A View from the Isle

We shouldn’t be surprised that after seeing the list of nominees for most influential women in Canadian social media that when the guy’s list came out it would be stacked with a lot of Vancouver (and environs) folks on the list…

Boris Mann bmannconsulting.com
Darren Barefoot http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/
Jon Husband http://blog.wirearchy.com/
Jordan Behan jordanbehan.com
Kris Krug kriskrug.com
Leonard Brody http://www.nowpublic.com/leonard_brody
Rob Cottingham http://www.robcottingham.ca
Tod Maffin http://www.todmaffin.com/blog

[From Vote: Who Is Canada’s Most Influential Man In Social Media? | Profectio]

Congrats to all the nominees! All the guys on the list are well deserving. Of course there are people missing from the list, there always are some gaps, but we can certainly be proud of what Canada is bringing to the world of social media.

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Last night we had the first of what I know will be many Best of 604 galas. It is safe to say if you are involved in social media, in town, and not sick you were there at The Cellar last night.

The winners from last night were the cream of the crop, but honestly the big winners are all of us.

Honestly.

The community came together and had a blast. The hum of conversation was constant. I think I heard “Oh! You’re… Great to finally meet you in person…” hundreds of times during the evening.

People were genuinely glad, happy, and excited to get together and meet.

Rebecca, you did something so awesome, that you deserve and award.

Next year I’m sure it will be bigger, better, and also become the official blogger Christmas party of the year.

On a more selfish note, Media2o gave away a $2500 studio package and my good friend Monica Hamburg won the prize! I hear she is going to give it to her partner Chris, but maybe we can convince Monica do to something for Connected Life in the future.

In true social media form, here is a Flickr slideshow of all the pics tagged “bestof604″ … enjoy!

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DaveO and I were chatting this afternoon about net neutrality as I was helping him with a post he’s writing for the Raincity Studios blog and we thought that in concert with Saturday’s Media Democracy Day here in Vancouver more Vancouver Geeks might want to get involved.

So Vancouver geeks speak up! Write about public policy issues around technology and democracy – net neutrality, copywrong, media access, voting, or whatever you think fits. Vancouver is well known for not only its thriving tech scene, but also its intellectual depth surrounding tech issues as well. Well then, let’s show off a little. How to get involved? Simple, write your post, link to Dave’s on the Raincity blog … and that’s it.

Dave’s post on net neutrality will go up tomorrow and I’ll be doing a follow up post as a part 2 on this blog. Dave will gather the links to all the posts on his post so we can all connect the dots around the city.

Then on Saturday why don’t you wander down the the Main Branch of the Vancouver Public Library for a full day of media related events—Media Democracy Day Vancouver – October 25, 2008 | Media Democracy Day.

We’ve all been seen the power of citizen media in the past elections and the spread of news, this is great but we all know that we depend on infrastructure and rights for this to continue.

What’s your burning issue around media democracy and freedom?

Update: Dave’s post on net neutrality is now up on the Raincity Studios blog

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One of my favourite things about the Vancouver tech community is, well, the community. One of the main reasons I decided to throw caution, and a job, to the wind and stay in B.C. instead of moving to Toronto was the community and circle of friends I have here.

So true to Vancouver form, after chatting with Raul this morning (and confusing him with a bad pun), he let me know about tonight’s Ideas On Tap event tonight in Yaletown (W00t! Walking distance!).

The event is free, and open to all techies around, but you do have to register (for headcounts and a name tag thingy).

Although I’ve been a part of the tech scene in Vancouver for a long while, I wasn’t during the Dot Com boom and bust so I didn’t know the context and history of the event. That gap was filled by Rebecca’s post from earlier this month announcing the re-launch of Ideas On Tap. Being the tech maven she is, Rebecca will also be participating in Ideas on Tap (live blogging I’m guessing).

Me, I’ll stick to live tweeting and taking pictures. I’m guessing that this will be a venue for the flash, but I doubt I’ll pull out The Lens for this one.

See you tonight.

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Don’t know what it is about that squat building on Dunlevy, but lots of cool stuff comes out of there. Yesterday I told you about Tagga’s taggamobs for BlogWorld Expo, now I bring you: Mini-meme—MINI meme – The Ultimate in branded turnkey video contests.

Chatting with Nadia yesterday I got the scoop on Memelabs’ award-winning video contest software/service and how it had become so popular they decided to spin off what could be called “Memelabs Lite”.

First, I had to understand what Memelabs was all about before I could grok Mini-meme.

In a few words, Memelabs powers video-based contests for clients. Like a contest from the GAP for people to record how they contribute to society by volunteering.

People record the video, it’s submitted, and people vote. Then there is a winner.

What has made it simple is the backend that powers it all, but what has kept more people from using it is that until now every contest had a custom look at feel—something that is out of the reach of non-profits and small businesses.

Seeing the opportunity with smaller clients Mini-meme was developed to make the process easier and less hands on for the Memelabs folks.

What’s different? Self serve and templates. Instead of a completely custom look and feel you get a choice of templates, adding your logo, and choosing a colour scheme. Instead of Memelabs doing all the management of the contest, you do.

Nadia said the hour that Mini-meme clients are given for training is plenty. They made the backend management portion smoother, cleaner, and streamlined (I’d liken it to the difference between WP and Drupal).

Since people tend to be natural hams, especially when there is something to be won, I think this could become a fun, maybe even compelling, way to build some buzz.

Contact the folks at Memelabs through the Mini-meme site to get more info on it.

See also: Techvibes and Memelabs

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