2012

By Mack D. Male · April 1, 2012 at 11:08pm

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Hope you didn’t get fooled too badly today! I was happy to see some local jokes. The Oilers & the Eskimos plan to go head-to-head for the Edmonton Cup. The Alberta Party wants to build a high-speed gondola from Edmonton to Calgary. And Danielle Smith would pursue a merger of Alberta and Saskatchewan to form Saskberta. Love it!
Can you believe the snow returned? I think the City jinxed it by talking about this year’s mosquito control program.
Here’s more proof that Edmontonians want LRT expansion to happen faster. Those surveyed said that provincial funding should be fast-tracked for the LRT expansion to Mill Woods, and that it should not be used to support the downtown arena.
Here’s one of the most popular things I posted this week: Cineplex Odeon Windermere is set to open on April 20, the first theatre in Alberta with VIP Cinemas.
So much for the negative “EPCOR effect” – Enbridge is gobbling up office space downtown to support the company’s extensive growth over the few years. They have leased 218,000 square feet in just the past five months. Also, APEGA has signed on to become the first new tenant of First & Jasper.
Every time we walk by Remedy Café on Jasper Avenue, it’s full of people. I love it. Here’s the story of Sohail Zaidi, the man behind the popular spot.
Congratulations to all of the Edmonton and area recipients of the Diamond Jubilee Medal recognizing citizens “who have made real and lasting contributions to the quality of life we enjoy as Albertans.”
More of the same story we’ve been hearing for months now – prairie cities, including Edmonton, will lead growth in Canada. The Conference Board of Canada predicts GDP growth of 3.2% for Edmonton this year.
The City of Edmonton’s Drainage Services is considering changes to the Sanitary Utility Rate structure. You have until April 9 to fill out their survey to provide your feedback.
File this one under “I’ll believe it when I see it” – apparently the Kelly-Ramsey Block on Rice Howard Way is going to become a 28 story highrise hotel and office building.
FC Edmonton is ready for the upcoming season, and will call Clarke Stadium home.
Not that it has any bearing on the standings, but Taylor Hall’s season has come to end to facilitate shoulder surgery.
Later this month, ETS will launch regular bus service to the Edmonton International Airport. It’ll be known, appropriately enough, as route 747.
Can’t say it better than this: “Local firms cleaned up at the recent Canadian Construction Association Conference, winning five of the 11 categories.”
Beginning Saturday, April 7 about 20 bus routes that normally use Jasper Avenue between 100 Street and 102 Street will detour to allow rehabilitation of the Central LRT Station to move ahead.

The old BMO ‘63 building demolition continues!

Here are some upcoming events:

The 25th Anniversary of the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts takes place Monday night at the Winspear Centre!
On Tuesday evening the City is hosting another community conversation on the southeast to west LRT. This one is on the Whitemud Drive to Argyll leg of the line.
Western Canada Fashion Week continues at the Arts Barns through Thursday.
Head down to the ARTery on Thursday for the Edmonton NextGen Art House Party.
Also Thursday is the next Green Drinks Edmonton, taking place at the new Common on 109 Street.
There are a couple tech events this week to note. The next EMUG event on Architecting Consumerization of IT takes place on Tuesday, and Agile Edmonton’s lunchtime event on TDD/BDD with RSpec and Cucumber takes place on Wednesday.
Can’t wait for the next artsScene Edmonton event on Saturday – Trip the Light is taking place in the Citytv Edmonton studios!
For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.ca.

Happy April Fools from Google – it’s Edmonton in Google Maps 8-bit for NES!

For election related events, keep an eye on the following pages:

Events with Brian Mason
Alberta Party Upcoming Events
Wildrose Events
PC Alberta Events
For the Liberals, I suppose follow their Twitter. Their website is not working. In the middle of an election. Nor is it linked from their Twitter profile page, oddly.

You can learn more about the Central Station LRT Rehabilitation and Jasper Avenue Streetscaping here.

State of the Edmonton Twittersphere 2011 – Hashtags & Links

By Mack D. Male · March 30, 2012 at 10:00am

This is the third part in my State of the Edmonton Twittersphere for 2011 – you can read the overview post here. As we saw in that entry, local users posted more than 2.5 million tweets containing links. They also posted more than 3 million tweets containing hashtags. Let’s take a closer look at what exactly we tweeted about in 2011.

Here’s a breakdown of the number of tweets posted per month containing links. As expected, it trends up:

More interesting than the number of links is what those links are for! Of course, most links are hidden behind shortened URLs using a service like TinyURL. That makes it difficult to see the final destination of the link. Additionally, Twitter rolled out its own URL shortener in August which automatically wrapped all links with t.co. So to get a sense of what the links look like, I examined the data from January through August and excluded any t.co wrapped links. That gives us this:

As you can see, bit.ly is by far the most popular URL shortening service. Looking at the top ten, we can see that Tumblr, Facebook, Foursquare, and YouTube account for a large number of the links we post on Twitter every day. So, we use Twitter to link to other social networking sites!

Here are the top ten domains (excluding t.co):

Other popular domains included instagr.am, goo.gl, and dlvr.it.

Perhaps more useful than links for determining what we tweeted about are hashtags. After all, the hashtag was created as a way to “categorize” tweets. In 2011, local users posted more than 3 million tweets containing hashtags. The most commonly used hashtag, by a longshot, was #yeg. Here is a word cloud of the most commonly used hashtags:

Local users used nearly 600,000 different hashtags in 2011. The shortest was just one character, excluding the hash, and the longest was 139 characters. The average hashtag was 14 characters long. There were seven hashtags that filled the full 140 characters of a tweet (when you include the #) and all but one of them had to do with using a long hashtag (the outlier was an extended hey!).

This should give you a sense of the diversity of hashtags used, and also of the prevalence of #yeg:

Removing #yeg from the word cloud allows us to get a better sense of the other top tags:

Here are the top ten hashtags excluding #yeg:

The only one that surprises me there is #customer. I have no idea why that hashtag was so popular! Given that it hasn’t been used recently, I suspect a bot may have helped boost its use at some point throughout the year.

I have always been fascinated by the number of local “subtags” as I call them, or hashtags that start with #yeg. In 2011, local users posted more than 3600 different hashtags that started with #yeg. The average length, excluding the hash, was 11 characters. The longest was 52 characters. Appropriately, it was about the weather – #yegohmygoodnesscantbelievewinterisherehowwillimanage.

Here’s a look at the top #yeg-related hashtags:

Here are the top ten #yeg-related hashtags:

So what did we talk about on Twitter in 2011? The same stuff we talk about everywhere else – food, politics, music, traffic, etc. The list above is pretty similar to the list from 2010, with #yegfood on top and a number of political tags like #yegcc, #yegarena, and #yegfed.

Here’s another way to visualize how popular those ten hashtags were, when compared with all other #yeg-related tags:

And here’s a look at the next most commonly used tags after excluding the top ten:

I imagine #yegdt, #yegmedia, and #yegbiz will all climb the charts in 2012!

2011 in Review

This year I have broken the report into sections:

This entry brings the report to a close. I hope you found it useful. Thanks for reading!

Recap: Blink Edmonton, Pedway Pop-up

By Mack D. Male · March 28, 2012 at 10:07pm

A month ago we held Blink, a pop-up restaurant that Sharon and I organized. On February 26, sixty people filled the pedway that connects Commerce Place and Scotia Place across 101 Street for a six-course meal. We sold out just twelve hours after tickets went on sale, and had a number of people on the waiting list. There’s certainly a hunger for unique experiences in Edmonton!

We had only minor glitches throughout the evening, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The food that Chef Tony Le and his team created was delicious, and I love that they were able to do something different. As Century Hospitality’s VP Culinary Paul Shufelt wrote in the Edmonton Sun:

Yearning for any opportunity to express our creativity. #Blinkyeg was just the opportunity we needed, a chance to create with far less limited boundaries.

Because of the space constraints of the venue, we needed to limit the tickets to 60 people. This allowed us to play with ingredients and techniques that were a little more obscure, and seen far less often on the everyday menu.

So with that in mind, we set out to assemble a menu that would allow us to express a different side of our creativity.

Sharon did a great job capturing the dishes and other details about the restaurant, so check out her recap for more.

We really wanted to hold Blink in a pedway because it fulfilled our desire to utilize a forgotten or under-appreciated space. Usually I speak against pedways, because I’d rather see people on the street than indoors, but they’re an important part of the overall pedestrian system downtown. And even if we succeed at making the streets more attractive, welcoming, and filled with shops and other reasons for people to use the sidewalks, the pedways aren’t going anywhere. So we might as well make the most of them!

As I mentioned in my post announcing Blink, the first hurdle was to figure out who owned the pedway and who we needed to get permission from. Fortunately the Downtown Business Association’s Jim Taylor was extremely helpful in that regard! He was able to track down the information and make the necessary introductions. As a member of the pedway committee, he was already working on gathering that information and they’ve made significant progress in the last year.

Last week, the Downtown Pedway Committee submitted its annual report to Executive Committee. Established in 2010, the pedway committee exists to examine and address the challenges & opportunities related to the downtown pedway network. While much of the committee’s initial work was focused simply on finding ownership, maintenance, history, and other information about the pedways (which culminated in the creation of a database), they are now starting to make some positive changes. By the end of Q2 this year, the committee hopes to have the existing maps updated throughout the system (with help from Edmonton Transit). And next on the list is an integrated way-finding signage system. The signs throughout the system are dated, some are incorrect, and they’re very inconsistent. Refreshing them also provides an opportunity to look ahead, by incorporating digital-friendly way-finding solutions (that was my initial feedback to the committee). All of those improvements will help make navigating downtown easier. And who knows, maybe we’ll see more exciting events take place in pedways!

Thanks again to everyone who had a hand in making Blink happen, especially the Downtown Business Association, the Downtown Edmonton Community League, GWL Realty Advisors, Morguard, and of course, Century Hospitality and everyone at Lux.

And thank you to everyone who bought tickets to Blink – you made it a success! Check out Sharon’s recap here, and you can see my photos here. We are in the process of planning another Blink, so stay tuned for updates!

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #35

By Mack D. Male · March 26, 2012 at 10:51pm

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

It’s official: Election Day in Alberta will be Monday, April 23. I love that Elections Alberta has embraced Twitter as a key communications tool. The candidates themselves think that social media is going to have a big impact on the election too. The hashtag to use is #abvote!
Unsurprisingly, most of the local media have sections devoted to the election (let me know if I have missed any):
- Battle for Alberta – Edmonton Sun
- Election 2012 – Edmonton Journal
- Decision Alberta – Global Edmonton
- Alberta Votes 2012 – CBC
- Alberta Election 2012 – daveberta.ca
- Alberta Election – Metro Edmonton
Here are a few more election-related links to check out: Election Almanac, Alberta Tweets, Get Out The Vote. Also, check out CBC’s Vote Compass. You can learn more about the application here.
You undoubtedly heard about the unfortunate design of the Wildrose Alliance’s campaign bus last week. On Friday, they posted an updated design to Facebook with this message: “New and improved Wildrose campaign bus! We make mistakes, we fix them, we move on! Ready for the election! ~ Team Wildrose”. That photo has 717 likes, 199 comments, and 75 shares at the moment. Yes, I think social media is having an impact!

The Edmonton Journal launched its redesign last Tuesday. The new masthead features the Caslon typeface in blue, the same one that was used in 1903 when the paper started. There are a number of layout and content changes as well. The online layout hasn’t changed too much, however.
The third season of The Unknown Studio is now in the homestretch, and it’s going to go out in style. Adam and Scott are planning to record the finale in front of a live audience! They’re looking for input and ideas, so get in touch and tell them what you think. And be sure to check out S03E12.
Paula Kirman has been posting photos of rallies and marches in our city for years, an important public service for Edmonton. As she wrote: “After a while, the website became one of the largest historical archives of citizen engagement in Edmonton at such events.” Now she’s taking the next step, and has relaunched her site with a new name – Radical Citizen Media.
Garry McKenzie has been appointed Regional General Manager for Corus Radio Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg, effective April 2. He was most recently the GM of Corus Radio Vancouver.
Veronica Jubinville started at CTV Edmonton last week. She was previously at CTV Saskatoon, though she is no stranger to Edmonton having completed the Television Broadcast program at NAIT.
Russell James is still heading to The Bounce, but won’t start until early May.
Former Edmonton Journal reporter Steve Lillebuen was promoting his new book about Mark Twitchell in Edmonton today.
And you thought you consumed a lot of news! Interesting profile of Rob Duerr, a CB and Ham radio repairman who is addicted to listening to police scanners.
This new “Listener Driven Radio” service that Astral Media is deploying to Virgin Radio in April sounds pretty interesting. With it, you’ll be able to provide input and get alerts via SMS, instant messaging, email, and with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
On Friday evening, Brittney is throwing a party to celebrate her 50,000th tweet! She will be just the 16th person in Edmonton to reach the milestone (at least four of those are bots, actually).

The race is on!

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Edmonton Notes for 3/25/2012

By Mack D. Male · March 25, 2012 at 10:30pm

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Winter returned with a dump of snow this week, but the temperatures have remained relatively warm. With spring essentially here, the City is accelerating its 2012 pothole repair program. But not before the sand trucks hit the road again!
According to MoneySense magazine, Edmonton is the 8th best place to live in Canada.
Neil Calhoun, a senior partner with Cushman & Wakefield, predicts that Edmonton will add a million square feet of retail space this year. That’s roughly the size of Kingsway Mall.
Travel Alberta would like to increase tourism in the Edmonton area by $200 million by 2017, an increase of about 20%.
West Edmonton Mall’s Deep Sea Adventure submarines, launched in 1985, will soon be dismantled. They were last in operation in June 2005.
Last year’s Graffiti Vandalism Audit recorded 1133 incidents of graffiti in the top 20 neighbourhoods affected, a drop of 43% from 2010.
There hasn’t been much arena news lately, but there was some discussion this week about the “pedestrian plaza”.
Coming soon to the corner of Jasper Avenue and 100 Street: Underground Tap & Grill, a new bar that will be located underneath The Treasury.
Downtown was a lively place on Saturday afternoon as an anti-racism rally and a white pride march clashed. EPS apparently followed the white pride group all around the city.
Nominations are open for Avenue Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 for 2012. The deadline to nominate someone is May 13!
I had no idea that Edmonton is home to a $1 billion auto dealership chain, but that’s how much revenue AutoCanada reported for 2011.
A new housing program called Welcome Home officially launched on March 22 and will be administered by Catholic Social Services.
The Edmonton Combative Sports Commission handed out its 35th annual awards for excellence in combative sports and outstanding achievements and commitment to those sports. Congrats to all the winners!
Just 2332 property assessment complaints were filed last year, down significantly from the kind of numbers the City saw in 2008 and 2009. More than half of the complaints were filed online.
Edmonton’s Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society has launched a new welcome program for aboriginal people moving into the city. That’s important, as Edmonton will soon be home to Canada’s largest urban aboriginal population.
Starting Sunday, about 1400 census workers will be knocking on doors throughout the city! Remember, all census workers wear photo identification, they never phone residents, and they don’t ask for names or addresses.
Check out the updated renderings of the Walterdale Bridge Replacement:

Here are some upcoming events:

The Blue Man Group is at the Jubilee Auditorium on Tuesday evening!
If you get some time this week, check out the Student Design Association’s exhibit at Enterprise Square, called Sweat of Our Brow. It runs Wednesday through Saturday.
The Oilers host the Stars on Wednesday evening, and the Kings on Friday.
Western Canada Fashion Week kicks off on Thursday at the TransAlta Arts Barns.
There’s a public information session on the Central LRT Station Rehabilitation taking place on Thursday at Enterprise Square.
The Farm & Ranch Show kicks off on Thursday the Edmonton Expo Centre. And that evening is the start of the Canadian National College Finals Rodeo.
Hard to believe there have been fifteen already – the next Social Media Breakfast Edmonton is happening on Friday morning.
On Friday evening, Brittney is auctioning off her 50,000th tweet! The money raised will go towards the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation. Should be a great party!
The Edmonton Rush are back in action at Rexall Place on Saturday evening as they host the Minnesota Swarm.
Anna Marie Sewell, our city’s Poet Laureate, is the keynote speaker at the Never Ending Learning Conference on Sunday.
Head over to the Shaw Conference Centre on Sunday for the Edmonton Collectible Toy & Comic Show.
For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Rooftop Panorama by Darren

Recap: DemoCamp Edmonton 18

By Mack D. Male · March 22, 2012 at 10:00am

Last night was our eighteenth DemoCamp here in Edmonton, and it was awesome! We had an excellent turnout – probably one of our best – and seven really great demos. It’s so inspiring to see local folks working on some really unique and creative projects. You can read more about DemoCamp Edmonton here, and you can read my recap of our last event here.

Tonight’s demos, in order of appearance:

Backup Box – Eric and Mark showed us their online backup utility, a project they started working on at the Startup Hackathon / Global Game Jam back in January. Backup Box makes it easy to transfer files from a variety of different services, such as from FTP to Dropbox. There’s a big need for a service like this. I love that their website says “Proudly made in Edmonton” right on the front page!
Life Goes On – Susan, David, Eric, and Ian demoed their very creative game, something they also started back at the Startup Hackathon / Global Game Jam. I just love the idea behind the game – you solve puzzles using your characters dead bodies. From the website: “Sacrifice an endless stream of fearless knights into the arsenal of spike pits, flamethrowers, sawblades, and lava to make progress through a deadly gauntlet filled with elaborate deathtraps!” You can download the demo now, and watch for a commercial release in the future.
PlanHero – Sean, Graham, and Dave demoed their solution for organizing events with friends. You can schedule an event and invite people, and they can then vote on options and pay their share of the costs. I was one of the test users for the demo, and it went really smoothly. Imagine organizing ski trips or pub crawls or hockey pools, those are just some of the events that PlanHero would be useful for. They’re off to a great start!
Super Motherload – Skye and his team from XGen Studios demoed their intriguing digging adventure game. From the website: “Super Motherload challenges players to dig deep into the substrata of Mars as they collect increasingly rare and valuable minerals.” I kind of liked that the team basically just sat down and played their game for seven minutes, though a bit more commentary would have been welcome. Looks like fun though!
Signia – Next up was Dan who showed us his solution for connecting customer behavior and analytics. It’s a sort of check-in system, so you might use it to track what customers are purchasing and then use that data to create a reward program. Signia was created because Dan’s brother had a specific need, so he just decided to see how far he could get!
Technitone – Grant showed us a few things he has been working on, but the big one was a web technology showcase app called Technitone. You’ll want to use Chrome if you check out the website, because it makes use of some cutting edge stuff like the Web Audio API. Using the tool you can compose music using a visual drag & drop interface, but that’s a pretty simplistic description. There’s much information about Technitone here.
The Peregrine – Brent came up from Lloydminster to show us his innovative glove for user input. With over 30 touch points and motion sensitivity, you can use the glove to move things on the screen, to type, or to perform other programmable options. Currently you need to plug it in, but a wireless version is in the works. It was very Minority Report-like, and the audience loved it. Here’s a video that gives you a better idea of how it works:

People always love hardware demos, so I think The Peregrine was definitely an audience favorite. Chatting with people after the event at Original Joe’s, it sounds like Life Goes On and Backup Box were also quite popular. The sound effects of your character dying over and over again in Life Goes On had everyone hooked and laughing! I also enjoyed Technitone, because I love that it stretches the boundaries of what is possible today. It offers a glimpse of what’s coming!

There were a bunch of announcements throughout the evening:

Work on the Startup Edmonton Space is coming along and we hope to be open in the Mercer Warehouse soon. Memberships will come in two flavors – $275/month for a desk and other benefits, or $125/month for drop-in members. You can apply here!
The website for Flightpath is now up! Check it out and learn about the entrepreneur-led, peer based startup accelerator launching in Edmonton later this year.
Have an interest in data analytics? Then the Analytics Hackathon is for you! Build something with one or more of the available datasets (City of Edmonton, Edmonton Oilers, etc.) and you could win some big prizes! Submissions are due on April 12, so you need to move quickly.
Accelerate AB is back at the end of May! This year the event is taking place here in Edmonton, and it should be a great opportunity to connect with entrepreneurs from around Alberta.

Thanks to everyone who came out last night. See you at DemoCamp Edmonton 19!

DemoCamp Edmonton 18 is tomorrow!

By Mack D. Male · March 20, 2012 at 11:45am

Every couple of months there’s another DemoCamp here in Edmonton. Our last event was in January, and the next one takes place tomorrow evening. If you’ve never been, you should definitely try to make it out tomorrow! You don’t have to be a programmer to get something out DemoCamp.

DemoCamp is an event that brings together developers, creatives, entrepreneurs and investors to share what they’ve been working on and to find others in the community interested in similar topics. For presenters, it’s a great way to get feedback on what you’re building from peers and the community, all in an informal setting. Started back in 2008, DemoCamp Edmonton has steadily grown into one of the largest in the country, with 200-300 people attending each new event.

The rules for DemoCamp are simple: ten minutes to demo real, working products, followed by a few minutes for questions, and no slides allowed.

Here are the details for tomorrow’s event:

WHAT: DemoCamp Edmonton 18
WHEN: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 7pm
WHERE: TELUS Centre 150, University of Alberta
COST: Free! Register here

There are seven demos lined up, so it should be an exciting evening! DemoCamp is a free event, but we do like you to register so we know how many people are coming. After the demos are done, we’ll all head over to Original Joes on 109 Street for post-DemoCamp drinks and conversations. If you can’t make it, follow along online using the #democampyeg hashtag.

In addition to being an excellent opportunity to meet others in the local tech community and to get inspired by what they are up to, DemoCamp has at times been a launching pad for local startups. Back at DemoCamp Edmonton 15 in September 2011, Sam Pillar demoed Jobber. Just a few weeks ago, he announced that Jobber had received a seed round of investment! Likewise, at DemoCamp Edmonton 12 in September 2010, Edmontonians were among the first to see TestFlight. At the end of last year, they were acquired by Burstly!

You can check out my recaps of all previous DemoCamps here, and you can see some photos here.

Oh, and if you’re looking for something to do tonight to get you in the mood for DemoCamp tomorrow, check out the YEGRB meetup. They’re talking about design and are also hosting the first ever Exchange.js talk to chat about JavaScript development.

See you at DemoCamp Edmonton 18!

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #34

By Mack D. Male · March 19, 2012 at 11:09pm

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

As I posted in an update to last week’s post, Brittney Le Blanc is the new page six columnist at the Edmonton Sun! Here’s her first column, on Twitter. Her latest takes a look at the politics of tweeting.
Some very good news for Global in Alberta – Karen Unland is quarterbacking the upcoming provincial election coverage for both Global Edmonton and Global Calgary!
Speaking of Global Edmonton, they’re looking for three “enthusiastic” Morning News viewers to join the political panel as part of their election coverage. The deadline to apply is Friday, March 23 at 4pm. Rules and regulations are here.
Avenue Edmonton profiles Rick Harp, host of Edmonton AM on CBC. He has been a great addition to the local media scene!
Have a passion for public affairs and news programming? CJSR is hiring a news coordinator! The deadline to apply is April 2.
CTV Edmonton has received a RTDNA award for its coverage of the Slave Lake wildfires last May.
Do you think we should save Edmonton’s paperboy shacks? I had no idea these existed: “The shacks were officially called “district offices” and were an essential part of The Journal’s home delivery system starting in 1913 with seven paperboys. The boys would go to the shacks right after school and wait for the delivery truck to arrive with that day’s edition.”
I’m really liking the new clean design for The Unknown Studio!
GigCity covers Story Engine, the new venture from Todd Babiak and Shawn Ohler.
Recent tweets from some local sports journalists caught the eye of the Calgary Herald!
For the last week, the Edmonton Journal has been featuring mastheads of the past, such as the big yellow box. Tomorrow they launch a redesigned look and content changes.
The Edmonton Commons is looking for “official” commenters, people who are willing to take the time to comment with their real names.
Mike Daisey has been making news around the world with his bold lies about the state of Apple’s factories in China. There has been some excellent discussion about journalism and truth as a result.
Is anyone surprised by this anymore? “In the poorest showing since 1984, advertising revenues at newspapers last year fell 7.3% to $23.9 billion, according to figures quietly published Wednesday by the Newspaper Association of America.”
The big news here in Canada this week was Bell Canada’s decision to purchase Astral Media for $3.38 billion. The three local radio stations impacted are The Bear 100.3 FM, Virgin Radio 104.9 FM and Team 1260 AM.
To finish off this week, here is Todd Babiak’s TEDxEdmonton talk on story:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Edmonton Notes for 3/18/2012

By Mack D. Male · March 18, 2012 at 11:53pm

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

The TELUS World of Science is getting a new $7 million, 16,000 square foot gallery that is expected to open in mid-September, just in time to host the acclaimed “STAR WARS Identities” exhibit beginning October 27. While the expansion is welcome news, it’s definitely no TELUS Spark.
This weekend was the grand opening of the Arctic Shores exhibit at the Edmonton Valley Zoo. The $16.7 million project is the first of many that will transform the zoo. I did a photo tour of the construction last April – can’t wait to check out the finished product!
Another exciting project officially opened this week – the newly renovated Commonwealth Community Recreation Centre is now open to the public. It looks amazing!
Alberta Municipal Affairs has approved a $250,000 grant towards the Northwest LRT Concept Plan Study which will look at developing an extension from NAIT to a future transit centre in St. Albert. The $1.1 million study is expected to be completed by December.
The new Edmonton Filmed Entertainment Fund launched this week. The profit-motivated $10 million fund will invest in film and television projects made in and around Edmonton, and is a partnership between EEDC and Los Angeles-based Kilburn Media.
Starting tomorrow a two block section of 105 Street between 105 Avenue and 107 Avenue will be closed until November to facilitate construction of the North LRT to NAIT.
Councillor Anderson thinks that taxpayers are in for a rough ride in the years ahead. He’s concerned that civic taxes could go up more than 50% in the next decade.
You’ve really got to see the picture of the snow piles in this article. Last year’s was nearly 20 stories high, this year’s is much, much smaller. Bring on spring!
Representatives from twelve Ukrainian cities were in Edmonton last week to learn about economic planning, intergovernmental cooperation, and government reform. The trip was part of FCM’s Municipal Local Economic Development program.
According to new figures released by Statistics Canada, total employment in the Edmonton CMA has slipped by over 4000 jobs in February, bringing the unemployment rate to 5.3%.
On the other hand, the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey says that 28% of employers plan to hire for the upcoming quarter while just 11% anticipated cutbacks.
Some sad news in the local food scene: d’Lish is closing permanently. That follows the news that Kerstin’s Chocolates is also closing. For more local food news, don’t miss Sharon’s weekly food notes.
I’m gonna have to head out to Donnan Park to check out Edmonton’s first “natural playground”. The new playground was designed by Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds and features rocks, stick, sand and dirt rather than monkey bars and plastic play structures.
Here’s some excellent news for downtown and hopefully also for Rapid Fire Theatre – our city’s longest running improv group is moving back downtown, into the Citadel’s Zeidler Hall in September.
If you haven’t already done so, check out Backup Box. Created by Eric Warnke and Mark Fossen, the utility helps you connect technologies like FTP and Dropbox. I love the message in the footer: Proudly made in Edmonton.

Photo by Paula Kirman

Here are some upcoming events to note:

The next EBL Edmonton event takes place tomorrow night at Accent Lounge. The guest speaker is Ron Gilbertson, currently EEDC’s President & CEO.
On Tuesday evening the monthly Ruby Meetup is taking place at the Computing Sciences Centre at the University of Alberta.
The 18th DemoCamp Edmonton is taking place on Wednesday evening at the Telus Centre. Come see what Edmonton’s entrepreneurs and tech community has been up to!
BUILDEX Edmonton is at the Shaw Conference Centre on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
There are two Southeast to West LRT Community Conversations taking place this week. On Tuesday, the Argyll Road to Strathearn area will be discussed at St. James School, and on Thursday the Mill Woods Town Centre to Whitemud Drive area will be discussed at the South Edmonton Alliance Church.
Jason Kapalka, Chief Creative Officer of PopCap Games, is the next speaker in the Innovative Leaders Lecture Series. He’ll be at the U of A on Thursday afternoon to talk about his experience.
Also Thursday afternoon is Jennifer Cockrall-King’s Food and the City event at Hardware Grill.
The Home & Garden Show takes place at the Edmonton Expo Centre starting Thursday.
Don’t miss this on Saturday: Bust a Move Edmonton!
On Saturday evening, head down to Rexall Place to cheer on the Edmonton Rush as they host the Washington Stealth.

Photo by Ian McKenzie

I hope you had a safe and enjoyable St. Patrick’s Day!

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #33

By Mack D. Male · March 12, 2012 at 10:58pm

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

I was very pleased to see some coverage in the Journal for the Prairie Belles Podcast! The duo behind the podcast, Daneel Irons and Lisa Nicole Grace, celebrated two years of recording this weekend – congrats!
The Canadian Music & Broadcast Industry Awards are coming up next week, and Edmonton is well-represented. Virgin’s Lochlin Cross and Sonic’s Adam Thompson are both nominated for Music Director of the Year, Sonic’s Garner Andrews is nominated for On Air Talent, and Sonic’s Al Ford and The Bear’s Rob Vavrek are nominated for Program Director of the Year. Also, Virgin, Now, K97, CISN, World FM, 630 CHED, The Bear, and Sonic are up for various Station of the Year awards.
The Edmonton Journal has received two 2011 National Newspaper Award nominations. Sheila Pratt was recognized for “her investigation of the climate of fear and intimidation in Alberta’s public life” and a team of reporters, editors and photographers were recognized for their coverage of the devastating Slave Like wildfires.
The Journal and the Calgary Herald are also up for a joint International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) Award for the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championships.
This is really cool, congratulations Karen! “After a successful pilot project that brought 235 students from nine different classes into the media lab over the past few months, The Journal is ready to create a full-fledged site-based school program for the 2012-13 school year.”
Last night was the final broadcast at CTV Edmonton for Scott Roberts – he has accepted a position at CTV British Columbia. Best of luck!
Purchasing a copy of The Journal got a bit more expensive this month. On March 1, the price of a single copy of The Journal rose by 25 cents for the Sunday through Thursday editions.
I love this photo from Fish: two hearts beat as one.
Here’s another photo, courtesy of Brittney: the “party” lights at CHED!
Check out scenes from the March 5 celebration of Avenue’s annual food issue.
Did anyone join West Edmonton Local in capturing a day in the life of west Edmonton today? I can’t wait to see what they came up with.
The Journal has a new blog – Fight Game is a boxing blog written by Warren Tasker. Is boxing really that big of a deal in Edmonton?
Ah, the joy of digging through your blog stats. Heeelloooooooooo Latvia!!!!
Quick reminder that DemoCamp Edmonton 18 takes place next Wednesday – hope to see you there!
Also, early heads up about the Best of Analytics conference on Big Data and the Cloud coming up at the end of April.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

UPDATE: Brittney is going to be writing a regular page six column in the Edmonton Sun! From her Tumblr: “I’m joining the likes of Graham Hicks, Danny Hooper, and Marty Forbes. I don’t know which one of us has the best hair – probably Marty.” Congrats Brit! Check out her first column here.