Featured in ExpressNews

Post ImageDickson did an interview recently with a reporter from the University of Alberta’s ExpressNews, and the article featuring Paramagnus and our business plan competition success is now up:

A couple of University of Alberta students are starting to hear the sweet sounds of success.

The business world has been tuning in to Mack Male and Dickson Wong ever since the duo’s innovative podcast technology earned a place in the VenturePrize finals.

The article borrows heavily from the recent Journal and Sun articles, but is still very well written. And to be honest, it’s nice to be recognized by your school!

Read: ExpressNews

Update

I haven’t posted much in the last little while, and posting will continue to be light for the next few days, for a few reasons:

  • I have been away from the office and home for most of the last few days.
  • I tried very unsuccessfully this morning to score Oilers playoff tickets.
  • My workstation computer is on the fritz.
  • The weather has been so nice out!
  • My Dad is in town tomorrow, and I have a final exam coming up on Monday.

Your regularly scheduled blog will resume shortly.

Podcasting with .NET and Paramagnus

[This post originally appeared at the Canadian Developers blog on MSDN, so check it out, it’s a great blog. For those of you who might consider parts of this post somewhat dated, that’s because it was written a couple weeks ago!]

Post ImageIf you’re a .NET developer in Canada, you’ve probably already heard of Plumbers at Work and if you haven’t, you should! It’s a great podcast featuring “four geeks from Canada” talking about all things .NET and Microsoft. I’m not exactly sure how they create and publish their episodes, but I am guessing it’s not as easy as they would like. In fact, most podcasters are pretty technical folks – at least for the time being.

Along with Dickson Wong, I run the Edmonton .NET Wizards user group in Edmonton, Alberta, but we have another connection to .NET development too – we create tools and services for podcasting. Our software company is Paramagnus Developments Inc., and we are trying to make podcasting as easy and as fun as possible.

We have created two applications and two services – Podcast Spot is our hosting service, Podcast Wizard is our Windows-based creation tool, Podcast Tags is our directory/tagging service, and Podcast Basket is our “podcatcher”, an application that helps you find, subscribe to, and manage podcast downloads. Our entire solution has been built using .NET and related technologies, and it has really allowed us to accomplish our development goals very quickly. We’re are currently on track to launch in May 2006.

Just recently we had some great success in a couple of business plan competitions. We were one of three finalists in the Alberta-wide VenturePrize business plan competition, and the following day we won the national Wes Nicol competition. Both competitions were a boost for our business, and the idea of a podcasting company in general, as the judges were some of the most respected investors and business people in the country.

We’ll be at Canada’s Web 2.0 conference called Mesh in May, so stop by and check out the products we have created! We’ll also do our best to get Plumbers at Work to start using a Canadian-made, .NET-based solution for podcasting 😉

Read: Canadian Developers

Podcasting and Radio

Post ImageRadio industry research firm Arbitron has released a new report that has some information related to podcasting, though they consider it a form of radio. I wondered the other day, as I have in the past, if podcasting was stealing some of the audience away from traditional radio, and the Arbitron report seems to answer no:

According to the report, “Seventy-seven percent of Americans say they expect to listen to AM/FM radio as much as they do now despite increasing advancements in technology.” For people that have listened to podcasts, 27% expect to listen to less radio, and among satellite radio users, 36% expect to listen to less radio.

I guess we’ll find out won’t we? The report also states that 22% of Americans have heard of podcasting, and that 11% have actually tried podcasting. Evidently, the people that are using podcasts are young and relatively affluent.

Read: Podcasting News

Notes for 4/17/2006

Some notes for this Easter long weekend:

  • I had a good time up at the lake Sunday and today. We had an excellent turkey dinner and basically relaxed. In case you’re wondering, “the lake” is Goose Lake, which is about 40 KM west of Fort Assiniboine (north of Barrhead).
  • I love Bacardi Silver Raz…though I may have mentioned that here before.
  • Paramagnus was featured in the Edmonton Sun’s business section on Sunday, and it has stirred up some great interest thus far. Dickson posted about it too.
  • The Oilers are in the playoffs and played an excellent game tonight! Tickets go on sale Thursday to Pipeline members, and Friday to the general public.
  • One final exam down, one to go for me. Good luck to everyone who is busy studying and writing this week!
  • I recently joined the board of The Learning Centre Literacy Association (no website yet), which “engages people in community based learning and literacy development that further enables them to make positive changes for themselves and their communities.” I have volunteered as a tutor in the past, and have worked with the Learning Centre through Humanities 101, so I am excited to serve on the board as a community member!

Quick Update

A bunch of us went out to the Thirsty Turtle followed by Denny’s for Megan’s birthday on Thursday night which was lots of fun, pictures are here. Happy Birthday Megan! I went and saw “Take the Lead” last night, and I have to say I enjoyed it! I like Antonio Banderas much better in that kind of role than the Zorro type.

I probably won’t be posting again until Tuesday – lots of work to do, and I’m heading up to the lake for Easter Dinner tomorrow. Have a great weekend!

Edmonton Radio Ratings Spring 2006

As you may recall, back in December I posted about 96X becoming Big Earl and the reasoning behind the switch, which was based mainly on ratings. Now that the first quarter of 2006 is complete, the radio station ratings have been updated, and it doesn’t look good for poor old Earl:

The Spring book measured Edmonton radio audiences from January 9th to March 5th, 2006.

CKRA “Big Earl 96.3” (Newcap) had a more disappointing book than newcomer Magic 99, posting an all-time low at 2.7 for station formats occupying the 96.3 frequency. Despite the popularity of the country format in Northern Alberta, Big Earl seems to have repelled listeners rather than attract. If Corus is to take some good news from this book it would be that CISN seems bulletproof.

Yeah no doubt! CISN fell from 11.2 to 10.5, but still easily occupied the second spot. I am impressed that The Bear made such a comeback, rising from 5.5 to 8.7, totally didn’t expect that. You can check out the full listing and commentary at lastlinkontheleft.com. The site also contains the Fall 2005 data, and links to more detailed data sources.

In a somewhat related story, it seems that podcasting and MP3 players are in fact stealing some of the audience away from radio:

According to Dave Van Dyke, President of Bridge Ratings, “By 2010, today’s 94% penetration for terrestrial radio will have sunk to 85%.”

27% of people 12-24 attribute their reduced use of radio to MP3 use; 22% attributed it to tired radio programming; 3% attributed it to podcast listening.

I can only expect that last number to grow as podcasting becomes more widely adopted. And once it does, advertising dollars will follow. Too bad there is no geographical data. It would be interesting to know if the audience in Edmonton has shrunk at all because of MP3 players or podcasting or something.

UPDATE: Check out the new 630 CHED helicopter which launched on Wednesday, April 12th!

Coke Coffee

Post ImageI am the first person to admit that I am a brand whore. I know it, and I don’t really care. A brand I have a particular allegiance to is Coke. As a bit of a Coca Cola addict, I tend to love all things Coke. The whole New Coke fiasco? I prefer to believe it was brilliantly planned and executed, whether it was or not. I also love Starbucks, both coffee and brand. So when I heard that Coke was going to be testing the coffee beverage waters, I was a little excited and a little torn between the two. The news is actually a little old I guess, but here’s the story from Forbes:

It’s a small deal that could pack a big pop, or just a little fizz. Coca-Cola has quietly leased a 4,000-square-foot retail space in Toronto. While it’s just a storefront, it foreshadows what insiders say is the beverage giant’s dreams of dunking Starbucks in its own brew.

They have trademarked the name FarCoast for this hot beverage experiment, which launched in Toronto at the same time as Coca-Cola Blak, described as a “Coca-Cola Classic-based beverage that finishes with a rich essence of coffee.” Here’s an old press release on Blak that I was able to find. I seem to recall hearing about it, but it seems much further along now.

I’m going to be in Toronto in May, so I will definitely have to check this place out if its up and running.

Read: Forbes

The History of Apple

Post ImageAs you may or may not know, 2006 marks the 30th anniversary of Apple Computer, and yes I find it amusing that they still have “computer” in their name (seriously, the iPod is not being represented)! Anyway, via Derek Miller I came across this rather amusing history of the company, with entries starting 4-15 billion years ago. It really puts things in perspective:

With the celebration of Apple’s 30th anniversary wrapping up, it seems like the perfect time to take one last look back at the company’s storied history. Now, anyone can put together a timeline that tells you what year certain Macs were released or which kitty code-named version of OS X came out when. But Apple’s 30th anniversary demands a concerted effort from a reporter not afraid to dig deep to discover the untold story of Apple’s history. Sadly, none of those reporters were available, so Macworld turned the project over to the editor of Crazy Apple Rumors Site instead. Here are some key moments in the history of your favorite fruit-themed technology company as best he could remember them.

It’s definitely worth a read!

Read: Macworld

Notes for 4/9/2006

Here are my weekly notes:

  • I have complained before that Firefox seems to use a lot of memory. Today I ran across this little hack that seems to improve the situation! Try it out if you have memory issues with Firefox.
  • I don’t mind when people ask me for money on the street. Usually I am polite and say that I don’t have any change, sometimes I’ll actually dole out some coin. I can’t stand it however, when the person starts spinning some story that they are from out of town and need $15 for gas or something similar. You think I haven’t heard that one before? At least be original if you’re going to tell me a story.
  • Interesting post at the Daily Kos, which examines a machine called the Narus 6400, apparently developed to monitor communications in real-time. Scary stuff!
  • This is the last week of regular classes at the University of Alberta!
  • Have you seen the new sleeves at Starbucks? At first I thought, what a great idea, using the space for a word of the day or something! I realize now though that they are simply marketing tools for “akeelah and the bee”, a new movie from Starbucks Entertainment (whatever that is).
  • Now that Spring/Summer is upon us, maybe I’ll change the colors of my site again soon. What do you think?