Village Gamer

EA Sports has announced that the release date for FIFA 10 will be available in stores internationally from October 2nd for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system, Wii™ home video game system, PC, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo DS™, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and mobile.

*Volunteer Canada has harnessed the power of social media to aid in matching corporate Canada with volunteer opportunities across the country. Through the Centre for Excellence in Corporate Community Involvement, businesses and non-profits from across the country are joining the nationwide membership of Volunteer Canada in an effort to better communicate and work together in partnership as they exchange ideas, best practices, tools and resources.

“This online tool will build upon a solid foundation of corporations that have already engaged their employees to give back to their communities,” said Ruth MacKenzie, president of Volunteer Canada. “Through partnership and communication, we will ensure that this engagement meets the needs of non-profit organizations across the country.”

*Microsoft Canada is giving students (proof of enrollment required) a chance to win $5000.00 in tuition aide along with other great prizes. Beginning today and continuing until 11:59 EDT Wednesday September 30, 2009, students and their family members can buy any Microsoft hardware product and enter online to win.

“Microsoft Canada wants to help provide students with all the tools they need to succeed, from money that could be used for their tuition to hardware.” said Charles Chang, product manager, Microsoft Canada Hardware. “It’s a challenging time to be a student. With a shrinking, competitive job market and tough economy, there is added pressure to get a good education and increasingly limited options for funding. ”
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Canada – As always, it’s nice to start our Fridays with some cool links and information from our favourite tech info guru, Bradley Shende of MEDIA2O and ConnectedLife. Bradley appears every Friday morning on Global BC’s morning news show. Today’s cool links included BoardTracker and BoardReader – two great services for busy people. Be sure to catch his segment next week for more great info. You can view past GlobalTV ConnectedLife segments on Global’s site – just scroll down the index and choose Connected Life. Also, congratulations are in order to Bradley and Sarah, who are expecting twins in a few months’ time.

Ubisoft has launched the official dev blog for James Cameron’s Avatar The Game. There isn’t very much content up yet, but UbiGabe is working on it. The dev blog promises the latest news, links and info regarding Avatar. UbiGabe says he is also looking forward to telling some of the secrets which have been kept, well, secret about the game. Avatar is also available now for pre-order at most game store locations, and will be available for Xbox 360, PS3 PSP, DS and Wii.

Also announced by Ubisoft today is a chance to win a trip to Ubi Montreal to play Assassin’s Creed 2 with the developers. The cryptic details were released on Twitter, with a coded URL to follow. We will share the link with you right here – good luck in the contest. All you need to do is have an account on Ubi.com, grab and share the widget and hope you win. If you win, take us with you – we’d greatly appreciate it.

Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning has released their comments about the recent Ubisoft Toronto announcement.
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Hamilton – WeMuv is the new virtual world travel adventure game and social network that keeps you on the Muv! Developed for kids ages 6 and older, WeMuv promotes a balanced, healthy lifestyle while having fun with the technology and gadgets that keep kids excited.

The online multiplayer game promotes physical activity via the use of a specially encrypted pedometer. Kids play the adventure game online but in order to advance to new levels and have their WeMuv character stay healthy, they must leave the computer and engage in physical activity while wearing their pedometer. By getting Muv-ing kids earn steps on their pedometer but they never know how many steps they’ve earned until they upload their pedometer at the WeMuv site. The step “currency” they’ve earned can then be spent to unlock new adventures, advance to new levels and buy nutrition to keep their WeMuv character healthy.

“WeMuv creates what most parents want, balance in their children’s lives and healthier lifestyle habits” says WeMuv Co-Founder and CEO Lisa Savelli who is a family therapist, anti-bullying expert and celebrated children’s book author. On the WeMuv online platform kids travel throughout the real world online and learn about other countries and cultures, making new friends and sharing positive interaction all with the safety and security of parental controls and limits.
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Orby

Vancouver – Yes, I have succumbed to the pressure and opened an account for Village Gamer on Twitter. Our account name on Twitter is VillageGamer – you’ll recognize Orby as our avatar if you search us out over there. It might have had something to do with Noelle Hunt Bennett (Big Fish Games) threatening to force feed Twitter lessons to me at the Casual Connect Conference next month in July. If any of you know Noelle, you know she’ll follow through with that threat, so I figured that I would beat her to the punch. Sort of. If I figure out how to use it to full advantage before the conference.

Which brings me to another small update. The Women In Games Vancouver group is partnering with Women in Games International and the IGDA to present a Leadership Development Forum on Monday July 20th at Casual Connect Seattle. The Leadership Forum, which is still being finalized, will be held at The Triple Door. I have been invited to participate on one of the panels, and if the powers that be in the Passport Office so deem, I will have new and valid “government-issued travel documents” before the conference.

In other news, I can’t believe how much our readership has grown. In just the first six months of 2009 we have doubled what we did for all of last year. As of June 17th, we’ve logged just over 2 million hits on the site and our Alexa rank has gone from over 7 million at launch to a current ranking of 468 008. So, thank you to all of you who come and read the news on Village Gamer – we appreciate your time and your support.

Toronto – The latest Delvinia INSIGHTS report on the digital behaviours and attitudes of Canadian consumers, unveiled that Canadians have a strange juxtaposition with their digital social needs and their reluctance to share information. The release of Online Communities and Information Sharing shows that there are differences between the genders as well as the ages, and how even the Net Generation (18-30) finds some activity uncomfortable in the digital space.

“While the proliferation of social networking in Canada has made the space comfortable for many, the majority of Canadians still have concerns of privacy, security and trust,” said Adam Froman, President and CEO of the Delvinia Group of Companies. “Social networking can be a formidable channel if used appropriately and for the right audience, but it’s imperative to understand a customer’s digital behaviour first. Companies just learning to integrate social networking into their digital strategies should begin by leveraging the powerful and largely populated social networks that already exist.”
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Toronto – Entrepreneurs Connect (eConnect) enters the Blogosphere with a big bang! Unlike any other blog network on the web today, eConnect delivers effective and targeted traffic by displaying the RSS titles rather than little icons or badges.

Entrepreneurs Connect (Short for eConnect) is a quality network for Internet Entrepreneurs; it shares and displays members’ latest RSS entries across the network.

eConnect is a free service provided by Business Minder. Since the BlogRush shutdown, eConnect is the only popular network that displays latest titles from RSS feeds. This model delivers effective and targeted traffic to participating members.

Unlike BlogRush, eConnect makes everything less complicated. Members of the network are organized into 30 different categories. The widget on a member’s website will only display relevant entries from other members in the same category. Its simplicity maintains its performance at a high level and reduces the chances of bugs.
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Vancouver – Pixelmatic Entertainment Inc. has announced the official launch of Gamerbook on the Facebook platform. Gamerbook is an application designed to connect gamers on Facebook. Users of Gamerbook can create profiles for different games which detail their nickname, which servers they played on, their faction and clan, and the time period for which they played that game; this information is then easily searchable by any other Gamerbook user. With Gamerbook, users will be able to find people they have played with in the past that are known only by an alias. Gamerbook also allows gamers to notify friends about the games they are currently playing, well as keep track of the gaming aliases of friends.

“We see Gamerbook as an extension of Facebook – an embedded social network within Facebook built specifically for gamers,” said Samson Mow, founder and director, Pixelmatic Entertainment. “We envision that Gamerbook will reconnect gamers much in the same way that school and work networks on Facebook bring together classmates and coworkers.”
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Toronto – MySpace Canada, the leading social portal in Canada, today announced a new social classifieds service called MySpace Canada Classifieds. Powered by Oodle, MySpace Canada Classifieds offers users a safe – and social – marketplace to buy and sell products and services within their trusted group of friends for free.

Through MySpace Canada’s social networking framework, users are able to easily share information about what they are looking for with their friends through MySpace bulletins and blogs. Because user profiles are attached to each listing, MySpace users get a better understanding of who they’re selling to, trading with or buying from. These features make MySpace Canada Classifieds a safer environment and provide a more efficient way to connect buyers and sellers.
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Toronto – Organizations who are looking for new ways to engage with their customers, employees, students, or stakeholders are finding that virtual world technologies provide a cost-effective way to broadcast and interact with their communities. Metanomics™, a weekly on-line broadcast on the serious uses of virtual worlds, is a leading source of insight into the best practices, case studies, and research into these cost-effective methods to build and inform community, and was re-launched today by Remedy Communications.

Remedy Communications also announced that it was starting a new season of the Metanomics weekly show with special guest Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab, and that it had unveiled new Web resources and social media applications.
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Introducing ‘Upopolis’, Canada’s first secure online community keeping kids in hospitals connected to each other

Vancouver – BC Children’s Hospital, TELUS and Kids’ Health Links Foundation today announced the launch of Upopolis, the first secure online social network for kids in hospital care in Western Canada.

Created by Kids’ Health Links Foundation (KHLF) and powered by TELUS, Upopolis.com provides the best features of social networking for young patients who often feel disconnected when they’re in the hospital. Upopolis provides a personal profile, personal blogs, instant chat and child-friendly games. The site also provides unique features to kids in hospital like a homework site to stay up-to-date with their schoolwork, links to kid-friendly health and wellness information, and connections to other children with the same condition.

“Our hospital offers very specialized pediatric care that is unique in the province, so we take in some seriously ill and injured kids who will really benefit from Upopolis to help them stay connected to their loved ones,” said Larry Gold, president, BC Children’s Hospital and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children, agencies of the Provincial Health Services Authority. “We are committed to bringing the best possible care for our young patients and Upopolis will help to enhance their hospital experience.”

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