social media

Facebook F8 and BCON

Recently, two very important conferences have taken place. One was in Toronto: BCON. The other in San Francisco: Facebook F8. I attended BCON here in Toronto and followed the F8 conference via updates from Facebook.

I also happened to write about these two events.

I wrote about my 5 takeaways from BCON on the Active International blog. BCON is a conference focusing on how brands and publishers can continue to use and iterate on Branded Content.

Active’s blog also hosted a very short piece on some marketing highlights from Facebook’s F8 conference.

Lastly, I finally submitted another piece to itbusiness.ca. I’ve been a regular contributor to itbusiness but recent work commitments have seen my contributions dwindle. Hopefully this will increase again over time.  I wrote about the 4 things that mattered at the Facebook F8 conference.

I hope you enjoy the articles!

social media

Facebook Live

I’m a big fan of Periscope. And so is Facebook. So much so that the social media giant recently launched Facebook Live. What is it? Facebook Live is Facebook’s live streaming functionality. Which means we will all be seeing (and getting notifications) live video in our Facebook newsfeed very soon. Missed going to Opening Day? No need to worry. Just log in to Facebook (or Periscope or Twitter) and watch a Live feed of the game being streamed by one of your lucky friends.

Here’s how to use Facebook Live and start a broadcast:

Facebook Live

Don’t see the broadcast icon? Neither do I. Facebook Live is still not available to everyone. Stay tuned…

Toronto

Historical Scarborough: Thomson Park

Yes. Scarborough is historical. The Thomson Settlement (a precursor of Thomson Park) was the first permanent settlement in Scarborough (then a township). Brothers David and Andrew came here in 1796 via Scotland.

thomson park | scarborough

The first library in Scarborough was first organized on April 7th, 1834. It had 46 original members who paid a five shilling membership fee.

Scarborough Library | Thomson Park

Scarborough Library | Thomson Park

The Thomson memorial in the nearby cemetery which happens to be close to the Scarborough Library:

Thomson Family memorial

 

podcast, Toronto

Welcome! Season 2

Season Two of Welcome! is now in the bag. Welcome! was designed to showcase conversations with members of Toronto’s creative community. They can be musicians, artists, and even entrepreneurs. Essentially, anyone who lives or works in Toronto that is doing interesting things.

This season I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing media personalities, a former boxer who once sparred with Mohammed Ali, entrepreneurs, someone who climbed Kilimanjaro, a convicted murderer as well as the mother of a child who is on Canada’s Do Not Fly List.

I’m really looking forward to Season Three of Welcome! You can expect to hear from people whom you know. And many that you don’t know. However, there is one thing you can expect: The conversations will shed light on the lives, success and failures of these people. I hope you enjoy this ride as much as I will enjoy bringing it to you.

Remember to follow my episodes of Welcome! on Girth Radio. You can also follow me on the Welcome! MixCloud station.

Season Two episodes:

#23 – Khadija Cajee #NoFlyLisyKids

#22 – Segun Akinsanya

#21 – Adam Mintz

#20 – Romana Kassam

#19 – Spider Jones

#18 – Morgan P. Campbell

#17 – Sammy Younan

 

digital media

Unboxing The Dash from Bragi

Finally. The one Kickstarter product I’ve been waiting for finally arrived earlier this week. The Dash by Bragi.

The Dash reminds me of “comm” that Jack Bauer used to place in his ear to talk with and listen to CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) when he went on his missions to save the world.

I’m getting used to the gestures to control The Dash as well as all it’s features. I’ve already used it to store and listen to music with (independent of my phone), listen to podcast from my phone as well as track my workouts.

The music sounds clear and crisp. The preset instructions are also clear enough. I’m really excited about my new Dash! Thanks Bragi!

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

The Dash | Bragi

social media

So I got a new job

Many of you may have already heard. But it’s now official (meaning the company has made an announcement): I have a new job.

I recently left Catalyst/Maxus (part of GroupM) where I was managing the paid social business for Nestle Canada to join iNvolved Media (part of Active International). At iNvolved my title is Director, Social Media Strategy. What this means is that I will be leading the efforts to grow the social media leadership and business for the agency.

I’m really excited about flexing these muscles in my new role.

You can read the official press release here.

digital media, social media

Instant Articles: Facebook

If you haven’t heard about or seen Facebook’s Instant Articles you will be very soon. Especially if you’re in Canada.

Instant Articles have been around for a little while now. It basically allowed publishers to post Facebook exclusive content to the social media giant’s platform. By accessing the more than 1 billion active users, the publisher would, in essence be exposing their content to more available readers.

Earlier this month, Facebook opened Instant Articles up to all publishers. Currently, Canadian publishers on the Instant Articles platform include Chatelaine, Diply, The Huffington Post Canada, Journal de Montreal, Maclean’s, Sportsnet, The Canadian Press and TVA Nouvelles.

According to a Facebook blog post:

We built Instant Articles to solve a specific problem—slow loading times on the mobile web created a problematic experience for people reading news on their phones. This is a problem that impacts publishers of all sizes, especially those with audiences where low connectivity is an issue. With that in mind, our goal from the beginning was to open up Instant Articles to all publishers and we’re excited to be able to do that in a way that makes it fast and easy for all publishers to reach their audiences on Facebook.

Here’s what Instant Articles looks like (on my Android device specifically):

instant articles | facebook

See the “lightning blot” circled in red? That denotes an Instant Article. In this case, it’s from Slate.com. When a user clicks on the image in this unit they see:

ai

For the user, it’s a much better experience than clicking through and reading the article on the Slate website. Once done, the reader would then close the mobile browser and re-open Facebook. With Instant Articles, the reader doesn’t have to leave Facebook.

For the publisher, they get more eyeballs on their content. And with more eyeballs comes the potential of increased revenues. However, this revenue is shared with Facebook.  And more eyeballs on their Facebook content doesn’t necessarily mean more eyeballs on their own websites/blogs. What does this mean for the future of publishers if they continue to rely heavily on Facebook for their revenues?

For Facebook, it make their platform more sticky. Facebook always wins.