Branded Entertainment, Bell Fund and mixing business with pleasure at nextMEDIA

As I publish this post, I’m sitting in the Rocky Mountains preparing to attend the 2009 edition of the nextMEDIA conference.   Leaders in the spaces of digital content, production, advertising, marketing and media are converging on Banff this weekend to mix and mingle (as we always do quite successfully) and to try solve the problems of the digital world (as we seem to do with more limited success). While the odds are that we won’t revolutionize the digital space this weekend, I’m looking forward to some exciting discussion and to meeting and...

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...

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...

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...

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...

‘Hacking’ into niche content – launching a web series, with Jill Golick (Part 2)

Welcome back for part two of my interview with Jill Golick on her pay-per-download web series for tween girls, Hailey’s Hacks.  If you missed part one yesterday, you can get caught up here. Let’s dive right back in. What are some of the tools you’re using to promote the content?  How have you found the response to date? Before we launched we built up little presences for Hailey on Facebook (as a Facebook page), on icanhascheezburger, Twitter, YouTube and 12seconds....

‘Hacking’ into niche content – launching a web series, with Jill Golick (Part 1)

With microblogging and social networking seemingly dominating all of the headlines these days, I was really refreshed a short while ago when I came across an original pay-per-download instructional web video series called Hailey’s Hacks. I thought it was great to see someone investing video content with a clear purpose, rather than simply networking, and even greater, to see that it was starting with a business model – a somewhat novel concept these days! I got even more excited when I realized that Hailey’s Hacks was created by Toronto’s own...