Village Gamer

In response to growing customer demand and rapid organizational expansion, FINCAD is pleased to announce the construction of a new state-of-the-art Data Centre to be housed in the company’s Surrey headquarters. The world-class facility brings to 5 the total number of Centers the firm operates globally.

Intelliware Development Inc. is pleased to announce its participation in the initial funding of start-up Vouchfor!™, a social referral marketing platform. Intelliware, along with GC Global Capital Corp and founder John Stewart, are co-investors.

Vouchfor! leverages the power of word-of-mouth referrals to drive more business to companies by rewarding both current and new customers. Vouchfor! allows a Merchant to create and execute local referral reward campaigns turning happy, loyal customers into an extended sales force.

The service is easy to use and takes advantage of the most popular social networks such as Facebook® and Twitter® to refer friends to Merchants they like, and be rewarded for that referral.

“Vouchfor! is the next evolution of monetizing social commerce,” states Glen Johnson, SVP Product Ventures at Intelliware. “This early stage business fits our investment criteria and expertise very well. Vouchfor! has huge potential because it uniquely combines the power of social media to drive revenue for a wide range of businesses.”

Intelliware is providing business strategy and incubation services, in addition to leading all aspects of product design and development.

“We are thrilled to have Intelliware as an invested partner in Vouchfor!,” says John Stewart, Founder and CEO of Vouchfor!. “The team brings a unique mix of entrepreneurial skill, capital and practical experience in building products – a combination that is exceptionally hard to find.”

I’m passing along this information from the Trade Commissioner’s office for those Canadian companies who will be attending E3. If you are interested in either of these breakfast sessions, please register online or contact your local Trade Commissioner for more information.

The Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles is organizing these two activities that you may wish to take part in:

Los Angeles Pipeline Program – Monday, June 6, 2011

Ken Rutkowski will lead 10-20 ICT companies through a rigorous one-day program involving:

(1) Face-to-face dialogue with other successful entrepreneurs
(2) Direct feedback on business strategy
(3) Coaching (prior to arrival and during event)
(4) Pitch opportunity to Finance professionals and potential partners

Each company will receive specialized attention for his/her company that are inline with their market objectives.

Los Angeles E3 Networking Breakfast – Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Ken Rutkowski will lead two panel discussions on entrepreneurship and financing:

(1) Cross-fertilization to meet other Canadians and key business drivers in entertainment
(2) Access to Los Angeles decision makers in the high-tech community
(3) Relaxed and dynamic environment for professional networking.
(4) Expecting 175 – 200 professional attendees.

AceTech Ontario has started a new Roundtable Group in Ottawa, expanding its mandate to help Technology CEOs in Ontario become better at their jobs through professional development and peer mentoring.

The Ottawa group will be led by Don Chapman, Corporate Director and AceTech Ontario Board Member and will be supported by AceTech Ontario sponsors in the Ottawa area, including Gowlings.  Says David Pamenter, Partner at Gowlings and Leader of the Technology Industry Group “We already have a strong group of experienced and enthusiastic CEOs signed on, eager to begin experiencing the value of AceTech Ontario.”

Programming for the Ottawa group will include the Annual Retreat (this year in Blue Mountain Village from May 31st to June 2nd), and all the Quarterly Dinners and Power Sessions in Toronto, together with the members located in the GTA.  The backbone of the programming will be the Roundtable Sessions held monthly in Ottawa.

Roundtables are discussion groups formed by CEO peers committed to helping diagnose and resolve real-life questions, problems or issues, without any fear of being judged. Roundtables offer an ideal environment for CEOs to really understand what the “best” looks like and work with a trusted group of peers to identify how to get there.  CEOs who commit to the Roundtables form a trusted environment that is supportive, yet challenging, without being confrontational. The result is real-world solutions to today’s problems and tomorrow’s opportunities.  The results are remarkable! Roundtables are the most valued benefit of AceTech Ontario membership.

“AceTech Ontario is growing rapidly due to the real need for Technology CEOs to have a trusted network of experienced and supportive peers to bounce ideas off of and to learn from” says David Nyland, CEO of Blueprint and Chairman of AceTech Ontario.  “We are proud to be expanding into the vibrant Ottawa Technology Community and we are looking forward to having these CEOs join us for our events and become valued contributors to our network”

Intertainment Media Inc. has announced that its desktop app KNCTR®, a key program of Intertainment’s wholly owned division itiBiti Systems Inc. is now counting over 664,000 unique installations in the North American market.

KNCTR® saw 79,622 unique installations throughout North America over the previous week period and the program increasingly continues to be part of consumer’s daily digital consumption pattern with an average of over 13.3 minutes of daily active user engagement. The active user engagement continues to make the premium advertising supported KNCTR® model a key tool that features video content, integration of social media and the ability to make free long distance phone calls to cell phones and land lines to anywhere in North America.

KNCTR® is the next generation of social communication and entertainment applications that allows users to aggregate their social media(s) and voice services into one location on their desktop. Unlike Skype, the telephone feature on KNCTR® is completely free to the consumer allowing free local and long distance calls to mobile phones and land lines. KNCTR® is a premium advertising model that allows for branded sponsorship, pre-roll and display advertising opportunities for brands and service providers alike.

With the projected impact that tablets will have on the personal computing space, with over 50 million units to be sold within the next two years in North America alone, KNCTR® is positioned to enhance the functionality and usability of these devices by allowing them to become a fully functioning phone unit.

“Week over week we are continuing to see significant growth in our new installation base for KNCTR®,” said Brad Parry, CMO Intertainment Media Inc., “The level of engagement and sharing is notable as we continue to see KNCTR® becoming a core element in the consumer’s daily digital habit.”

Notably, the itiBiti desktop app has been hailed by Microsoft Corp. as “the next generation of integrated social media applications – easy, scalable and fun.”

ProFusion 2011 is happening June 17th and 18th at the Toronto Congress Centre, and it’s much more than Canada’s largest professional photo and video tradeshow.

Along with new technology and product demonstrations, ProFusion will showcase a long list of professional seminars and workshops, conducted by world-renowned experts in the field of photography and videography, some lecturers in Canada for the first time.

“Last year’s show exceeded our expectations, particularly the overwhelming response to our seminars and workshops” says Vistek President, Ron Silverstein. “With the success of last year’s show, we decided to up the ante and to expand our selection of seminars, both in quantity and quality.”

According to Mr. Silverstein that’s what distances ProFusion 2011 from any other tradeshow. “It’s not your average ordinary tradeshow. I mean, along with all the new products and technology, we’re offering the most impressive list of seminar presenters ever assembled in this country. These are the best of the best. Most of these guys only do custom workshops on their home turf. Ordinarily you’d have to leave the country to hear them speak. How we convinced them to come to Toronto is still beyond belief.”

Some of the high profile lecturers Mr. Silverstein is referring to include: Jay Maisel, Vincent Laforet, Philip Bloom, Seth Resnick, Douglas Spotted Eagle, Peter Krogh, Mark Cleghorn, Gary Fong, and others.

One of Canada’s leading Web conferences, mesh, has come west by way of a one-day event in Calgary on June 8 at the MacEwan Conference & Event Centre at the University of Calgary. Tickets are $ 279.00 each and can be purchased online.

Like mesh, meshwest will focus on providing insight and stimulating conversations around four streams – media, society, marketing and business. Led by opinion leaders and entrepreneurs, meshwest will provide the opportunity to have thought-provoking and engaging conversations in which the attendees are involved as much as the speakers.

“We think Calgary is a great place to launch meshwest,” said Mark Evans, co-founder of the mesh conference. “There’s a growing start-up and high-tech community, and there are many large companies exploring the use of social media as a new way to communicate, market and sell.”

From Canada’s leading digital marketers to local social media strategists, meshwest will provide an emphasis on exploring what’s over the horizon in the digital world.

Speakers to include:

Tobias Lütke – CEO of Shopify
Stuart MacDonald – One of Canada’ leading digital marketers
Doug Lacombe – Canada’s Internet publishing pioneer
Greg Hounslow – Emerging Media Advisor for WestJet
Mark Evans – mesh Co-founder and former technology reporter with the National Post and Globe & Mail
Leigh Himel – Owner of Toronto-based, Gravity Ltd., a ‘Social Enterprise Design’ firm
Sarah Dickinson – SVP, Strategy at Blast Radius
Tony Rino – Web & Social Media Advisor, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP)

meshwest sponsors include CIRA, Yahoo! Canada, CNW and Hill & Knowlton Calgary.

Zevrix Solutions has announced Deliver 2.3.4, a feature update to its file delivery solution for remote and local destinations. Deliver lets users send files over Internet and local networks with variable e-mail notifications, automatic compression, encryption and other powerful capabilities. It supports FTP, Amazon S3, MobileMe and other remote and local services, and lets users send files to multiple destinations at once.

Deliver 2.3.4 can be purchased from Zevrix website for US$19.95 (free with purchase of BatchOutput for InDesign). The update is free for licensed users of Deliver, and a free trial is also available for download. Deliver is a Universal Binary and available for Mac OS X 10.5-10.6.

The new version lets users view destination passwords in clear text making it much easier for administrators to manage, store and retrieve passwords. Users have an option to view current password only, or to keep passwords in clear text as they switch between destinations. This feature is available through admin authentication only. Deliver also lets users automatically send output files and collected jobs from Adobe InDesign through seamless integration with Zevrix plug-ins BatchOutput and InPreflight.

Deliver quickly gains popularity as file delivery tool of choice at ad agencies, printers, audio recording studios, video producers and other facilities. Users only need to drop files onto the program icon, or select them from the system list, and the items will be delivered automatically to the desired destinations. The program will send automatic email notifications upon delivery, eliminating the need to babysit the files in order to notify the recipients. Files can be instantly downloaded from links included in the email. In addition, Deliver automates such repetitive tasks as file compression and encryption, and offers a detailed history of all deliveries.

Shape Collage, the popular easy-to-use photo collage software with over 4 million downloads, has officially launched its iPhone application offering free, quick and easy collage creation to iPhone users.

The app allows users to create personal photo collages from dozens of pictures on their iPhones in under 30 seconds by selecting the pics they want, picking a shape, and quickly posting wherever they like to share. The app is ready for downloads on iTunes and is also available for the iPod Touch. iPad and Android versions will be released this summer.

“People are taking more and more pictures with their smartphones, but they don’t always have an effective way to share their photos, so many pics get stranded in phones and never get shared with friends and family,” said Vincent Cheung, CEO & Founder of Shape Collage. “Our app allows users to quickly create unique custom collages with their photos and tell the stories they want to share on the fly directly from their iPhones.”

Users can choose from several shapes, or use text or symbols to create a custom shape from their photos and then easily share on Facebook, Twitter, and Email. They can also save the collage on their iPhone and use it as their wallpaper.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMrSkUzg7ws]

Shape Collage’s desktop software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) has been downloaded over four million times since its 2009 release. The software automatically creates photo collages in different shapes using patent pending technology. Cheung created the software as a graduate student and was named the 2010 Graduate Student Entrepreneur Global Champion and he has won eight business plan competitions.

The Shape Collage desktop software is available for free at ShapeCollage.com with a pro upgraded version available for $25 USD. A free Facebook application is also available for users to share their collages with their friends on Facebook.

Canadian consumers want more education and options for health self-management. A Deloitte consumer study found 54 per cent of those surveyed in the Deloitte 2009 Canadian health care consumer survey report “Treating Patients As Consumers” are trying to learn how to prevent health problems and improve their well-being, and they want electronic tools to help them do so. Now consumers can access DrugHub, Great-West Life’s new, free health application for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, which they can personalize with their prescription information to help manage their prescription medications.

“Managing prescription drug usage can be complex, particularly for people with chronic health conditions or who require multiple medications over extended periods of time,” says Brad Fedorchuk, Vice-President of Group Marketing for Great-West Life, a leading Canadian life and health insurer, which processed $2.1 billion in prescription drug claim submissions in 2010. Taking prescription medications correctly as prescribed is one simple but effective way people can enhance their health self-management, and DrugHub can help them do so.”

The DrugHub app is intuitive and easy to use, and offers a convenient way to keep track of medications – in effect, putting “a virtual library of prescription drug information at your fingertips,” according to Fedorchuk. The application can also help track medications for aging parents, children, or others. “DrugHub displays multiple prescriptions, issues reminders for multiple individuals about when to take medications, tracks dosages and flags when it is time to order refills,” Fedorchuk says. “By helping to manage some of this complexity, we believe DrugHub can help people follow their medication dosages and schedules more closely, thereby improving health outcomes.”

Security and confidentiality features are built in to protect personal information. DrugHub also provides access to an extensive library of drug information, including simple-to-use drug interaction and side effect reference tools for each drug and access to thousands of physician-reviewed drug articles.

DrugHub is the first mobile health application to be issued by a Canadian group benefits insurer. The innovative health application builds on Great-West Life’s industry-first suite of eClaims services — including being the first and only insurer in Canada at this time to offer text message notification advising group plan members of the status of a claim.