Archive for the ‘Journalism’ Category

Feb

28

2010

Podcamp Toronto 2010: TechVibes.com’s Karim Kanji: hyper local, hyper productive

Author: Robin Browne

The most engaging speaker I caught at Podcamp Toronto 2010 last week was Karim Kanji of TechVibes.com. TechVibes bills itself as “a hyper-local technology blog, events calendar, job board, and company directory across a growing network of [13 North American cities].” Karim has been writing for TechVibes for just three months but has pumped out an amazing amount of content driven by his goal to write three articles a day. Yes, I said three a day – in addition to working full time and raising a kid. Karim said he focuses on the Toronto tech scene and tells stories too local for global online sources like Mashable and TechCrunch to touch. His claim was backed up by the fact that people from at least two of the companies he spoke of were in the room.

Karim shared some of the things he had covered for TechVibes including:

  • Sprouter.com that enables collaboration and networking between entrepreneurs globally.
  • Buzz Buzz Home - Canada’s Largest New Home Database.
  • JetCooper – a digital experience agency specialising in designing smart end-user experiences for the web.
  • Apple iPad – say no more.

Some of the key takeaways from Karim’s session were:

  • If you write about local people and communities that already support each other they’ll support you too.
  • Create lots of content.
  • Use keyword-based Google Alerts to find stories.
  • Companies need to physically get out into their communities more.
  • Use spell check.

Enjoy!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (35.8MB)

Posted in Journalism, Local | 3 Comments »

Mar

26

2009

rabble.ca launches Who RU? podcast exploring identify at the edge of tech

Author: Robin Browne

I write a lot about rabble.ca because they are trailblazers when it comes to social media and non-profits in Canada. One of the main reasons for this is that change is rabble’s mandate – and they walk the talk. For example, they recently switched their website over to the open source Drupal platform that allows them to easily mashup issue pages.

Yesterday, I got a Tweet (a short message via the super popular microblogging app, Twitter) from rabble publisher Kim Elliott  about a new podcast they just launched on the Rabble Podcast Network (RPN) called Who are you? An Exploration of Identity at the Edge of Tech (full disclosure: Kim is a friend of mine). The podcast is the work of the 2008 online journalism class at the University of Western Ontario and looks at how technology changes our identity and our idea of identity. Rabble.ca super tech guru, Wayne MacPhail, taught the class and presented about it at Podcamp Toronto in February.

Now, rabble isn’t perfect – and that’s what exploring is all about – getting out there and trying new thing that sometimes fail or don’t work perfectly. As an example, I just tried to subscribe to the new podcast using iTunes and can’t find it. Nothing comes up when I search and I couldn’t find an iTunes link on rabble.

Kim Elliott, Wayne MacPhail – I know you’re listening. What’s up? (Oh, and keep up the great work!) 

Posted in Citizen journalism, Journalism, Podcamp, Podcast | No Comments »