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Export Development Canada (EDC) has formalized a partnership with C-100, a select group of Canadian entrepreneurs based primarily in Silicon Valley who leverage their collective expertise to grow a new generation of successful Canadian-led technology companies.

“Canada’s high tech sector has among the most energetic and aggressive exporters in the country, and their global mentality is an approach that partners well with EDC’s own interest in growing Canada’s export trade,” said Benoit Daignault, Senior Vice-President, Business Development, EDC.

“EDC’s partnership with C-100 will focus on enhancing EDC’s support of the Canadian technology community by gaining greater insights into the challenges and opportunities within the Canadian venture capital industry.”

Under the partnership, EDC will undertake an active involvement in the C-100 mentorship program, including having an EDC representative on the panel of C-100’s signature “48 hours in the valley” conference series, as well as participating in C-100 events in Canada and in the Silicon Valley.

EDC is Canada’s export credit agency, offering innovative commercial solutions to help Canadian exporters and investors expand their international business. EDC’s knowledge and partnerships are used by more than 8,200 Canadian companies and their global customers in up to 200 markets worldwide each year. EDC is financially self-sustaining and a recognized leader in financial reporting and economic analysis.

Research In Motion has officially announced BBM™ Music, a new BBM (BlackBerry® Messenger) service for socially connected music fans. BBM Music is an easy-to-use cloud-based service that enables social and viral music discovery by allowing users to build an evolving, community-based music library that is shared amongst their BBM Music friends. The size of the music library continues to grow as new friends join the community and each user can select music from a catalog with millions of songs from leading music companies – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI.

“More than 45 million customers already love the social communication benefits delivered through BBM and we are thrilled to be extending the experience into a uniquely social and interactive music service,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “We have partnered with leading music companies to provide a ‘full track’ music sharing and discovery experience that will provide users with quality music on demand and allow them to connect with friends on a whole new level.”

Key features of BBM Music include:

• Music made social – BBM Music is a cloud-based, social music service that allows you to share and discover music with your friends, creating a continually evolving music library:
  • Build a personal music profile with 50 of your favorite songs. You can refresh your profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month.
  • Invite your BBM friends to subscribe to BBM Music and to join your BBM Music Community.
  • With each friend that is added to BBM Music, you grow your music collection since the songs from the profile of each BBM Music friend are available to you at any time.
  • Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are shared with your BBM Music Community, and each member of your community shares up to 50 songs from their profile with you.
  • Enjoy a truly social community-based music experience – the more friends who join your community, the more songs you can listen to.
  • Easily discover music that your BBM Music friends are listening to, and comment on your friends’ songs and playlists.
  • You can create multiple playlists from music in your profile as well as all of your friends’ profiles, and with one click you can shuffle the entire collection of music from your BBM Music Community. You can even see which friend contributed each song while it plays.
  • Within your BBM Music app, you also see a visual timeline that shows the recent updates of all users within your community. It gives you a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends, which songs were added or removed, which playlists were created and what comments were made by your BBM Music friends.
• Listen to Full Tracks – BBM Music subscribers can listen to full tracks from their friends’ profiles – not just previews.
• Offline Listening – Music can be saved to smartphones for offline listening, allowing users to access songs even when they don’t have wireless coverage.
• Topping the Charts – Keep track of how many friends are listening to your tracks.

Omnifone, a premier cloud music service provider, is providing RIM with a back-end solution for the BBM Music service that provides content management, music hosting and reporting functions based on Omnifone’s award winning technology. As part of RIM’s proprietary service, Omnifone’s back-end solution helps facilitate the delivery of a full music catalog to BBM Music users and comprehensive compensation reporting for copyright holders.

“A major component of online music continues to be about community, and the ability to discover new artists and music through word of mouth,” stated Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business for Universal Music Group. “BBM Music dynamically and elegantly integrates the excitement of this social music discovery process with a high quality music service, enabling tens of millions of BlackBerry users to experience new music and to share those experiences with their friends virtually anywhere and at anytime.”

“We are pleased to be partnering with Research In Motion on their BBM Music service. RIM and its large base of BlackBerry Messenger users represent an exciting platform for expanding the reach of commercial digital music around the world,” stated Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. “The combination of a premium music solution and instant messaging will enable viral music discovery and emphasize the social power of digital music. It also offers an effective way of serving younger consumers by integrating music into the fabric of an important hub of their digital activity.”

“A dynamic social music experience is a powerful way for our artists to connect with fans and also for fans to discover music by interacting with each other,” said Michael Nash, Executive Vice President, Digital Strategy & Business Development, Warner Music Group. “Addressing more than 45 million BlackBerry Messenger users with a service tailor-made for its mobile community, BBM Music has the opportunity to reach a broad and engaged audience.”

“We are very excited to work with Research In Motion to bring our artists’ music to BBM’s huge and very loyal user base,” said Mark Piibe, Executive Vice President of Global Business Development at EMI Music. “BBM Music’s unique social discovery experience offers fans a great new way to discover music, share their favorite tracks with their friends and build a stronger connection with the artists they love.”

“The widespread adoption of mobile devices provides the perfect foundation for consuming and sharing music. Brands that want to deliver a unique interactive experience must create services that are mobile, social, and contextual,” said Maribel Lopez Principal at Lopez Research and Constellation Research Group.

A closed beta trial of the BBM Music service is starting today in Canada, the United States and the UK. The BBM Music service is expected to be commercially available to customers later this year for a monthly subscription of $4.99 USD in Australia, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States. Pricing may vary by country and will be announced upon availability in each country. Data charges may apply if music is downloaded over wireless networks in conjunction with limited data plans. Check with your network operator for the terms of your data plan.

BCIC and Wavefront (the Canadian wireless commercialization centre) launched its second annual entrepreneurship@Wavefront Program today.  A 12-month program, entrepreneurship@Wavefront is designed to support and nurture early-stage B.C. wireless companies from product concept to market entry. After a successful pilot, the accelerator program is expanding to support 12 companies this year and will be working closely with the BC Regional Science and Technology Network to increase accessibility of the program for participants outside the Lower Mainland.

“The first year program enabled eight entrepreneurs to turn their product ideas into successful emerging wireless companies,” said Mark Payne, Acting CEO of BCIC.  “Wavefront has done a great job working with these startups in our program, which have collectively generated over half a million dollars in external investment, over $350,000 in revenues, 18 new jobs, and new products that are penetrating growing markets.”

Among the first year graduating class is Vancouver-based RewardLoop, this year’s B.C. TIA Award winner for ‘Most Promising Startup’.

“The entrepreneurship@Wavefront was the catalyst that enabled us to work full time on bringing RewardLoop to market.  We have already signed deals with some of North America’s largest retail chains and are expanding our reach through international distribution partnerships , “ said Nigel Malkin, CEO and Co-Founder, RewardLoop. “The guidance, feedback, and support we’ve received from the program at Wavefront were invaluable to us in making these accomplishments possible in such a short period of time.”

Companies selected this year will receive office space in Wavefront’s downtown accelerator centre, access to their wireless expert advisory, training, and testing services, sales and marketing coaching, and connections to key industry contacts. Program participants also benefit from BCIC’s Mentor Program, a network of seasoned entrepreneurs and industry experts who provide entrepreneurs with support that is critical for growing a successful company.

“The wireless solutions being developed by the entrepreneurship@Wavefront companies span from Machine-to-Machine (M2M) to next generation networks to enterprise applications that address issues faced across many industries.  We continue to work closely with BCIC to ensure cross-sector opportunities, creating an environment within our accelerator centre that fosters collaboration and success,” said Jim Maynard, President of Wavefront.

Full details and applications for the entrepreneurship@Wavefront program are available online. The deadline for applications is Friday, August 26th at 11:59 p.m.   Selected companies will be announced September 7, 2011 with the program and access to Wavefront’s downtown Vancouver offices beginning immediately after.

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) announced today an investment of $3.4 million in 16 projects through its 2011-2012 English Point-of-View (POV) Program. This program is designed to encourage English POV documentary production.

Of the 49 applications received for the English POV Program, the CMF has approved the funding for 16 projects. $2.7 million has been committed to television components and $0.7 million to digital media components. Fourteen projects were presented with a rich and substantial digital media component, of which 11 will be financed by the CMF, while two are using video on demand (VOD) and/or digital distribution as their additional platforms.

Of the approved projects, two are from British Columbia, one is a co-production between Nova Scotia and Nunavut, six are from Ontario, six from Quebec, and one from Saskatchewan. These decisions and funding commitments are preliminary, as all requests must undergo a contracting process.

I managed to miss the original announcement of this, but I’m sharing it with you all now – because there is a very important little nugget of hope contained in this news release from Endemol – providing our favourite locally-shot quirky crime drama does not face the possibility of re-location. It would be hard to watch the show if it were shot anywhere but in Vancouver, with the cast and crew as is – and I know many people who would rejoice at the chance of viewing the show on TV sets outside of Canada.

Endemol recently  announced the launch of Endemol Studios, an LA-based independent scripted TV studio operation, to be headed up by newly appointed CEO Philippe Maigret. In his new role, Maigret will report to Endemol North America Chairman, David Goldberg.  Maigret will continue to oversee North America rights acquisitions for the Group, where he has served as Executive Vice President, North America Acquisitions, since joining the company in March 2010. Joining Maigret, Jeremy Gold is appointed Head of Creative Affairs, Endemol Studios. Gold joined Endemol in 2008 as Senior Vice President, Scripted Programming and launched Endemol USA’s scripted TV development division.

Endemol Studios will develop and produce US scripted TV programming for global exploitation across all platforms.  The operation is resourced to finance the development of projects; deficit-finance the production of pilots and series; and to oversee all related activities. Endemol Studios will focus on primetime U.S. cable drama productions based on original projects developed internally, as well as scripted formats adapted from Endemol’s international portfolio.  The studio will also partner with US networks and producers on projects already developed, coming on board in a studio capacity.

“Endemol Studios represents a significant step in our ongoing strategy to expand and diversify our activities in North America at the same time helping fuel our global growth. Philippe and Jeremy bring together a powerful blend of experience and a track record of delivering projects with global potential” said David Goldberg, Chairman of Endemol North America.

Maigret added: “It is something of a wish fulfillment to build a new-generation TV studio business. Endemol Studios will draw on Endemol’s world leading creative resources in the US and around the world, as well as leveraging the Group’s global distribution platforms.”

The launch of Endemol Studios capitalizes on Endemol’s successes in US scripted television to date. These have included AMC’s recent series order of the Endemol USA-developed series Hell on Wheels, premiering November 6; as well as the rights acquisition of  TV Land’s Hot in Cleveland, Happily Divorced and The Exes, TNT’s Leverage, The Hub’s The Haunting Hour in the U.S. and Showcase’s Endgame in Canada.
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The Kobo eReader Touch Edition is now available at Best Buy stores in both Canada and the USA as part of its strategy to deliver eReading to everyone, everywhere. To support the launch of the new Kobo eReader Touch Edition at Best Buy, Kobo specialists will be alongside Best Buy’s Blue Shirts to demo the eReader to consumers, providing them with a hands-on experience to see, touch and try the slim, light and innovative touch screen eReader.

The Kobo Wireless eReader has been available in-store and online at Best Buy for the last four months. Best Buy is now expanding its Kobo offering by carrying the Kobo eReader Touch Edition, which is available onlineand at select Best Buy stores nationwide. This in-store roll out allows consumers to gain an in-depth, hands-on comparison of the Touch Edition against competing eReaders. Kobo is currently expanding the Touch Edition availability through multiple retail channels on a number of continents, and Best Buy is one of several planned launches in the United States for Q3 and Q4.

Emerging Canadian telecommunications provider Worldline has announced a new low-priced and feature-rich home phone and high speed internet bundle for the Ontario market that is designed to bring down costs for consumers while offering outstanding service.

Today, the average Canadian household is paying around $100 dollars a month for basic wireline and broadband service, and must further shell out for long distance charges and for add-on services such as visual call display. Worldline comes out of the gate with an all-in bundled package at half of the cost.

For the low monthly cost of $49.95 plus a $5.00 regulatory and essential services fee, Worldline’s bundle is incredibly affordable. It is also simple to understand and customers can be up and running very quickly. There are no hidden fees, extra costs or contracts. As an extra bonus, this package includes free long distance to most destinations across Canada. And best of all – it comes with free installation.

“Worldline is taking a stand on behalf of the average Ontario family. In these challenging economic times, people everywhere are looking to reduce household costs. But at the same time, they need a dependable provider for quality home phone service, high speed internet, as well as attractive long distance calling. We want to be that provider,” says CEO Jody Schnarr.

Schnarr continues on to explain that Worldline’s efficient business operations and lean and mean approach to marketing enables the company to offer such low pricing to their customers. “Elaborate marketing campaigns and television commercials may help to build brand recognition, but they don’t serve the average consumer. We believe in passing savings along to our customers,” he notes. Read the rest of this entry »

Mobile local search and advertising service Poynt Corporation has released a new version of their award-winning local search application Poynt on the BlackBerry® Playbook™ tablet for use in Germany, France, Spain and Italy in their respective languages.

North American and United Kingdom Playbook tablet users now have access to the Events search vertical allowing them to search for concerts, sporting events, festivals, and other local events and venues. Users can search by location, date, category or performer and have access to detailed event information, including turn-by-turn directions, performance details, venue details, event websites and images, without leaving the app. The up-to-the-minute content is provided by a Poynt content partner, Eventful, the leading digital media company connecting 20 million consumers to local events. Users can add events to their device calendar or send details to friends via email, Facebook or Twitter.

‘Search from here’—one of the more popular functionalities of the existing version of the App—has also been added. The feature allows users to fully plan their days or their evenings by making a search listing their location in order to find additional business, movie, restaurant and event listings nearby. For example, this allows users to plan a complete evening out by choosing a restaurant and making dinner reservations and then finding a movie theatre in the area, booking movie tickets and getting directions all without exiting the app. This functionality makes Poynt a truly valuable personal assistant tool when planning your day.

Playbook tablet users in Europe and North America can integrate Poynt across their devices by pairing their BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with their BlackBerry smartphone. Pairing allows users to take advantage of the larger user interface offered by the BlackBerry PlayBook while still taking full advantage of the features available through their BlackBerry smartphone.

“The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offers a very user-friendly interface and allows us to showcase the wealth of events data and multimedia available. Providing users in Europe with the ability to use Poynt for the PlayBook tablet in their native languages is important to us as we recognize the value of local content,” stated Andrew Osis, president and CEO of Poynt Corp. “We anticipate that continued growth in feature sets and geographies will translate into continued revenue growth for Poynt Corp.”

“With richer data sets and verticals comes increased usage of the App – both in frequency and length of time. We continue to see an increased number of searches per user as we expand the features and functionality within Poynt. This, in turn, translates into increased advertising revenue.”

Poynt is a convenient and timesaving GPS-enabled mobile application that connects consumers to local businesses, events, restaurants, movie theatres, gas prices and weather information at the moment they are looking to buy or acquire products or services. Poynt provides consumers with the ability to move beyond discovery of their local area to view movie trailers and reviews, buy movie tickets, click-to-call businesses, get directions, browse listing websites, read reviews and book dining reservations, all without leaving the App.

Poynt revenue is driven by providing contextual and relevant advertising to users through searches, local queries, page views, and transactions within the App. Each user query generates several page views, which are monetized through display advertising and sponsored listings paid for by advertisers on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis or on a cost per click (CPC) basis. Transactions, such as ticket sales and restaurant reservations, also contribute to revenues on a fee for service basis.

Poynt is available as a free download for users in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Australia on BlackBerry® smartphones, BlackBerry Playbook™ tablet, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Android, Windows Phone 7 and Nokia devices from the respective App Stores. Poynt is also available via Over the Air download at m.poynt.com.

Wendy Gross and Joel Ramsey have joined law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP as partners. Wendy will co-chair the Technology Business Group for the company, which has offices in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and New York.

“Wendy Gross and Joel Ramsey are strategic additions to our Firm and we are delighted to have them join us,” said Osler Managing Partner Dale Ponder.  “In a world where technology is so significant, we believe our clients will benefit from Wendy and Joel’s market leading expertise in complex transactions for technology and business process products and services.  These are increasingly strategic areas for clients who must rely heavily on technology and on technology and business process service providers, to grow revenue, control costs, run operations efficiently, increase productivity and maintain a competitive advantage. They will also enhance our depth in advising clients on the growing demand for online and mobile payments systems.”

“Osler understands how critically important it is to help clients achieve their business objectives and manage risks,” Ms. Gross said. “Its strong client base in key industry verticals, such as financial services, energy, retail and health care, make this a tremendous fit for Joel and me.  Osler already has an exceptional group of practitioners in this highly specialized area of law.  We are looking forward to working with our new colleagues.”

Ms. Gross is recognized as a leading technology advisor in peer and customer research studies in Canada and internationally. She is actively engaged in speaking and writing on current issues in technology law and participates in key trade associations. Ms. Gross was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1993 and is a graduate of the University of Toronto.

Mr. Ramsey advises clients throughout North America on a variety of strategic sourcing, technology, software development and licensing matters. While based in New York earlier in his career, he built a practice focused on global outsourcing transactions. He is admitted to the Bar in Ontario and in New York.

A coalition of eight of the leading advertising industry trade associations in Canada today announced a framework for industry self-regulation regarding Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) in Canada. The initiative, which is similar to those adopted by groups in the US, Europe and Australia, is the culmination of over 2 years of work; including regular submissions, dialogue, research and status updates to The Office Of The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada (OPC). Although the programme will be coordinated by IAB Canada (Interactive Advertising Bureau), it is also fully-supported by the Members of the following industry associations:

• Advertising Standards Canada (ASC)
• L’Association des agences de publicité du Québec (AAPQ)
• The Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA)
• The Canadian Marketing Association (CMA)
• The Canadian Media Directors’ Council (CMDC)
• Le Conseil des directeurs médias du Québec (CDMQ)
• Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA)
• The Interactive Advertising Bureau Of Canada (IAB Canada)

The framework includes the following four elements:

Transparency – Providing Consumers with immediate notice when the Websites that they are visiting are supplying them with Online Behavioural Advertising. This would be done via an “icon” placed on the Online Behavioural Ads themselves/or in other prominent areas on the Websites being visited.

Education – Providing Consumers with one-click access to clear and concise Web-based educational information about Online Behavioural Advertising, so that Consumers can understand the nature of these practices; how and when their privacy is protected within various targeted advertising processes; and to learn how to protect themselves in areas on the Internet which represent security risks to their privacy.

Choice – Consumers can already control cookies via altering their Web browser’s preferences — essentially determining whether or not an individual Publisher’s Website, Ad Network or other 3^rd-party service can collect and record information about their Websurfing habits/or interactions with Online ads.

The industry’s self-regulatory initiative goes a step further, by providing Consumers who may not be familiar with how to change their browser’s security settings, with one-click access for a full opt-out of Online Behavioural Advertising, should they desire to do so. While many Online Publishers and Ad Networks already provide such an opt-out option, the coordinated initiative will extend this practice across the Canadian Online advertising industry.

Accountability – An accountability program that ensures that Consumers’ opt-out of preferences are retained over the long-term is being developed utilizing a variety of providers, as well as an independent consumer complaint mechanism in consultation with Advertising Standards Canada.

“With Canada’s framework now finalized, the scope of the self-regulatory initiative regarding Online Behavioural Advertising is now truly global in nature,” says Paula Gignac, President, IAB Canada. “Canadian Online Publishers and Ad Networks are moving forward within the framework even as we speak, and in fact, because so many of IAB Canada’s Members also have operations in the US and across the globe, many are already well on their way to completing all four steps within the process.”

Bob Reaume, Vice President, Policy & Research, Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA) confirms the readiness of Advertisers to implement their part of the plan: “We’re pleased to see the work of the all-industry group ready to go forward, as this initiative enhances Advertisers’ commitment to advertise responsibly in all media.”

“Agencies are also working to ready clients for the self-regulatory program,” notes Arthur Fleischmann, CEO of John St. and Chair of the ICA’s Interactive Committee. “The ICA and its Member Agencies endorse and strongly support the initiative, and are committed to ensuring that the OBA self-regulatory framework is rigorously delivered in Canada.”