So, it's more or less been confirmed that the long nameless Twitter bird has actually been named "Larry" all along (likely in reference to Larry Bird, the former professional basketball player). But how fast can that bird fly? These days, Larry is up to 3,000 tweets per second. And that's up by about 25% from just one month ago! Whew, those wings sure are pumping.
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Adam Carroll, a liberal staffer, has been officially exposed as the man behind the now-defunct Vikileaks30 Twitter account, which slammed Safety Minister Vic Toews with personal attacks. Vic, of course, has become nationally infamous for his blind support of the destructive "online surveillance" or "lawful access" legislation, Bill C-30 (which has, to the relief of millions of Canadians, been delayed).
As Generation C is the most digitally conected on the planet, maybe the "C" in our recently renamed generation stands for "cool" representing people from the ages of 18-34 in various fashions. I just turned 23, but I'm thinking it's just not cool to represent the old ethos of what cool used to mean anymore—which is generally doing nothing, chillin' out and maxin' out like Will Smith on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air versus his nerdy counterpart Carlton Banks.
But before I mistakingly think my generation is special, the number one trending hashtag Friday in Toronto for a time was #InThisGeneration. The hashtag launched a protest against my own generation and what they have become—loveless, alcoholic, judgemental, disrespectful, disloyal, tatted, anti-authority, untrustworthy, and pregnant.
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As a former CMO, executive speaker and organizer of events in the technology and healthcare sectors, Peter Evans, co-founder and CEO of Toronto startup Speakerfile knew that there must be a better way to connect corporate speakers to the $106 billion events industry. He was fascinated by the inefficiencies of the event organizer and speaker matchmaking process.
Together with co-founder Robert Carter, Evans developed an online platform that could help event organizers and media around the world connect better with an ever-expanding ecosystem of speakers and experts.
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As a streaming service without any of its own hardware products, one of the keys to Netflix's success is being compatible with as many devices as possible—from computers to smartphones to gaming consoles. Netflix has long been able to stream on Apple's iOS devices and Google's Android devices. And now that Netflix has been in Canada for a while, we'll see it on the BlackBerry platform soon… or not.
Netflix sucker-punched Research In Motion yesterday evening via Twitter, where the company stated, "We don’t have any current plans to support Blackberry devices, incluing [sic] Playbook." They didn't even bother to spell check, or capitalize the "B" in BlackBerry and PlayBook! That's how little Netflix cares about RIM.
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If you’re a fan of the popular novel and film The Davinci Code, then you’ll definitely want to check out the first-ever interactive online thriller called Guidestones which launched in mid-February. Produced and distributed by Toronto-based companies iThentic and 3 o’clock TV, the 50-episode series (total running time of 120 minutes) was created and directed by Jay Ferguson.
Shot in Canada, the US and India, Guidestones combines scripted drama and documentary-style narrative. The lead characters, played by an all-Canadian cast, stumble upon an unsolved murder and discover a cover-up hiding a global conspiracy.
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Social Media Week Toronto was a success with over 100 events in its fourth year running. A main takeaway from the week is that everyone has a different social media strategy and you have to figure out what works for your particular brand. Not even the most-followed people on Twitter have it all figured out. After all, some of the most followed people on Twitter are in fact the biggest social media cheats using those bots to add and remove followers that aren't following back!
I attended "The Social Butterfly: Escaping The Net" led by Daniel Berkal of The Palmerston Group who attempted to show an audience the differences between online and offline social butterflies. He says that we're not social online, we're just connected because with no barrier to social convention almost everyone wants to be friends.
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Do you spend a lot of time on Twitter? Many of us do. But co-founder Christopher Isaac Stone, better known as "Biz," doesn't want you to waste away on his micro-blogging platform.
In a presentation to a business audience in Montreal, Biz said that it's not healthy to spend your days watching the tweets go by. While he encourages frequent visits, don't give up your life to the real-time information network.
Biz also said that he is "amazed" by the popularity and influence of Twitter, noting that it has linked millions of people together and spurred social change. He also stated that creativity is an infinitely renewable resource.
Vancouver-based HootSuite plans to add well over 100 employees over the next 10 months. Continuing its aggressive hiring spree, the web startup wants to effectively double its headcount—from 120 to 250—by the end of this year.
It was only last year that CEO Ryan Holmes—whose ambitions are well known—said he was doubling his company's headcount from 25 to 50. But by the end of 2011, they'd already hit the triple digits.
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It's a war of the tech titans. The "Don't Be Evil" Google, which has been taking a lot of flack during the past year for questionable activity—most recently circumventing Apple's Safari settings—seems to be getting under the skin of its biggest enemies these days. While the battle with Apple in the mobile space is far from over, the search engine giant must now contend with Microsoft's latest round of attacks as well: an ad campaign that takes pretty obvious shots at the company's practices.