Village Gamer

Toronto – MySpace Canada, the leading social portal in Canada, today announced a partnership with Corus Entertainment and StreamTheWorld to deliver a unique, live streaming service that allows users to discover, experience and listen to radio online. The new channel, MySpace Radio launched today and can be found at: myspace.com/radio.

Through the ground breaking partnership, Corus Entertainment will provide MySpace users real-time access to over 50 radios stations across the country. Canadian based StreamTheWorld will provide the technology backbone for MySpace Radio including an intuitive flash player that incorporates MySpace social networking features and allows users to integrate their favourite radio stations into their profiles.

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Toronto – Kids Help Phone announced today that it is participating in Google’s launch of the YouTube Safety Centre in Canada. Kids Help Phone will be featured as a resource for kids on the dedicated Canadian pages containing online safety tips and resources for young people across the country.

“Kids Help Phone is very excited to be involved in YouTube’s new Safety Centre for Canada,” says Meghan Reddick, Director of Marketing, Kids Help Phone. “Our counsellors connect with kids from across Canada every day about issues like cyber-bullying, online safety, abuse and more. Through the YouTube Safety Centre, online users will have easy access to our counsellors and to information on our website – 24 hours a day, 365 day a year.”

YouTube users will be able to access the Safety Centre in the Help & Information section located in the bottom navigation bar of YouTube.com. When they click on Safety Centre, users will be directed to information about online safety as well as content from Kids Help Phone and other support organizations about issues like cyber citizenship, child and teen safety, hateful content, harassment and cyber-bullying and suicide.

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Vancouver – 6S Marketing created the Canadian Social Media Survey to determine how businesses in Canada are using social media marketing for building online communities around their product offerings, and how they are using social media to increase brand authority and visibility online. The survey produced surprising stats on the use of Social Media by companies in Canada, as well as individuals.

Participants were asked about their involvement with various social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, as well as their age group. Not surprisingly, younger people seemed more likely to use Twitter, but the most-used social media site overall is Facebook at 69% followed by Twitter at 47% and LinkedIn at 30%.

Canadians also seem to be very active bloggers, with 74% maintaining a personal blog, 57% running a business blog, and 35% maintaining both a personal and business blog. At 63%, WordPress is the number one blogging platform of choice, followed by Blogger in a distant second with 34%.

It seems that those seeking careers and those doing the hiring still prefer to do things the old-fashioned way. Only 22% of respondents had been hired through an online application, while only 9% of those who do the hiring had found employees online. Businesses are, however, concerned about what their corporate reputation is, with 61% of corporate respondents monitoring online chatter about them. What I did find interesting in regards to business blogs is the breakdown of which department is responsible for blog postings. Marketing departments were responsible for 28% of the corporate blogs, while Management made up for 18%, Other Staff came in at 13%, IT Departments at 4%, and No Work Related Accounts came in the winner at 37%.

You can see the full survey results at 6S Marketing’s web site.

Toronto – Today MySpace Canada announced “The Hollywood Minute,” the newest addition to the social portal, available exclusively in Canada. A source of candid celebrity shots, news and gossip straight from the streets, “The Hollywood Minute” will be a staple for entertainment news addicts across the country.

MySpace Canada encourages users to snap pictures or video of celebrities from around the world and upload them to “The Hollywood Minute” for a chance to be paid for the photo or video if it is syndicated through Central Image Agency, MySpace’s exclusive partner photo agency.

To introduce “The Hollywood Minute,” MySpace Canada will be hosting a suite in the Artist Sanctuary at the Loden Hotel in Vancouver during the 2009 Juno weekend. “The Hollywood Minute on MySpace Suite” will be a unique environment for artists to communicate with fans through MySpace, enjoy refreshments, and relax from the weekend’s events.

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A Good Life for Youth with Disabilities Beyond High School

Toronto – PLAN Institute for Caring Citizenship and TakingITGlobal announced today the launch of a new online community to support young people with disabilities. BeyondGraduation.ca is a facilitated online community focusing on employment and ensuring opportunities for contribution and community engagement beyond high school.

“Beyond Graduation is about providing a safe and comfortable environment for young people to share inspiring stories and plan for a bright future” says Jennifer Corriero, co-Founder and Executive Director of TakingITGlobal. “It provides youth and their families networking tools and resources, enabling access to the available opportunities that can help them reach their goals.”

Community building is an important component of the new social networking site. Connecting members to each other creates a support network of friends who share their experiences. TakingITGlobal used its expertise in managing a global online community for social change to inform the development of BeyondGraduation.ca.

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AdviceScene.com is the first fully moderated, social networking community linking Lawyers and the Public, providing a free and democratic exchange of legal resources in Canada

Victoria BC – AdviceScene.com launches the first Canadian website delivering free law information from lawyers to the public. AdviceScene.com is a fully moderated, social networking community linking lawyers and the public providing a free and democratic exchange of legal resources in Canada.

“AdviceScene.com is where Canadians go to get legal questions answered,” said Kinney who writes a legal blog in Canada. “I believe that an effective legal system includes an open, transparent and public discussion of how laws affect our lives and how the law may be applied. Democratizing the law system means making the laws we all have to answer to more accessible for everyone.”

Kinney went on to say that having lawyers participate on the site is a key component. Many people search online for legal information that is readily available; though much information is either incorrect or does not apply.

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Calgary – Cambrian House has restructured its leadership to ensure autonomy and focus for its strongest assets: the Chaordix™ crowdsourcing platform and Gwabs™ gaming venture. These businesses are now being managed independently with President Shelley Kuipers leading Cambrian House and the Chaordix venture, and Founder and Board director, Michael Sikorsky leading SundayLABS, the corporation established to commercialize Gwabs. Michael remains a vital evangelist for both ventures.

Cambrian House has also expanded its Board, welcoming Margot Micallef Q.C. who contributes corporate finance and merger and acquisition expertise, and broad business talent. Margot is a shareholder in Cambrian House and also serves on the boards of ENMAX Corporation, Canwest Global Communications Corp, and Vista Broadcast Group Inc. Nick Foster, formerly of OutSpark Games, has also joined as an advisor on commercialization strategy for Gwabs. Allan MacKenzie remains a Board Observer and it is anticipated that Shelley Kuipers will join the Cambrian House Board this summer along side Brian Craig (Chair), Michael Sikorsky (Founder & Director), and Michael Broadfoot (Director).

Mississauga – Bell and Twitter have announced that Bell Mobility will be the first wireless carrier to offer Canadians full SMS (Short Messaging Service, or mobile text messaging) support for interacting with Twitter.

Twitter is a communication network that enables users to send and receive text based posts of up to 140 characters (known as “tweets”). Updates are displayed on a users profile page at Twitter.com and delivered in real time to those who’ve signed up for them. Twitter updates can also be received through integration with other social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin (using Twhirl software) or via SMS, RSS or Twittermobile.

“Being the first wireless carrier to offer Canadians Twitter’s fully interactive SMS service underlines our commitment to delivering popular and relevant content to our clients, including the latest social networking applications,” said Andrew Wright, Director of Business Development at Bell Mobility. “Twitter is extremely successful, with millions of people regularly using the service to stay in touch with, family, friends and colleagues every day.”

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Californian creative marketing and public relations firm will use social media monitoring to help build and execute communications plans for clients

Fredericton – Just Drive Media has selected Radian6’s social media monitoring platform as an asset to their public relations, online marketing, and multimedia capabilities. The high-tech public relations firm will use the intelligence they gather through social media to build successful integrated campaigns for clients and improve their blogger relations efforts.

Radian6’s social media monitoring platform gathers real-time-as-discovered information from across the social web, including blogs, video sharing sites, boards and forums including LinkedIn Answers, and emerging media such as FriendFeed and Twitter.
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