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Announcing Unilytics Managed Services for Webtrends, a hybrid solution for web analytics with the best features of both the “on premise” and “on demand” versions of Webtrends. There is no requirement for costly hardware or specialized IT expertise, the data is fully accessible, secure, and managed by Webtrends experts.

Until now, the only options available were a costly on premise deployment or a restrictive on demand service with limited access. The drawbacks of an on premise Webtrends system include costly hardware, network support, access control, spec review and verification, internal costing, and lack of expertise with hosting tagged web analytics solutions. On demand (hosted) services also have inherent drawbacks including lack of control over data location, no access to reanalyze log files, and extra costs associated with usage.

“With Unilytics Managed Services for Webtrends, clients get the full flexibility of the on premises software version as well as a hands-off approach to infrastructure management costs” says Peder Enhorning, President of Unilytics, “This ‘best of both worlds’ scenario makes Unilytics Managed Services a very shrewd choice for enterprises looking to significantly cut costs, enhance service offerings, and ensure data is securely stored.”

Key Advantages:

• Exceptional cost savings
• Network is more robust and reliable
• Data is securely stored with a hosted service
• Full data access without costly investment in hardware or dedicated internal staff
• No additional cost to create profiles, translation tables, custom reports or to reanalyze data
• Full system access to incorporate other data elements and integrate with other marketing systems
• Unilytics experts will manage the hardware and Webtrends installation

Unilytics Managed Services for Webtrends offers two fully redundant data centers for unsurpassed data security. We use standard industry technology to ensure that even in a regional disaster at least one data centre will be online and collecting your critical web activity data.

Web-based software solutions provider for media publishers AdPerfect has launched Postmedia Network’s Community Publishing group on its industry-leading classified platform to offer Your Community Marketplace.

Serving the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley regions of B.C., Postmedia Community Publishing, comprised of 12 community newspapers including the Vancouver Courier, Burnaby Now, and Chilliwack Times, is now providing their local communities a trusted classified site.

Since putting the site live “we’ve seen a ten-fold increase in revenue,” says Mike Rutigliano vice president advertising sales and digital media at Postmedia Community Publishing. “Community newspapers need to invest in online and world-class technology. We need to give consumers what they want when they want it, and AdPerfect’s self-serve is a big part of it.”

Fully powered by AdPerfect, Your Community Marketplace offers an online self-serve order entry, available 24/7, for advertisers of any type to create their own print and/or online ads. The site also offers an online marketplace that displays advertisements and announcements.

With the ability to syndicate classified content to additional online verticals or vendors and social media channels like Facebook, AdPerfect’s solution generates additional revenue for publications like Postmedia’s newspapers while streamlining internal processes.

“As community papers, we are all about hyper-local. From a community perspective newspapers have a good opportunity in online classifieds, and can take advantage of the fact that they are trusted,” Rutigliano explains.

AdPerfect offers its self-serve classified platform as a performance-based free model, giving publishers, particularly smaller communities like those belonging to Postmedia Community Publishing, the opportunity to change their classified strategy to digital-first with a comprehensive solution and without having to incur expensive setup fees. “AdPerfect’s free model is great, it’s helpful in achieving our goals,” Rutigliano notes. Read the rest of this entry »

Ontario document management company MES Hybrid Document Systems has received a Controlled Goods Certification allowing them to handle and convert documentation relating to controlled goods and ensures the highest level of security while handling this information.

Controlled Goods Certification also ensures that MES Hybrid Document Systems complies with the Controlled Goods Program, a Canadian industrial security program that helps strengthen national defense trade controls and prevents the proliferation of strategic and tactical assets including military equipment, weapons, communications equipment and global positioning systems and related intellectual property.

“MES Hybrid Document Systems’ Controlled Goods Certification ensures the highest level of security of controlled goods and related technology by regulating possession, examination and transfer within Canada,” said Kevin D’Arcy, Vice President of Sales and Marketing of MES Hybrid Document Systems. “In addition to ensuring a high level of security, this certification allows controlled goods organizations to consolidate all their document management services with us as opposed to outsourcing a portion of their document management services and managing controlled goods information internally.”

MES Hybrid Document Systems Inc. has been successfully supplying and supporting document scanning solutions in public and private organizations across Canada since 1971. MES provides document management solutions to improve business processes, reduce paper-based tasks and focus key knowledge workers.

Like most music consumption platforms today, AUX.TV has just undergone a (generation facelift. With a 600% increase in average monthly unique visitors in the last month alone, the national music channel’s new website is at the forefront of music culture in Canada and from where they’re standing, music consumption rituals are spinning and audiences are looking for enhanced, available content now.  Today’s music fans are going beyond downloading to get behind a favourite band or artist; they want to know, hear, experience, see, even create anything related to the music they love.

“Much of our focus over the last few months has been on building and harvesting a new foundation of enhanced digital features to respond to new demands and expectations,” says Simon Foster, SVP Digital Publishing and Business Development at AUX TV. “These features amplify the content published every day by our team of online music journalists.”

One of the hottest discussion topics at the Banff World Media Festival this year was how audiences interact with and consume media. The next generation of music fans is here. Most have never purchased a CD, and yet they’re never without music.  Collectively, they watch over 2 billion music videos each day and when the country’s hottest band announces a live tour, they want to know about it first.

AUX TV’s largest demographic today is the “T-demo” (18-24 year olds), and when it comes to music consumption, the T-demo is clear about what they like:

Live music access – To immediately know about and participate in a live music opportunity that interests them.

“We recently launched a digital scavenger hunt on AUX.TV to promote a by-invitation-only concert with indie band Stars,” says Foster. “Through an innovative initiative like this, we were able to instantly connect and engage with a new generation of music fans.”

Repetition and information – To listen to their favourite tunes as frequently and conveniently as possible.

Greg Nizbet, founder of Mediazoic, says that “environments and platforms that encourage and properly distribute [a] repetition cycle will be the ones that find success, by enabling the greatest music to find the greatest number of appreciative ears.”

Clicks to content – To be appeased and impressed in 10 seconds or less. Read the rest of this entry »

In May 2008, the Greenland Group announced that important funding had been allocated by Canada’s National Research Council – IRAP to assist with further developing the CANWET (or CAnadian Nutrient and Water Evaluation Tool) modelling software. This week, CANWET-4 was launched in Newmarket, ON at the offices of the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority and also with representatives from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and local Municipalities.

Three years ago, GREENLAND^® developed an earlier model version that was later used for source water protection, assimilative capacity, nutrient management and water allocation projects. CANWET was also used last year by the Government of Ontario to prepare the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan. The total public (research) and private sectors investment to complete CANWET-4 was over $600,000 and included one of the largest grants from the National Research Council – IRAP initiative.

CANWET-4 is a continuous, GIS-based software suite to inform decision making around river basin and watershed management; water supply and waste water treatment infrastructure; food security; and, climate change adaptation. Its ability to quickly and accurately estimate daily water balance, nutrient, erosion sediment, and bacteria loadings from GIS input data allows CANWET-4 to serve as a powerful decision support system. This latest release of CANWET is VB.Net database-driven and web-aware, and features an integrated open source GIS environment. Its relative ease of use and ability to take advantage of commonly available spatial data makes it a solid choice over other water quantity and quality computer models. In addition to the integration of current watershed and climate change science from renowned researchers at the University of Guelph and Penn State University, CANWET-4 also incorporates a large suite of Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs) for assessing proposed reductions in phosphorous, nitrogen, sediment, and animal coliforms from rural and urban lands. Multiple practices can be added in parallel or in series. CANWET-4 also calculates costs for typical BMP applications based on unit-costing. The completion of CANWET-4 was important for GREENLAND^® to support other Canadian and U.S. collaborations now underway about the Lake Winnipeg, Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay Basins.

“I am extremely pleased with the completion of CANWET-4 and sincerely thank Canada’s NRC-IRAP for its funding assistance over the past few years,” says R. Mark Palmer, the President of GREENLAND^{®. “}Our P3 completion announcement, affirms the commitment of the Canadian Government for environmental research, as well as lake and river basin management programs. The development of CANWET-4 also highlights our niche Mission Statement that recognizes the environment first while complying with best available science and proven technologies.”

Desire2Learn Incorporated has announced the acquisition of Metranome Inc. and the availability of the Desire2Learn® Mobile Developer Program, which enables third-party developers to build their own functionality and incorporate that functionality into applications built with Desire2Learn Campus Life. Developers can create solutions that extend the capabilities of their mobile applications, integrate their products or services, and provide customized functionality. With the Desire2Learn Mobile Developer Program, existing mobile applications can be converted to work with Desire2Learn Campus Life quickly and with minimal effort.

The Mobile Developer Program supports all Desire2Learn Campus Life platforms including iOS for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android and BlackBerry®.

Benefits of the Program include:

• the ability for clients and developers to write custom features for inclusion in their applications
• a framework to simplify development, and APIs for extensibility
• use of Desire2Learn Campus Life standard features and broad platform support enabling individual and unique solutions
• licensing and distribution opportunities

“Desire2Learn Campus Life provides a range of extensibility options which enable our customers to optimize the solution to their unique mobile needs,” states David Kruis, Director, Mobile Strategy, Desire2Learn. “With our Mobile Partner Program we are further expanding this optimization by working with technology partners and third party developers to bring additional innovative features and functionality to mobile learners worldwide.”

Desire2Learn also officially announced the acquisition of Waterloo company Metranome Inc. Founded in 2007, Metranome’s award-winning mobile media platform serves international clients in the media, publishing, entertainment, and travel industries. Smartphone applications built on Metranome’s platform have been featured by Apple, Google, and RIM and made available worldwide on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry smartphones. Over the past six months, Metranome’s technology, leadership, and vision have been integrated into the Desire2Learn platform and are now part of the Desire2Learn suite of solutions serving all market sectors. Desire2Learn Campus Life, launched in March of this year, was built on the Metranome platform and is one of several mobile solutions available today.

“We’ve expanded upon Metranome’s years of mobile industry experience and their strong relationships with platform vendors in presenting this latest addition to our extensive mobile platform,” says John Baker, President & CEO, Desire2Learn. “Our clients are seeing higher learner retention and satisfaction rates, improved outcomes, program growth and reduced costs. Our continued focus on user experience, accessibility and mobility, as well as platform security and reliability, means users will always have access to rich and engaging content anytime, anywhere.”

The Desire2Learn Mobile team is participating in mLearnCon 2011: Mobile Learning Conference & Expo this week in San Jose, CA. Demonstrations will be available at the Desire2Learn booth (#206) on the Exhibit Floor Wednesday, June 22. Stop by to learn more.

Mobile developers are encouraged to visit the Desire2Learn.com mobile developers page, call 1.888.772.0325 or  email for further information and partnership opportunities. Additionally, a full slate of mobile sessions will be featured during the FUSION 2011 Post Conference. Registrations are currently being accepted for the Post Conference which runs July 14 and 15 in Denver, CO.

D-BOX Technologies Inc. has signed its first agreement with Texas-based ShowBiz Cinemas to equip ShowBiz Cinemas 12 in Waxahachie, Texas with 25 D-BOX MFX Seats.

“Texas continues to be one of our fastest growing U.S. markets and we are delighted to name ShowBiz Cinemas as one of our newest exhibitors, further expanding our global footprint,” said President and CEO of D-BOX Technologies, Claude Mc Master.

“A provider of first-class entertainment, ShowBiz Cinemas is looking forward to offering D-BOX in its first theatre,” said Kevin Mitchell, President and CEO of ShowBiz Cinemas. “We plan to thrill audiences with the debut of the new motion technology this summer and anticipate that guests will truly enjoy this one-of-a-kind immersive movie experience.”

ComplyWorks is pleased to announce the release of ComplyWorks Management System 3.9. The new release includes multilingual capabilities, with English and French user interfaces available initially.

With the release of ComplyWorks Management System (CMS) 3.9, ComplyWorks improves its ability to provide contractor and supplier management to global industries. CMS is currently used on three continents in a wide variety of industries to conduct due diligence, improve risk mitigation and increase performance of employees, contractors and suppliers in relation to productivity, safety, health, environmental, financial and other indicators.

The multilingual capabilities of CMS 3.9 will allow user interfaces to be added in an unlimited number of languages as ComplyWorks and its customers enter new regions and countries. Currently, end-users can choose between English and French user interfaces.

“Contractor and supplier management is a global issue, and we’re providing global solutions,” says Cal Fairbanks, President and CEO of ComplyWorks Ltd. “The multilingual features of CMS 3.9 are a direct result of consulting with our customers, listening to what they need to manage contractors and suppliers around the globe, and meeting those needs. This release is an example of how ComplyWorks provides solutions that are relevant to our customers, their compliance requirements, the language they do business in, and the countries in which they operate. ”

The previous version of the CMS, 3.8.2, was released in January 2011 and included new Multiple-Level Compliance capabilities that are in use by 100% of CMS customers. CMS 3.8.2 also included significant enhancements to the TrackWorks tool that have resulted in its rapid adoption by ComplyWorks customers.

Merging Media Productions has added three new 2011 Advisory Committee Members who will be assisting with advice and support for the upcoming October 2011 Conference+ Masterclass:

• Katie Jeffs Director Membership Development and Outreach, CMPA (National)
• Jonathan Carringan, President & Co-Founder, MOBCOM Consulting Inc.
• Lynda Brown, CEO/Founder of ZuluMe

Merging Media also extends its gratitude to its 2010 Advisors Betsy Chaly, Ravi Singh, Fiona McAuley and Ted Nugent for their generous support during their 2010 event.

Merging Media Productions Inc. in partnership with the Canadian Media Production Association BC is proud to be a part of SIGGRAPH 2011 this August 7-11 in Vancouver. Merging Media and CMPA will be facilitating the International B2B Matchmaking Program that is being organized by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) and the Government of British Columbia. If you’d like to meet visiting International Media professionals during the event, here are the full details:

• B2B Matchmaking Program – August 8 – 11

The Business to Business Matchmaking Program will help facilitate meetings between Canadian domestic companies and international/ US companies attending SIGGRAPH. The B2B online platform will allow you to profile your company, view the profiles of other companies and request meetings with international/ US companies of interest. Meeting requests will be coordinated through the Canadian Media Production Association and booked into meeting rooms reserved onsite (unless otherwise specified).

• SIGGRAPH Welcome Reception – Sunday, August 7

Supported by BC Film, DFAIT will be hosting an International Delegate Welcome Reception from 6-8pm on Sunday, August 7th. The welcome reception will offer an opportunity to meet some of the US & International business delegates at SIGGRAPH 2011 as well as local industry and support organizations. This event is invite only with limited capacity, so please indicate your interest to Marc Coderre if you would like to be added to the invite list.

• Transmedia Vancouver Meetup – June 29

The Transmedia Vancouver Meetup Group will be having its first Guest Speaker event featuring Merging Media’s Advisory Board Member Matt Toner of Zeroes to Heroes on Wednesday June 29th, 5pm at CMPA-BC. This is a not to be missed event for those keen on meeting like-minded folk involved in Transmedia.

Kobo has announced that the company’s Wireless eReader has landed in the Caribbean through a new partnership with Nigel R Khan Bookseller. The innovative bookseller – with nine locations in Trinidad and Tobago – is committed to bringing the latest technology to readers. The introduction of the Kobo Wireless eReader provides the large chain with an open and enjoyable device to support local readers and the islands’ tourism trade. The partnership will enable the book chain’s customers to engage in reading on a whole new level with Kobo, as well as attract a new reading crowd with the technological advancements Kobo brings to eReading.

As the southernmost island in the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago’s population of 1.3 million boasts a literacy rate of 92.8%, making it the perfect place for Kobo to reach avid readers and encourage them to start eReading with the device of their choice. Nigel R Khan Bookseller has proven their overarching commitment to reading and technology, adopting new approaches that enhance the joy of reading for their customers.

“Along with the excitement of bringing our passion for eReading to new shores, we expect to see great success with the launch of the Kobo Wireless eReader in Nigel R Khan Bookseller stores throughout Trinidad and Tobago,” said Todd Humphrey, Executive Vice President of Business Development, Kobo. “Nigel R Khan Bookseller is really leading the way by bringing the latest technology to the Caribbean and introducing eReading to their customers. We look forward to serving Trinidad and Tobago’s growing eReading community and the country’s technology-focused demographic.”