It’s time for the magazine industry to realize digital is an asset, not an adversary

When the news came down the pipes this week that Conde Nast was shutting down four of its magazine publications, I’m not sure that “shock” was a word many people associated with the announcement.  Sure, Conde Nast is a huge company and would theoretically be able to weather the storm longer than most, but the reality is this is just another example of how magazine, as a medium, is now almost completely unsustainable in its current form. Looks like it's back to Kraft Dinner for me.... However, as was pointed out in a great article in Mashable this...

Why “facebucks” will change the world… if they don’t screw it up

As everyone knows, twitter is “so hot right now” and facebook is “so over”. Well call me old-fashioned but I still have a lot more faith in Zuckerberg than I do in @ev and co.. I don’t really want to get into all my reasons (mainly because I’m saving them for another post) but I will say that for me, reason number one is that facebook is absolutely jam-packed with content. Content that’s very relevant to our lives and recommended to us by our friends. And with each evolution of the platform, they’re getting better at...

Could Chris Bosh save the music industry?

Ok maybe that’s a bold statement, but the Toronto Raptors face of the franchise and Warner Music Canada announced today that they’re teaming up on an incredibly unique venture that shines light on another creative way the music industry may bust out of its slump. I’ve written about the music industry’s need to adapt in this space before, but we’re not going to re-hash that today. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think I’d be writing about the music industry today at all. However, I had set my calendar as Bosh had let his fans...

Billionaire Wrestlemania comes to Denver – just without the wrestling

E. Stan Kroenke never thought there was going to be a basketball game in Denver last night, and that’s where his problem started. Kroenke, the owner of the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, the Colorado Avalanche of the NHL and Pepsi Centre, the venue both teams call home, has been at the center of a war of words between World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the past week. The only thing is, in spite of being the catalyst for the entire fiasco, E. hasn’t spoken a word. (Sorry, couldn’t resist the play on...

Apparently Canada loves online video – but do we really know why?

On a glorious spring Friday in Toronto, it seems particularly relevant to take a look at some numbers for online video viewing that were released last week by ComScore for February 2009.  Remember February?  When it was cold and we were all curled up in our blankets with our laptops watching videos… apparently? Well according to the stats from a new ComScore report tracking February viewing figures, Canada is the world’s top online video viewing country by percentage. The average online video viewer in the Great White North watched 10 hours of video online...

Swine flu hogwash and the mass media

So have you heard about this Swine Flu thing? Of course you have. The WHO and the CDC’s of the world combined with the CNN’s and CBC’s have made it impossible not to. Each time I turn on my TV or computer, pick up a newspaper or do anything at all to interact with civilization I find myself being updated on what’s new with it. Even tech blogs and podcasts, where I spend most of my time have gotten into the act of telling us more and more about this perilous threat to the future of civilization. And let’s not even get into the fine role...

Daily Challenge breaks a record, reminds us not everything has to happen online

If you’re networked in Toronto and you didn’t hear about Daily Challenge’s Pay it Backwards Day this past weekend, then there’s a possibility that your Facebook and Tweetdeck have experienced a major fail. Plastering every possible social network with information on how to get involved for weeks on end, the #PIBTO team achieved their goal on Saturday by setting an official world record for acts of kindness at the Second Cup at John and Richmond. But in the process of using all tools social and digital to promote the event, in the end, they showed...

Cross-platform communication and why the Bell Fund doesn’t ‘suck’

This article appeared in the February 17, 2009 edition of the Interactive Ontario Newsletter. As many of you I’m sure know, the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund had one of their scramble-to-get-it-all-in-a-binder deadlines on February 2. While this deadline was one like any other, Canadian television writer, Denis McGrath, took the occasion as an opportunity to pen a decidedly hyperbolic blog post on the subject. In the entry, titled “Sucky Canadian Broadcast Websites” , McGrath lambasts the Fund and interactive producers for failing to properly...

Can Obama help resurrect Harper’s political branding, or is it too late?

If you haven’t heard the news, Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, is finally about to follow through on an olive branch he extended to Barack Obama… last November. This comes as exciting news to Canadians who have been waiting for their fearless leader to do, well, anything that resembles what the leader of a nation might do amidst one of history’s greatest recessions. But after months of acting more like the Governor General than the Prime Minister, can Harper really meet the objectives that are oh-so imperative to our nation (and the...

Why the NHL’s Winter Classic is too little, too late for Bettman

It didn’t matter that the gametime temperature was -13 Celsius. It didn’t matter that the ‘rink’ was a converted baseball stadium. It didn’t matter that the fans with seats in row one were a hundred meters away from the action. This was a game that nobody was going to miss. Over 40,000 fans – in a US city to boot – braved the cold to watch the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Blackhawks 6-4 on New Years Day in the second installment of a short-lived tradition, affectionately referred to as the “Winter Classic”. ...