen-targeted version of the interactive online game. Similar to the original game, Webkinz Friends has integrated more social features, taking advantage of the Facebook platform.
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At Facebook's original $28 to $35 per share, the social networking giant was pegged at a valuation of roughly $94 billion, just under earlier predictions of the $100 billion mark. But due to "strong demand," Mark Zuckerberg's company has just upped the IPO range to a high of $38, which hikes the valuation of Facebook to a mind-boggling $104 billion.
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Toronto startup Engagio is becoming what it calls a "Social Conversations Network," which combines "the convenience of the social inbox utility with the power of the network via a new Engagement Discovery Dashboard." The dashboard reveals friends' conversations across whichever social networks and commenting communities they participate in.
“Users will be drawn to the Engagio dashboard because it reveals the conversations that their friends are engaging in from across the spectrum of the social web," says William Mougayar, the CEO and founder of Engagio. "It’s an engagement stream that is quite addictive.”
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In January, Twitter acquired Vancouver startup Summify and last month Techvibes reported that a few people started seeing Summify's Canadian-born technology in action.
Today Twitter made it official with a blog post titled The best of Twitter in your inbox. The post describes Twitter's new weekly email digest product that summarizes the most relevant Tweets and stories shared by the people you’re connected to on Twitter.
Stories feature a design similar to the recently updated Discover tab, emphasizing who shared each story beneath summaries to help you decide which ones matter most to you.
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In 2007, two University of Calgary students posted critical remarks about one of their professors in a Facebook group devoted to complaints. The students, twin brothers Keith and Steven Pridgen, were punished by the university for "non-academic misconduct" by being placed on probation.
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We just recently covered the end of Allerta's Kickstarter campaign, which saw the Canadian-born startup raise more than $10 million from over 66,000 backers in the span of one month. Back in Vancouver, coworking community HiVE is hoping to raise a modest $35,000 in crowdfunding money using the Indiegogo platform, which we earlier today suggested as one of 12 ideal sites to use in Canada.
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Facebook has launched what it calls the App Center, a "new place for people to find social apps." Obviously similar to mobile stores like Apple's App Store or Google's Play store, the App Center will aggregate canvas, mobile, and web apps on Facebook.
The social network says that, in the "coming weeks," people will be able to access the App Center on the web and in the iOS and Android Facebook apps.
Facebook hopes that the App Center will become the "central place to find great apps." They're currently encouraging all developers to create an app detail page, which is required for being listed in the App Center, and will become the new destination when non-users search for your app on Facebook.
Want to learn about Facebook straight from its top executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg? See the hard statistics, get a feel for the social network's vision of the future? Then we recommend watching the company's half-hour IPO roadshow video.
Facebook, as you well know, is going public this month. It's valued at close to $100 billion despite only about $4 billion in annual revenue and slowing growth. However, it does have one in eight people in the world visiting the site regularly - a pretty breathtaking feat. Would you buy shares in Facebook after watching their video pitch?
Everyone always talks about which Twitter users have the most followers. It's been the same for a while now: Lady Gaga is number one, while Canada's own Justin Bieber ranks second. It hasn't changed in quite some time and probably won't for many months.
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The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this year utilized technology developed by Montreal's Intellitix to put social media into the hands of attendees. Or wrists, to be exact.
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