Monthly Archives: April 2009

Edmonton Media Organizations on Twitter – Update 1

By Mack D. Male ·

Back on March 3rd, I posted a list of local media organizations on Twitter. At that time, there were roughly a dozen organizations with official accounts. It was easier to count the number of organizations using Twitter, than those not using it.

That’s no longer the case.

Here are the local media organizations using Twitter as of April 10th, 2009, by category.

Print

Television

Radio

Of course, these are just the official accounts. For each of these, there are employees and personalities with their own accounts. That list of names is growing ever longer!

So which organizations are missing?

  • 101.7 World FM
  • 105.9 Shine FM
  • 790 CFCW, though there is @stella790cfcw
  • Access TV, though they do have @ABPrimetime
  • AM930 The Light
  • EZ Rock 104.9
  • Magic 99
  • OMNI Edmonton
  • SEE Magazine
  • Shaw TV Edmonton
  • The Team 1260, though there is @CoreyGraham

Some of these organizations may never get on Twitter, I suppose.

I think it’s fair to say that we’ve reached critical mass with regards to the local media on Twitter. It’ll be interesting now to see how they use it, especially as more and more Edmontonians join the service.

Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) and Social Media

By Mack D. Male ·

Can an antiquated organization use social media to become relevant to younger generations? The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) may soon give us an answer. They’ve started to create a presence on Twitter and Facebook, and promise that more is on the way.

First of all, what is a community league? From Wikipedia:

A community league is an organization of community residents who represent their community at large in communication with a municipal government. Community leagues are organized to provide such services as providing recreational opportunities to the community, addressing municipal issues which address the community directly, and keeping community residents up-to-date on happenings within the community.

Edmonton was the first city in Canada to adopt the idea of a community-based organization, according to the EFCL history page. The Crestwood Community League was formed way back in 1917! Today, there are 150 community leagues under the EFCL umbrella.

So far, EFCL have created a Twitter profile and a Facebook page. They are “slowly slipping [their] toe into the waters of social media.” I contacted Michael Janz, EFCL’s Marketing Director, to ask for his thoughts. He quickly corrected my initial assessment of the organization:

“I would challenge the notion that EFCL is ‘antiquated’ – I think ‘established’ is a better word. EFCL has been here for 80 years. People know what it is and what EFCL can accomplish.”

He did concede that the younger generations are much less familiar with the EFCL however, which is what I meant by “antiquated”. The organization’s main membership drive kicks off in September, and the goal this year is to have a more coordinated promotional effort, making use of both traditional and social media. Michael told me that the EFCL is getting on Twitter and Facebook now to be prepared. They are “moving to where the puck is going”, Michael said.

I asked Michael about the challenges EFCL faces with adopting social media, and learned there were other, bigger challenges: “As of March 2008, only 50% of our leagues had websites. We’re now up to 70%.” Clearly having a web presence is an important first step before making the jump to Twitter! EFCL’s mandate is to serve the community leagues, and helping them get websites and email addresses setup is the focus for now. Social media tools will follow.

The first community league to follow that trajectory is Crestwood. They have a regularly updated website, full of information for members. Recently, they joined Twitter and have been posting an interesting mix of tweets – some community-specific, some related to Edmonton as a whole.

I think it’s great that EFCL is mindful of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media tools and services. They’re fortunate to have someone like Michael on board. I look forward to following their progression in the world of social media, first in September for the big kick off, and beyond.

Recap: EdmontonTweetup4

By Mack D. Male ·

Our fourth “official” meetup for Twitter users in the Edmonton area was a success! About 45 people stopped by Vintage Lounge this evening. The team at Vintage deserve major thanks for handling everything so smoothly, as we had many more people show up than was guesstimated a week or two ago.

Actually, I was quite impressed with the turnout. We had about the same number as Twestival back in February, but in comparison did little or no marketing. There were certainly no front page stories in the local newspapers for tonight’s event! Once again, there was a nice mix of new and familiar faces.

EdmontonTweetup4EdmontonTweetup4

It looked like lots of orders of Mini Burgers came out from the kitchen. I ordered the Italian Sausage Macaroni for dinner, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The food menu at Vintage isn’t extensive, but it is good. Worth checking out.

Here are a few select tweets about tonight’s event:

  • @rlesueur: Tonight attended first #yegtweetup. Good evening, good people. I’ll be back!
  • @bruceclarke: Nice seeing everyone and meeting some new people at tonight’s #yegtweetup.
  • @alexismac: Had more fun at #yegtweetup than anticipated. Damn – now I have to go the next one.
  • @chrislabossiere: That was a great #yegTweetup thanks @alexismac for the wine, I owe you.
  • @thechadj: So extremely tired. #yegtweetup proves to be too much! Good times!
  • @ammneh: Ok that was fun! #yeg #tweetup
  • @ink_slinger: #yegtweetup was pretty good. Still going strong, but I’m heading out now.

Coming up next week is the NHL Tweetup, taking place at the same time and place as Techwing Wednesday, so it should be a big, diverse crowd. As always, check out the EdmontonTweetup wiki for other upcoming tweetups or to plan your own!

Thanks to everyone who came out tonight – sorry if I didn’t get a chance to chat with you! A partial list of attendees is up on the wiki, so feel free to add yourself.

See you at EdmontonTweetup5!

2009 Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts

By Mack D. Male ·

2009 Mayor's Celebration of the Arts Last night Sharon and I attended the 22nd annual Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts at the Winspear Centre. The annual awards ceremony recognizes members of the local arts community, and features a number of performances. As I said last year, it’s a good way to sample the variety offered by Edmonton’s arts scene.

We were fortunate enough to get tickets to the pre-ceremony reception from Bryan Cox of Molson, one of the event’s sponsors and long-time supporter of the arts community. It was great to meet Bryan and his colleague Ferg Devins. You can read about all of the things they are doing at the Molson in the Community blog.

The reception was held at The Citadel, in an area we’ve never been to (upstairs with the waterfall). It was a really great venue! We had some wine, sampled the food, and took in the sights and sounds. There were lots of recognizable faces in the crowd, including the Mayor himself, a number of City Councillors, and many of the people that keep Edmonton’s arts community interesting and growing.

The main event was held in the wonderful Enmax Hall at the Winspear Centre. Once again we purchased tickets for the Upper Circle and sat in the middle of the front row, which gave us a great view of the entire venue. It seemed as though there were less people in attendance than there were last year, but it was still a fairly big crowd (and the foyer was packed at intermission). CBC’s Peter Brown and CTV’s Carrie Doll once again emceed the event, and they did a great job.

You can view the full list of nominees in this PDF file. Here are the winners:

The Mayor’s Award for Sustained Support of the Arts
See Magazine, nominated by Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture

The Mayor’s Award for Innovative Support by a Business for the Arts
CIBC, nominated by the Citadel Theatre

The John Poole Award for Promotion of the Arts
Ellis Brother’s Photography, nominated by the Arts Touring Alliance

The City of Edmonton Book Prize
Jack W. Brink, Athabasca University Press

The Stantec Youth Artist Award
Roydon Tse, nominated by Ross Sheppard School

TELUS Courage to Innovate Award
Rising Sun Theatre, nominated by Gerry Potter

The Molson Award for Excellence in Artistic Direction
Shelley Switzer, nominated by Bottom Line Productions

The Northlands Award for an Emerging Artist
Kristy Trinier, nominated by the Art Gallery of Alberta

The Sutton Place Hotel People’s Choice Award
Jonathan Kaiser

ATCO Gas Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement
Timothy Ryan, nominated by MacEwan Centre for the Arts

Performers included:

  • Jeremy Spurgeon, who opened the show on the Winspear’s massive organ.
  • The Be Arthurs, who performed covers of Toxic by Britney Spears and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
  • The Raving Poets, who shared three poems set to music.
  • Chris Craddock & Nathan Cuckow, who performed a piece from their gay rap opera, Bash’d.
  • Ann Vriend, who sang three songs at the piano, including a cover of Queen’s We Are The Champions.
  • John Cameron, who encouraged the audience to sing along to a cover of Niel Diamond’s Sweet Caroline.
  • KO Dance Project, who performed an interesting interpretive dance.
  • Bomba!, a latin-jazz group who closed out the show.

My favorite performances were The Be Arthurs and Chris Craddock & Nathan Cuckow – very entertaining! I’m very glad I had the opportunity to see them perform, and wouldn’t hesitate to attend one of their shows in the future. Ann Vriend is definitely talented, but I think I liked Samantha Schultz better last year. I also thought the performances weren’t as varied as last year, which featured theatre in addition to musical numbers.

We were surprised that the event ran past 10pm, especially considering they seemed to be running at a decent pace before the intermission. Still, it was entertaining and enjoyable. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners!

You can see my tweets from the event here, and my photoset is here.

Live Tweeting at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO) Sunday Masters

By Mack D. Male ·

Last year, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra invited a number of local bloggers to live-blog Symphony Under the Sky. I remember reading Adam’s posts from the event, and thought it was a cool initiative; a rather unique way to try to get a different crowd interested in the ESO. When I was invited to do the same this year for Carmina Burana, I readily agreed (I received two free tickets and a CD previewing the 2009/2010 season).

Of course, I decided to live-tweet the event rather than live-blog it – you can see my tweets here. I tried to do a mix of details from the program and observations. Two other bloggers sat next to me, though they weren’t live-blogging: Jim Tustian (a former photographer for the ESO) and The Choir Girl. We were up in the Gallery, which was sold out despite not normally being open for Sunday performances.

The Winspear Centre

Snagged this photo before the show started, ignoring the sign about recording devices!

The first piece was Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances. It was immediately recognizable. At just 13 minutes for the performance, I was left wanting more! I’m a sucker for the contrast of Disney-esque sections and the familiar booming sections.

The second piece was Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, consisting of all eight movements: Prologue, Pastoral, Nocturne, Elegy, Dirge, Hymn, Sonnet, Epilogue. I was thankful the performance was just 23 minutes long, because I couldn’t get into it. Before the performance started, conductor William Eddins said that you need a strong tenor, strong horn player, and strong string section to perform Britten’s piece. He joked that getting all three was as likely as the Edmonton Oilers winning the Stanley Cup this year!

The main event was after the intermission – Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Again, this one was instantly recognizable, though with about 65 minutes of music there were definitely long sections I had never heard before. I enjoyed it all, but my favorite part was definitely Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, O Fortuna which both opened and closed the performance.

As I mentioned, William Eddins was the conductor. He’s currently in his fourth season as Music Director for the ESO. Performers today included Allene Hackleman, French horn, Bonaventura Bottone, tenor, Illana Davidson, soprano, and Hugh Russell, baritone. The Cantilon Chamber Chorus and the Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton provided the rest of the vocals.

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Social Media

Before the show and during the intermission, I had the chance to ask Philip Paschke, ESO’s New Media Specialist (he must be one of the only people in the city with a title like that), about their travels into the world of social media. He told me their website needs work, and in the future will hopefully incorporate the ESO Blog, and potentially Twitter, Facebook, and other services. Like so many organizations, they are hearing a lot about Twitter and the other social media tools and are struggling to understand how to best make use of them.

I think the blogger initiative is a good one. There’s another concert being blogged on April 16th, and Philip hopes to get at least one more before the season ends. One of the biggest challenges thus far has been fielding complaints about “the inconsiderate texters” from other concert-goers. It’s definitely a challenge to make the click-clacking of keys seem welcome inside The Winspear Centre (fortunately my BlackBerry was relatively silent).

I’m not sure if my live-tweets were of interest to anyone, but I had fun doing it. If nothing else, tweets and blog posts during a concert just help to remind others that the ESO is still putting on great concerts.

Thanks to Philip for inviting me to participate – I really enjoyed the show, and I look forward to the ESO’s future adventures with social media.

Notes for 4/5/2009

By Mack D. Male ·

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Sharon and I watched Slumdog Millionaire this weekend. I thought it was really good, and I definitely enjoyed it. Not sure about all the hype though.
  • From the NY Times – Facebook at 5: Is It Growing Up Too Fast?
  • As you may have heard, Google recently launched Google Ventures, a new venture capital fund. Recession is a good time to do it, I think.
  • Happy third birthday to Amazon S3! Still one of my favorite web services. Also from Amazon, a new web service called Elastic MapReduce. Hadoop in the cloud!
  • The Malaysian Grand Prix was quite interesting until the rain started about half-way through, forcing a red flag and much confusion. When it became clear the race wouldn’t be restarted, we learned that half points would be awarded as the race didn’t get to the required 75% completion mark. The last time that happened was in 1991. Jenson Button got his second win for Brawn GP.
  • I’m really looking forward to the long weekend coming up. Hopefully I can get some work done, and sneak in a little rest too! It’s going to be a busy week. At least Spring is on the way!

Edmonton Notes for 4/4/2009

By Mack D. Male ·

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

My Dell Inspiron Mini 9

By Mack D. Male ·

On January 1st, I decided to order a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook. I had been reading a lot about netbooks, and was in the market for something smaller to carry around. My aging Toshiba M200 Tablet PC is fairly small and light, but it’s still quite big compared to a netbook. I went on the Dell site, customized my order, and waited for my new netbook to arrive.

And waited, and waited.

After my original ship date of January 21st was delayed, I tried to be patient. When I called for an update mid-February, I learned that my order was going to be cancelled and re-entered because of a software conflict with Adobe. I told Dell to forget it, and I cancelled my order completely. I then hopped on the Future Shop site, and ordered the same computer (minus the integrated Bluetooth) for about $100 less. It arrived a week later.

My Mini 9 has the integrated webcam, is black, and runs Windows XP. I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB, and the hard drive to 32 GB (the Mini 9 uses an SSD). Even with the extra components and shipping, the total price was only about $500.

I’ve been using it for a little over a month now, and I really like it. In no particular order, these are my favorite things about it:

  • Small and light. The main reasons for getting a netbook, obviously!
  • Clean, solid design. So many netbooks have a big gap between the screen and keyboard, and that just drives me nuts. The Mini 9 is solid with smooth, rounded edges.
  • Quiet and cool. Partly because of the SSD, the Mini 9 doesn’t have a fan. It runs extremely cool, and never makes any noise.
  • It’s fast! Resume from standby, boot up, shutdown, etc. are all fairly quick. The only slowness is from some applications that don’t work well with SSDs, such as Outlook.

Nothing is perfect – here are the things I don’t like about it:

  • The battery life is pretty good at about four hours, but I wish it were much longer.
  • The keyboard is small and hard to get used to. I still have to hunt for the quote key, located at the very bottom. I often close windows by accident when I try to type an exclamation point and hit the Esc key instead. There are no F11 or F12 keys or functions. If I could redesign the keyboard, I’d get rid of CAPS Lock and the context-menu button, would move the quote key to it’s proper place, and would give the right Shift key more space.
  • There are two LEDs on the front, one with the power icon and one with a battery with a lightning bolt in it. The battery light only comes on when the device is dangerously low on power…I’d rather it lit up when the battery was recharging too.
  • It has an external display port, but the resolution it outputs is pretty weak.

Overall, I’m quite happy with my Mini 9. It was relatively inexpensive, comes with me almost everywhere, and works perfectly for surfing, checking email, blogging, and Twittering.

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere – March 2009

By Mack D. Male ·

Welcome to the third State of the Edmonton Twittersphere, my look at the intersection of Twitter and Edmonton. You can see last month’s stats here, but note that I recently discovered a few of the numbers were wrong and I have since updated the post. The two key figures, the number of local users and the number of tweets posted by local users, remain unchanged.

The source of the data this month remains the same – Twitter Search. If a user has his or her location set to Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, Nisku, Stony Plain, Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont, Spruce Grove, or matching lat/long coordinates, they are considered an Edmontonian. If a tweet is “about Edmonton” it contains either the word Edmonton, the #yeg hashtag, or both.

For March 2009:

# of local users: 3421 (an increase of 160% over February)

To clarify, that means there were 3421 users who posted at least one tweet in March 2009 with their location set to something that makes them an Edmontonian as described above. This number should be treated as a minimum – there are probably many more Edmonton users without their location set.

# of tweets by local users: 151146
# of tweets by local users containing #yeg: 6634 (4.4%)
# of tweets by local users that were replies: 55234 (36.5%)
# of tweets by local users containing links: 24449 (16.2%)
# of tweets by local users that were retweets: 3701 (2.4%)
# of tweets by local users that were twooshes: 5401 (3.6%)

This graph shows the above numbers compared to the correct numbers from last month:

I think this data is a little inaccurate, but it’s the best I could get from Twitter – here are the number of local users created per day during March:

Here are the top clients used by local users for posting updates (remember that web includes all unidentified API calls too):

Some other interesting stats for the month:

  • The ten most active local users (most tweets first): britl, fcedmonton, angelzilla, AndyGroenink, bingofuel, TrinaMLee, akomuzikera, grempel, foomanizer, adampatterson
  • About 55% of all local tweets were posted between 9 AM and 5 PM.
  • Local users posted roughly 3.4 tweets per minute in March, compared with just 1.8 per minute in February.
  • The day with the most local tweets posted was March 20th at 6061. On average, 4876 local tweets were posted each day (compared to 2598 in February).
  • Of the 55234 replies posted by local users this month, 25398 or 46% were to other local users.
  • A total of 668 local users posted 50 times or more this month. In comparison, 550 local users posted just once this month.

And finally, the top ten users in Edmonton (as of April 1st) by # of followers: Pat_Lorna, mastermaq, LesM, redneckmommy, cleversimon, ianbakewell, melanienathan, babyrumps, revtrev, ctvedmonton

As expected, the number of local users grew even faster this month than last. The local media’s recent love affair with Twitter no doubt has a lot to do with that! I suspect growth will taper off a bit in April, but will still be impressive.

A common request for these stats is to see how Edmonton compares with other cities. Within the next week or so, I’ll be posting the same stats for Calgary, so stay tuned!

Don’t forget to check out EdmontonTweetup4, taking place on April 7th. Hope to see you there!