Tag: news

Edmonton Notes for 1/23/2010

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Finally, Edmonton has its own mug at Starbucks!

Edmonton Starbucks Mug

Edmonton in 2009

Last year I did a recap post called Edmonton in 2008. You can’t recap something as large as an entire city, but I did find the post useful to refer back to. I thought I’d do the same kind of post again this year, for the same reason. Over the last few weeks I’ve been gathering links to articles, statistics, and more related to Edmonton in 2009. I’ll update this post as I find more.

News Articles for 2009

Other Recaps for 2009

Facts & Figures for 2009

  • Population of Edmonton: 782,439 (source)
  • Number of calls to EPS reporting suspected impaired drivers: 9,201 (source)
  • Home sales: 19,139 (source)
  • Average single-family house price: $364,032 (source)
  • Average condo price: $240,322 (source)
  • YTD Passengers at EIA as of November 2009: 5,561,131 (source)
  • 2009 CFR Attendance: 83,904 (source)
  • 2009 Capital EX Attendance: 717,966 (source)
  • 2009 Edmonton Fringe Ticket Sales: 92,279 (source)

Leave a comment if you’ve got something else I should add to the list – thanks!

Edmonton Notes for 1/16/2010

What a week! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

I’ll leave you today with a common sight around the City right now. I hope the ice sculptures at Ice on Whyte are ok!

Melting in Edmonton

Edmonton Notes for 1/9/2010

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Winter Light 2010Winter Light 2010

Edmonton Transit in 2009

I think 2009 was a very interesting year for transit in Edmonton! There were a number of big successes, such as the launch of trip planning with Google Transit, new LRT cars, the opening of the South Campus LRT Extension, experiments with dedicated bus lanes and smart cards, the release of data for developers, lots of support for transit to the Edmonton International Airport, completion of major construction on the South LRT extension, and of course, the approval of the NAIT, West, and Southeast LRT lines. There was also some sad news, such as the violence against bus drivers and other security issues. And finally, some transit news from 2009 is either positive or negative depending on how you look at it, such as the end of trolley buses.

TransitCamp EdmontonSouth Campus LRT Grand OpeningSouth Campus LRT Grand OpeningMack & DonETS PlatinumMy Bus StopWest & Southeast LRT Announcement

Here are some of the transit-related headlines from 2009:

Also: you can see the monthly In Transit newsletters here.

Some data points for 2009:

  • The 15th annual Stuff A Bus campaign collected 31,000 kg of non perishable food items, and $17,000 in cash donations.
  • On February 1, 2009, the price of an adult monthly pass rose $7.75 to $74.25.
  • In its first six months of operation, 311 fielded 116,437 calls related to trip planning, 63,980 calls related to bus information, and 6,037 calls related to transit fares. Transit was the most commonly requested service.
  • ETS Statistics and ETS Statistics for 2009 (will be updated).

TransitCamp Edmonton Competition

At the TransitCamp Edmonton event on May 30th, it was announced that ETS was releasing route & schedule information in the Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) format for everyone to use. We decided to hold a small competition, to spur interest in developing applications that made use of the data! The competition closed November 30th, and I’m happy to finally share our two winners:

  1. MyStops by Grayscale Apps
  2. ETS Trip Planner by Waclaw Lany

MyStops, as you probably know, is a very popular iPhone application that gives you quick access to the schedule information for your favorite bus stops. Waclaw’s trip planner combines the stop number functionality of the official ETS Trip Planner with Google Maps routing.

Our judges, Councillor Don Iveson and Edmonton CIO Chris Moore, evaluated the submissions using three criteria:

  • Usefulness to residents
  • Visual appeal and usability
  • Inventiveness and originality

Congratulations to Andrew, Sinan, Sari, and Waclaw!

2010

This should be another big year for transit in Edmonton. The last of the old GMC vehicles were retired in 2009, which means that ETS is now running a 100% accessible fleet. The South LRT extension is scheduled to open in April, and construction on the North LRT extension has begun. The U-Pass pilot ends this year, so a new deal will be negotiated, and NAIT students might get to join. And hopefully at some point the trolley wires will be completely removed! I can’t wait to see what else 2010 has in store for us.

Don’t forget: the Donate-a-Ride campaign is on until January 31!

Keep up-to-date on the latest transit news and announcements on Twitter using the #yegtransit hashtag!

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments or via email.

Edmonton Notes for 1/2/2010

Welcome to 2010! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton Notes for 12/26/2009

Merry Christmas Edmonton! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Edmonton Notes for 12/19/2009

Less than a week until Christmas! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Holiday Lights

Recent media links & thoughts

I read a lot about new media, journalism, publishing, news, etc. I always try to think about the things I read from both a global and a local perspective. Here are some thoughts on the things I’ve read recently.

From Jeff Jarvis:

I’m not so sure journalism is storytelling anymore.

Jeff points out that saying “journalism = storytelling” is limiting. Journalism is about more than the story, it’s a process. I agree completely. Data, algorithms, aggregators – all are aspects of journalism. They always have been, of course, but their importance/visibility has been heightened lately, thanks to new tools and technologies.

From paidContent.org:

Time Warner’s CNN is taking a stake in hyperlocal aggregator Outside.in—the latest example of a big media organization making a play in the hyperlocal space.

Smart move, just like MSNBC’s purchase of EveryBlock. And the news today that Google is in talks to buy Yelp. The dollars are starting to flow toward local/hyperlocal news companies. You know how the saying goes: follow the money.

From TechCrunch:

So what really scares me? It’s the rise of cheap, disposable content on a mass scale, force fed to us by the portals and search engines.

From ReadWriteWeb:

In my view both writers and readers of content will need to work harder to get quality content. Right now ‘quantity’ still rules on the Web, ‘quality’ is hard to find.

Lots of others have already discussed the “content farm” issue that made the rounds in the blogosphere last week. My view on it is pretty simple: readers need to become more active. There’s so much information so easily available that you can’t afford to passively consume the news. You have to seek out sources and recommendations. Certainly we’ll get better tools (aggregators, filters, search engines) but I think readers need to make more of an effort. See also: Content farms v. curating farmers.

From Clay Shirky:

…one of the things up for grabs in the current news environment is the nature of authority. In particular, I noted that people trust new classes of aggregators and filters, whether Google or Twitter or Wikipedia (in its ‘breaking news’ mode.)

I called this tendency algorithmic authority.

Fascinating. I think there’s incredible opportunity, both globally and locally, to take advantage of this. Who do you trust for your news? Is it the same people/organizations that you trusted five years ago?

From Unlikely Words:

Ken Auletta from the New Yorker wrote a book about Google, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It” and before he published it, he cut the last chapter of 25 media maxims.

Now you can read them online. A few of my favorites:

  • Passion Wins
  • Adapt or Die
  • Digital is Different
  • Don’t Ignore the Human Factor

And finally, one of my favorite new tools: Times Skimmer. We need more innovation like that at the local level!

Edmonton Notes for 12/12/2009

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes: