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”. ...

Could the loss of a startup signal the dawn of the next generation?

I lost a friend the other day. Actually, I lost a few dozen. Pownce, a social networking and blogging site that only came out of Beta in January of this year was bought out by Six Apart and is closing its virtual doors for good on December 15. And all that was sent to break the news to me was the following message: We are sad to announce that Pownce is shutting down on December 15, 2008. As of today, Pownce will no longer be accepting new users or new pro accounts. And that was that. I have to admit that I was not at all an avid Pownce user but to borrow a line from...

Can any party really “win” an election with so much non-confidence among the voting public?

Communicating with targeted interest groups is key element of the campaigning process, but as recent history has shown us, legitimate support of the masses may be real the key to good government – or at least to a government that can get things done. Tweet this! Or... Facebook...

Companies and causes – it’s not a part-time gig

Social responsibility is a hot button issue these days. Every body is talking about it, many are passionate about it, and every company would have you believe that they’re on board. But what it seems some of them aren’t getting is that social responsibility isn’t something you can do once in a while – it’s something that needs to be ingrained in your culture, or you might as well not even bother, Mr. CEO. I came across another tragic example of this part-time responsibility today… The issue, well my need to rant about it at least,...

Online video arrives with a five ring circus

In case you’ve been under a rock for a the last week, I’ll let you know that the Olympics are here people! And the best part is, if that’s news to you, you haven’t missed a thing! Let me explain… The Olympics create an international buzz that is virtually unmatched. They create heroes that nations will remember for lifetimes. They bring warring nations together. And most importantly, they cause myself and possibly even billions of other people become fascinated with things that they would NEVER even pay the mildest bit of attention to...

Taking viral for a loop

If you haven’t read the article on DIY social network site, Ning, and its “tech hottie” co-founder Gina Bianchini in the May 2008 edition of Fast Company, don’t. It’s an advantage to the rest of us who have aspirations of becoming Web 2.0 millionaires. Bianchini and techgod business partner Mark Andreessen (Netscape and Opsware founder, Digg investor) have taken a mathematical model and turned it into a predictably expansive jackpot. Of course, at first glance, it’s not hard to overlook the brilliance of what they’ve...

Will the Web 2.0 brands benefitting from the investment of venture capitalists really find enough audience to generate ROI, or just excite the blogosphere before ultimately failing to find a broad enough user base to justify the investment?

Flock, a “Social Web Browser” is hotly anticipated in tech circles, but blogosphere approval doesn’t always lead to adoption by the larger audience VC must attract in order to be justified. Tweet this! Or... Facebook...