Tag: edmonton

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

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!

Paramagnus Press Coverage

Post ImageWe’ve received a lot of great press for our business plan competitions lately. Of course, we were in the Ottawa Citizen the day after the Wes Nicol competition, and today we were featured in the Edmonton Journal:

Mack Male and Dickson Wong’s disappointment at not winning this year’s TEC Edmonton VenturePrize melted away 24 hours later when the University of Alberta students won a national business plan competition in Ottawa.

Unfortunately you need an account to read the entire article online, so go pick up a physical copy. There’s a great picture of us in there too, page G3.

We’re also featured on the Innovation Alberta website. There is text, audio, and an image:

One of the two runners up in TEC Edmonton’s VenturePrize Competition was Paramagnus Developments Inc. Paramagnus deals in podcasting software Tools, and is the brainchild of Edmonton computing science students Mack Male and Dickson Wong. Here’s what Mack has to say about being a finalist in VenturePrize.

And there’s more on the way too! If you run across something I haven’t, let me know.

Snow storm prompts plowing review

Post ImageAfter going most of the winter with very little snow, we received enough snow in the last week to break the record for March snowfall here in Edmonton. Actually, we didn’t just break the record, we completely shattered it:

The blizzard delivered up to 25 centimetres of snow in some spots, easily breaking a 1967 snowfall record for March. That record had been a meagre 9 cm.

And as usual when we get lots of snow, people complain that the city isn’t doing enough to plow residential streets. Forget the residential streets and plow the damn LRT parking lots, I say! Though I am biased – I got stuck in the Stadium LRT lot yesterday morning (floor mats are good for traction if you’re ever stuck). In any case, the city is looking at ways to improve the situation and have come up with a new plan:

But the new plan, which would involve paying contract snow crews to be on standby, could cost the city millions more, says Mayor Stephen Mandel. Mandel says he’s not sure the public would support paying crews to do nothing if the snow doesn’t fall.

Its definitely a possible solution. Apparently the problem this time is that so few of the contract plows responded to the city’s emergency call. Perhaps having them on retainer would make a difference. Depends how much it costs I guess. Either that, or we need someone to invent roads that eat the snow or clear themselves somehow!

Read: CBC News

Shaw Conference Centre Hall D

Dickson and I went to the new Hall D at the Shaw Conference Centre this afternoon to meet with the VenturePrize people and do a sound check, so we got our first glimpse at the new addition. We were escorted in by the construction foreman who eyed my camera nervously. He didn’t ask me to leave it or anything though, so once inside, I snapped a few photos.

The place is gigantic! My first impression upon walking in was, wow, this is big. The windows are floor to ceiling, and they have massive drapes that can be mechanically raised or lowered. The ceiling itself is entirely black, with beams running the full length of the hall. There appears to be a “control room” at the back of the hall, and just outside the main room are a bunch of smaller rooms. We didn’t get to see these though as most of the construction was happening back there. Actually, that was the second thing I noticed – there is much to be done.

I have no idea what the entrance is going to look like, because we were led through a small hallway that appeared to exist only for construction purposes. There were small teams of construction workers all over the place, doing various things. Apparently the giant media screens are not part of the Hall D, but were instead “flown in” especially for VenturePrize (this is what they told me). In addition to the construction workers there were lots of people just milling about, so I’m not sure what they were doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people are putting in a lot of hours to get things ready for Wednesday though.

Speaking of, we’re less than two days away now. Don’t forget to follow along at our VenturePrize Experience blog!

Read: Flickr Photoset

Crazy March Snow

I cannot believe how much snow there is in Edmonton today. It had started to snow pretty hard when I got home last night around 4, but it wasn’t too bad. When I got up today though? I literally had to dig myself out of the house! I took some pictures this afternoon, because I don’t think we’ll have another dumping like that for a while. At least I hope not.

The roads are pretty bad in the city, but not so bad on the highways. Many of the major roads have been cleared, except for a few like the Yellowhead, but none of the secondary or residential streets have been cleared.

Tom, Kim and I went to Boston Pizza downtown tonight for dinner and to watch the Oilers, and during the first period, Tom and I ended up going outside to help push a car that had gotten stuck in the snow. To make things worse, the driver totally didn’t know how to drive, and he flooded the engine.

So if you’re out driving in Edmonton, be careful, and don’t get stuck!

The WHL comes to Edmonton

Post ImageLooks like things are going to get a little more crowded here in the heartland of hockey. Patrick LaForge’s efforts to bring a WHL team to our city are starting to bear fruit:

Today at a Western Hockey League Board of Governor’s Meeting in Calgary, a decision was made to conditionally award the Edmonton Oilers a WHL expansion team for the 2007/08 season. The Oilers have been granted 30 days to study the conditions of the expansion, and to assess their suitability as it pertains to their business plan.

Further details on Edmonton’s WHL expansion team will be announced in the coming weeks.

The decision has been criticized by some existing WHL teams, but I think it will be great not only for Edmonton, but for the WHL too. Increased visibility, more room for players, and new competition are all great benefits of bringing a team to Edmonton. Hopefully this deal really does go through!

Read: Edmonton Oilers

CBC Radio One coming to Edmonton FM

Post ImageLooks like Edmonton will be getting another FM station, this one run by CBC, according to radio-guru Tod Maffin:

The CRTC CRTC this morning approved CBC Radio CBC Radio’s request to add FM transmitters to serve listeners in Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg.

The AM transmitters in those cities will remain on to continue to serve outlying areas, but the Commission agreed with the CBC CBC that “urban growth, the construction of high-rise concrete and steel buildings, increased electrical noise from overhead wires, large and small appliances and portable radio transmitters have impeded the ability of its radio stations to deliver reliable high quality AM signals to listeners.”

I wonder if this will really have an impact on the number of listeners? I mean, I tune into 630 CHED when there is a program I want to hear (usually hockey), and that wouldn’t change if it were an FM station, its not like I’d randomly keep it on or anything.

Read: Tod Maffin

Windows Vista Presentation Tonight

Want to learn more about Windows Vista? And especially the development side of things? Then you’ll want to attend the Edmonton .NET Wizards event this evening! John Bristowe will be in town talking about Vista, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, and much more:

You’ve heard a lot about Windows Vista from the user’s perspective. But what about the developer? How does one target this platform? In this session, we’ll cover WinFX, which represents the evolution of Win32, the programmatic interface to the Windows operating system. You’ll hear about how to interconnect applications through the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and provide a rich and compelling user experience through Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Along the way, you’ll see how Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) provides a flexible workflow engine for co-ordinating automated and human-based activities.

The event is free, no registration required. All you have to do is show up! Here are the vitals:

WHAT: Windows Vista Presentation
WHEN: Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 6 PM
WHERE: ETLC 1-007, University of Alberta

For maps and more information, click here. Hope to see you there!

Read: .NET Wizards

U of A ExpressNews Podcast

Post ImageAs Dickson mentioned yesterday, the University of Alberta has decided to get more involved with podcasting, joining many other universities like Duke, Princeton, UBC, and the University of Western Ontario. The brand new ExpressNews podcast is a project of the UofA’s Office of Public Affairs:

Stories in the inaugural newscast include a fascinating interview with forestry researcher Dr. Mel Tyree, complete with the sound of trees drinking; a Parkland Institute report calling for a five-year moratorium on new oilsands projects, a reading by former U of A writer-in-residence David Adams Richards, and more.

The coming weeks will see a greater expansion of the podcast, with the development of a web page dedicated to audio and video files.

This podcast will probably become the U of A’s most well known, but it was not the first. Our ever-ahead-of-the-game Library has been experimenting with podcasting since September of 2005, and the Library site is full of links to other podcasts from around the world.

I’m really happy that my school has seen the light and will start podcasting. I only wish that Paramagnus could have helped them do it!

Read: U of A ExpressNews