Introducing nitchCraft: Exploring how entrepreneurs connect with niche audiences through media and content

It’s an exciting day today at the nitchblog as I’m introducing a new feature this week that I’m calling ‘nitchCraft’.  Personally, I think it’s a clever title, but the jury’s still out! The idea behind this series is to explore the “craft” of niche as it relates to content in the digital and social media spaces.  To do this, I’ll be conducting (hopefully) fun and (potentially) informative interviews with a diverse collection of business owners, content creators and entrepreneurs who are using the interwebs to...

Digital content brings out our creative best – why can’t digital content business models?

I’ve been frustrated lately.  Over the last month I’ve sat on 3 panels filled with incredibly creative professionals.  I’ve traveled back and forth across the country meeting with some of the biggest players in digital in Canada and some of the coolest niche brands you may never have heard of.  I’ve worked as an industry analyst for two different industry funds, reviewing project concepts from some of the top digital concept producers in Canada.  Still, in the midst of all this incredible inspiration, at times, it’s been a frustrating...

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...

To boldly go where no niche has gone before…

Ok, maybe not “no niche”, but I couldn’t resist the chance to quote William Shatner. If you hadn’t yet caught on, this post is being put up today as a tribute to the release of “Star Trek“, the motion picture (not be confused with “Star Trek: The Motion Picutre“).  The Trek movie franchise has come along way since the slightly overweight and greying crew was dusted off back in 1980 for its big screen debut.  Today, as the internet is a-buzz about the 11th installment of the series it makes for a particularly timely...

Why the mobile industry is like real estate

Let’s take a moment today to focus on mobile.  It’s a medium that we all use every day to the point that we don’t really even think about it anymore.  And in spite of its pervasiveness and its massive global reach, the mobile phone is really the weapon in your technology arsenal that’s the most intimate – I know people who sleep with their phones and wake up to them chiming! Yes, Twitter is getting all the buzz these days, but you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s ever going to have even a fraction of the impact of the...

Our wired world has a long way to go – putting “big” numbers in perspective

Last night I attended Refresh Events 7th installment at the MaRS Discovery District in downtown Toronto.  Stemming from keynote Thomas Purves‘ presentation on augmented reality, a spirited group discussion broke out to end the evening.  Topics included everything from global and local socioeconomics, to the proliferation of Java mobile apps in South Africa, to whether or not internet access could become a basic human right, to a future where people may have their phones “inside them” (insert joke here – last night’s best involved...

It’s not Gossip, Girl – it’s the future of hyper-niche citizen journalism

I have a confession to make. I love cheesy TV dramas. The unenlightened among you might call them “chick” shows, but as a regular viewer of many such programs, I can assure you that they do have entertainment value for the discerning gentleman – just sometimes it’s a little harder to spot. In spite of this confession, up until this week I had managed to avoid a program that all the ladies seem to be talking about these days. A little show called, Gossip Girl. The show was actually named for a pop-culture term that I always thought I...

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...

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...

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...