Village Gamer

Digital signage provider iGotcha Media has officially launched the iGotcha Golf Network with 16 golf clubs already signed up, and to celebrate the launch, the company has also announced a partnership with the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) of Canada.

The iGotcha Golf Network uses the Web and large digital flat screen televisions to inform and entertain golfers. Strategically positioned in club houses, pro shops and other high traffic locations, these screens also provide a compelling platform for advertisers to reach a qualified, affluent and captive audience.

The iGotcha Golf Network delivers Web-based content that is updated on a daily basis, including: golf tips, golf trivia, news, weather, sports, and advertising – both network-wide and golf club specific. Entirely advertiser-supported, offering the iGotcha Golf Network represents absolutely no cost to participating golf clubs. Standard implementations include: two 42-inch monitors, all other equipment, installation, maintenance and all online content.

In addition to launching the iGotcha Golf Network, iGotcha Media is announcing a partnership with NGCOA of Canada to bring to the iGotcha Golf Network to participating members across the country.

“The iGotcha Golf Network delivers information simply and effectively,” says Alain Laforge, Regional Director, NGCOA Canada, Quebec Chapter. “For example, easy access to an up-to-date weather forecast is very relevant to a golfer about to tee-off. Also, the network facilitates direct communication. As examples, golf clubs may promote their clubhouse menus or the inventory in their pro shop. And, of course, what makes integrating the iGotcha Golf Network an easy decision is the cost – entirely free to golf course operators,” adds Mr. Laforge.

“We are very pleased to be launching the iGotcha Golf Network,” says Greg Adelstein, President, iGotcha Media. “Using this network will give advertisers direct access to one of the most affluent and coveted demographic target groups in the country. With the iGotcha Golf Network already operational at 16 clubs, we look forward to rolling out our network at golf clubs across the country – with our NGCOA partners receiving extra network time to promote their clubs at no additional cost,” concludes Mr. Adelstein.

Beginning today, all of you guys (and I mean guys in the literal sense, not the irksome collective sense used by so many that means everyone, true guy or not) living in the Greater Toronto Area now have GroupDudes.com, the first online daily-deal website that caters strictly to men, offering money-saving discounts to pubs and restaurants, sporting events and entertainment, outdoor activities like reduced green fees for your favourite golf courses and (best of all) NO SPAS.

“There are a number of online daily-deal sites that offer opportunities to save money on dining, nail salon or spa treatments, but few of these sites offer anything for guys,” says David DiGiuseppe, CEO of Group Dudes.  “For the first time ever, beer and sports loving dudes in the GTA can now get their motors running by subscribing, for free, to GroupDudes.com where guys will have daily access to discounts on restaurants, sporting events, outdoor experiences and activities….all at terrific savings of at least 50 per cent off the regular price.”

Group buying is one of the web’s fastest-growing retail platforms.  Daily-deal websites capitalize on group buying, which in turn allows consumers to take advantage of deep discounts on goods and services from local businesses.

“The concept of online deals isn’t something new to me, but finding a deal which actually appeals to me is,” says Group Dudes subscriber John Dunstan of Toronto.  “Since signing up at GroupDudes.com, I find myself checking the site daily for the next sweet deal. Whether it’s rock climbing or MMA training, I’m trying things I never thought I would … all at half-off discount prices!”

GroupDudes deals is a great way to get men out of their “man caves” and have fun doing “guy” stuff.  The site appeals to dudes (and even some dudettes) and focuses on more sports, more pubs, more fun and no spas.  Some of the current deals available include discounts on food and alcohol at pubs and restaurants, discounts to major sporting events, sports activities, such as golf, martial arts, rock climbing, ATV adventures, sky diving, paintball and more.

“GroupDudes deals are available in a limited quantity and for a limited time,” says David DiGiuseppe.  “The most popular offers sell out quickly, so it’s important to take advantage of the offering when it becomes available, or it may be gone before you know it.”

To be part of GroupDudes, register your name and email for free on the GroupDudes website to start receiving daily emails of the great deals available for you.  Also, be sure to follow Group Dudes on Twitter and Facebook, so you don’t miss the fantastic GroupDudes deals.  Remember – More sports.  More pubs.  More fun.  No spas. 

From a family’s silly holiday photo to an unflattering picture of an elephant’s wrinkles, Hallmark Canada’s first card collection created by Canadians is now on the shelves at Hallmark stores across Canada.

For the first time this past February, Hallmark Canada gave Canadians a chance to use their creativity and wit by participating in the company’s first online greeting card competition called Now that’s funny, eh?  For the chance to see their own creation on Hallmark shelves, contestants were asked to submit a funny photo with a clever caption to create a hilarious birthday card.

The 24 talented winners of the competition each won $250 and their winning cards are now available for purchase at participating Hallmark Gold Crown stores across Canada and at other select retailers including Rexall pharmacies, Loblaws and most Walmart locations.  The cards retail at $3.59 each.

Hallmark Canada recently held a second competition called Your Crazy Pets.  The winners will be announced on July 25th and the winning cards from this competition will be available in stores November 2011.

“Hallmark Canada’s first and second greeting card competitions have been such a tremendous success” says Chris Kelly, Vice-President, Consumer Solutions and Brand Experience, Hallmark Canada. “We are so excited with the creativity and the number of applicants who submitted their card ideas, that we will be running a third competition to give Canadians another chance to WOW us with their originality and humour.”

For budding writers who missed the first two competitions, Hallmark Canada will provide another opportunity to showcase Canadian talent. The third competition, Girls Gotta Laugh, begins August 1 and ends September 23. Applicants can enter the competition online and can visit Hallmark Canada’s Facebook page to keep on top of exciting contest developments.

Toronto educational developer Spongelab Interactive has opened a beta run for SpongeLab, a revolutionary new web site that is a global science community with educational games, 3D animations and beautiful images, all integrated into a sophisticated teacher management system. Stunning and detailed science content linked with powerful teaching tool stitches all elements of the classroom together in one place. Assessment and reporting is made easy using a flexible system that provides detailed analytical information about the classroom environment, everything from student progress to engagement and user behaviours.

Educators can explore free digital content that can be organized into lessons, shared with students and presented in class. The opportunity to share goes even farther. Members of the Spongelab community can upload their own teaching materials such as images, lesson plans, videos and case studies making this site a current, vibrant open place for communicating about science.

Spongelab.com is also a game, encouraging users to earn rewards in the form of credits and experience points that can be redeemed for premium resources and features. Credits and experience points are earned by every action performed on the site: searching, viewing, creating, contributing, and referring. Redeeming credits provides access to more content at no monetary cost, opening up the world of science for everyone regardless of budget.

TVO gives Facebook politics a whole new meaning and takes another step in promoting citizen engagement with the launch of Honoured Citizen, a multi-player social media game that runs on the Facebook Platform.

Developed for TVO by Lazar Entertainment, Honoured Citizen allows players to participate in all levels of civic society and demonstrates that there are many ways to become an Honoured Citizen, if you are willing to speak out, engage with issues, question, debate and vote.

“Game-based technologies can serve as powerful tools for advancing civic engagement – it’s called gaming for good,” says Christine McGlade, Manager of Interactive and Digital Media for TVO. “Honoured Citizen will immerse gamers in the political process. It’s a great example of how TVO uses digital media as a platform for civic engagement.”

Honoured Citizen is the only Facebook game that realistically simulates all aspects of the political process. Players participate as citizens, politicians, activists or lobbyists. Politicians can seek nominations and woo voting blocs. Lobbyists can wine and dine politicians. Activists can start protests and organize petitions. Citizens can raise issues and participate in polls.

The object of the game is to gain honour points by engaging with and participating in an online shadow government – discussing, debating and organizing around political issues. These points may be spent to take on different roles in the game, perform other functions, or they may be traded with other players or strategically donated. The game runs in real time and every round is one week long, with new issues in play during each round. After every four rounds, there is an election.

Set in a virtual province, Honoured Citizen offers players a chance to simulate the political process. While the topics gamers raise may be real-life issues, it’s not a place for partisan politics. The game focuses on issues of governance, and non-partisan debate.

Honoured Citizen is the most recent addition to TVO’s gaming for good efforts, which includes Inside the Haiti Earthquake, the Games for Change Festival 2010 Transmedia award-winning interactive game.

Honoured Citizen is part of TVO’s Your Vote 2011, a suite of multimedia resources designed to engage Ontarians in the lead-up to the fall 2011 Ontario election.

With business softphone adoption growing at double-digit rates annually, service providers and enterprise IT departments need to slash the costs and time spent provisioning and managing those devices. CounterPath Corporation has announced the availability of its Client Configuration Server (CCS) and the granting of U.S. Patent No. 7,958,276, which together offer IT managers more control and autonomy through a simplified management user interface that immediately increases deployment efficiencies and streamlines end-user device management.

CounterPath’s Client Configuration Server is designed to enable enterprises and service providers such as telcos, cable providers and ITSPs to deploy and manage their own CCS solution, a key node for any softphone or SIP endpoint deployment. Featuring a clean and intuitive user interface, the CCS enables service providers to automatically apply the proper configuration to each end-user device, periodically update those configurations and remotely upgrade client-side software.

“Service providers typically have to build their own configuration servers when deploying endpoints such as CounterPath’s softphones. Not only is that labor-intensive, it isn’t really within the operator’s core competency,” said Todd Carothers, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Products, CounterPath. “With CCS, operators can take advantage of a solution that’s not only off the shelf but specifically designed to accelerate deployment while increasing back-end efficiencies.”

CounterPath’s Client Configuration Server also provides:

• Five-Nines (99.999 percent) Reliability – The CCS is based on CounterPath’s Network Convergence Gateway (NCG) technology, ensuring carrier-class reliability.
• Standards-Based Security – All client communications are done via HTTPS.
• High Scalability – Customers can support millions of softphone/SIP endpoints.
• Flexibility – The CCS’s profile and template structure supports a wide variety of client types and end-user configurations.
• Multi-Tenanted Capabilities – A group hierarchy enables reseller scenarios and department-level administrative control within end-customer companies.
• Multiple Interfaces – The CCS is designed for both programmatic back-end systems and operations staff for configuration access on a per-tenant basis.

In addition to desktop softphones, CounterPath’s CCS can be applied to CounterPath’s mobile softphone applications for Apple’s iOS and Android devices. This architecture gives service providers and enterprises the ability to make changes to, and monitor subscriber usage of, their mobile applications across broader distribution channels, such as Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Value Added Distributors (VADs).

The CCS also helps major OEM channels manage provisioning scenarios that have a large number of in-channel constituents – VADs, VARs and resellers – and multiple end users. Major OEM channels also can use the CCS to help manage the distribution of revenue to agents in the channels, and provide audit capabilities to control how many licenses are being used and by whom.

CounterPath’s newly granted patent, No. 7,958,276, covers the automatic configuration of peripheral devices such as VoIP softphones, headsets and speakerphones. The CCS implements elements of this patent to significantly enhance and simplify device deployment and management within a service provider or enterprise environment. The patent enables device and software configuration to be performed automatically both when the software is started and on important events such as a user unplugging or attaching a headset.

The patent also provides the ability to save and restore multiple configurations based on a variety of conditions, a major asset in mobile environments. When combined with the CCS, this feature enables IT services to achieve zero-touch deployments across the field.

“CounterPath’s new patent enables zero-touch device configuration,” Carothers said. “The launch of our Client Configuration Server and the receipt of this latest patent together demonstrate CounterPath’s commitment to simplifying the softphone experience from implementation to end user and dedication to helping service providers be successful in their go-to-market VoIP strategies.”

A hosted version of the Client Configuration Server will be available from CounterPath in the near future.

Dejero Labs Inc. announced this morning that ABC Owned station WLS-TV in Chicago has purchased multiple Dejero LIVE Platform systems with mobile 4G wireless capability that transmit live SD/HD video and transfer files remotely. The award-winning Dejero LIVE Platform is the mobile video transmission solution with the ability to broadcast live video across 4G/3G/WiFi wireless networks and Ethernet direct. This innovative transmission solution also integrates store and forward capabilities that upload clips, photos and files.

“WLS-TV is the dominant news organization in Chicago and our viewers trust us to bring them breaking news first,” explained Kal Hassan, VP and Director of Engineering of WLS-TV. “We chose the Dejero LIVE Platform as an added asset for our newsgathering tool box. Our crews can go live quickly with streaming video if cellular, WiFi or Ethernet networks are available. Additionally, news packages can be sent to the station using the integrated non-realtime store and forward capabilities. Although not a panacea for all situations, it enhances our news gathering capabilities.”

“WLS-TV is the number one news station in their market,” said Dan Mance, Dejero CEO. “Their investment in the Dejero LIVE Platform supports their drive to be news leaders with a more flexible solution for live and remote file-based transmission.”

The Dejero LIVE Platform comprises three components: the Dejero LIVE Mobile Transmitter is a portable hand held HD/SD transmitter that connects to a camera and goes live with the push of a button; the Dejero LIVE Video Manager, the online manager that connects transmitters to video receiving servers; and the Dejero LIVE Video Server, the receiving unit that typically resides in a studio rack to decode the live video transmission for ingest.

VOIP solutions provider babyTEL Inc. has successfully completed interoperability testing with OpenText RightFax 10 and babyTEL’s open Internet Fax over IP (FoIP) SIP Trunking service. The two companies can now provide reliable fax transmission over the Internet on SIP trunks by supplying enterprises and hosted service providers with end-to-end support for the T.38 FoIP protocol.

Enterprise fax server customers are rapidly moving to FoIP technology to leverage investments in converged voice and data networks as SIP/T.38 trunking is fast being adopted in lieu of legacy PSTN. As a result of this successful interoperability, enterprise can extend the efficiency of FoIP technology beyond the enterprise border to the user end points.

“The interest and demand for SIP-based communication services within the enterprise market continues to grow and with it comes the need to support reliable fax communications,” said Matthew Brine, Vice President, Fax and Document Distribution, OpenText. “At OpenText, we are committed to supporting this need through proven interoperability with industry-leading SIP trunking services, and we are particularly pleased to add babyTEL to our tested FoIP interoperability list.”

babyTEL’s FoIP optimized network, with end-to-end T.38 support, allows customers to deliver faxes over the open Internet and avoid the cost of dedicated data links, regular telephone Trunking and/or related hardware. As a result, users gain significant savings in lower call rates with this scalable solution, requiring only additional bandwidth for expansion, while meeting enterprises’ stringent demands for quality and reliability.

“We are very excited to have our FoIP-optimized network certified for interoperability with OpenText’s RightFax 10,” said Stephen Dorsey, CEO, babyTEL Inc. “This collaboration between our companies marks an important chapter in FoIP, as it allows RightFax users to connect to our FoIP network using the readily available open Internet. By bundling babyTEL’s T.38 Trunking, OpenText RightFax 10 is ready to operate with minimal configuration, once connected to the Internet.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) is pleased to invite Canadian exporters to participate in the ICT Mexico Preparation Program 2011-12. Through this program, Canadian information and communication technology (ICT) companies that wish to explore opportunities in Mexico will be provided with the following services.

* A preliminary analysis of each company’s profile and their prospects in Mexico.
* Company-specific in-depth market analysis prepared by an in-market industry consultant.
* Based on each study results, companies will be invited to join a business mission to Mexico in February 2012, which includes one-to-one matchmaking meetings with potential customers, distributors and more.

Companies participating in this program are expected to invest necessary time and resources to work with the consultant and the Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) in Mexico in order to achieve a valuable market report. Canadian government trade commissioners will provide individual follow-up via telephone conference call and a face-to-face, when possible.

Due date to register to the program is July 15, 2011. Interested companies should contact Guillermo Larios as soon as possible to obtain a registration form as space is limited and preference will be accorded to early applicants. All proposals should comply with the TCS policy for Canadian content and market readiness for the ICT sector as indicated by DFAIT Regional Offices.

From the Accelerate Okanagan blog:   The “Business Clinic” service for Okanagan technology companies has officially launched. This free service forms part of Accelerate Okanagan’s offering for entrepreneurs and technology companies looking to start, accelerate and grow. Priority access to the clinics will be given to program clients and member companies of Accelerate Okanagan.

The inaugural Legal Business Clinic was presented July 4 by Pushor Mitchell Lawyers. The first Financial Business Clinic took place July 8 with BDO Dunwoody. Accelerate Okanagan’s Business Clinic initiative is designed to offer access to expertise for growth companies through “drop-in clinics” delivered by partners, who are professional service providers offering free expert advice and guidance on specific legal, financial and HR challenges faced by technology companies and entrepreneurs.

On the financial side, some of these challenges might include:

• Business structure and related reporting and tax implications
• Business plan preparation and the financial components
• Understanding financial statements: Balance sheet; Income statement; Cash flow statement; Retained earnings
• Chart of Accounts
• Forecasting
• Budgeting
• Bringing in investors
• Shareholder loans
• Compensation: Salary vs. Dividends
• Equipment: Buy vs. lease.

On the legal side, they could include:

• Basic Legal Issues and Documents for Early Stage Ventures
• Incorporation
• Corporate Due Diligence
• Confidentiality, Non-Circumvention and Protection of Corporate Interests Agreements
• Organizing and Structuring your Venture
• Beta and End User Licensing
• Licensing Considerations
• Software Support Agreements
• Intellectual Property
• Disclaimer Information
• Exit Strategy Requirements.

Together with access to in-house Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Business Clinics form part of Accelerate Okanagan’s overall Expert Service that provides support to technology companies from experienced, successful business professionals who work hands-on with entrepreneurs to share advice, solve problems, and assist clients identify and overcome hurdles to growth.

Professional services firms that have signed on to deliver Business Clinics include:

Law firms – Pushor Mitchell and Farris, Vaughn, Wills & Murphy
Financial services firms – BDO Dunwoody, Grant Thornton and KPMG
HR firms – Smithson Employment Law and Love HR.

All of these service provider partners join Accelerate Okanagan in their commitment to assisting entrepreneurs grow and achieve their full potential. For further information about this service, please visit the Accelerate Okanagan website or contact Martin at 250.870.9028. To schedule your participation at a financial, legal or HR Business Clinic, contact Kathryn at 250.870.9028.