New Media

While picking up some free tickets to the lookout as prizes for a viral video contest I’m organizing for a local college, I finally made it up to the top of Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver.

Why, why, why-eeeeey did I wait so long? It was a blast!

I think I’ve put it off all these years I’ve lived in Vancouver just because I didn’t think the building looked all that tall. I mean, I’ve been to CN Tower. I’ve been to the top of Eiffel Tower in Paris and Namsan Tower in Seoul. I just figured, how spectacular could the view from Harbour Centre possibly be? But the Vancouver lookout easily rivaled all those other great views.

Sadly, this was the one day of the week I didn’t take my camera to work. You’ll just have to go and see the view yourself, since the Youtube videos I’ve found to date just don’t do it justice.

Notwithstanding what the Chinese Lunar Calendar says, this year is the Year of the Frog, according to conservation groups worldwide (CBCnews.ca). They are trying to call attention to the dire threat faced by our froggy friends these days from a rampant fungus (and presumably other causes discovered be devotees of the Frogger video game, such as fast-moving cars and trucks). Vancouver Aquarium will be holding a special exhibit to highlight the threat.

But the sad future for frogs isn’t really breaking news. I remember in high school biology class hearing about how the permeability of frogs’ skin makes them awfully susceptible to environmental hazards. Instead of keeping an eye on the canary in the coal mine, environment-watchers really ought to be paying attention to the health of our little green buddies.

The war on terror is over. We won. You have George Bush Jr.  to thank for this happy, shocking development. God bless America.

Head over to Fast Fictions for the details on how the most reviled American president in modern history made the world safer for democracy and consigned the terrorists to a choice between camel buggery and death.

You’ll be glad you did.

If you’ve ever seen an episode of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, you’ll immediately understand the basic premise of crowdsourcing: no one is as smart as all of us. When contestants ask the audience to vote for the correct answer, they’re hoping (and are usually correct) that the majority of the audience will be able to give the correct answer.

Combing the Vancouver blogs for inspiration, I’ve come across social marketing maven Monica Hamburg’s interesting take on crowdsourcing: for corporations, basically just a way to avoid contracting out work to specialists and get lots of raw data or content at little or no cost using the viral data sucking power of the Internet.

I’m not certain it’s all that evil; after all, companies do have to put some specialists to work analyzing all the data and suggestions they get from thousands of strangers in order to utilize it. On balance, crowdsourcing may actually be a pretty positive thing when it comes to keeping our society’s professional elite employed.

On a personal note, I know that I’m benefiting from crowdsourcing with a new viral video marketing campaign I’m in the process of developing from a client who pays me to create it. The best video creators will be awarded with prizes… but am I just exploiting all the ones who submit their stuff for free and don’t win prizes?  Does it qualify as crowdsourcing if it’s using the Internet to submit promotional material for my client, or is it just plain-old fashioned marketing?

Maybe crowdsourcing itself isn’t really anything new. Maybe it’s just a catchy name for something we’ve always had.

Canadian imperialists are interfering once again in politics beyond the borders of our nefarious dominion. No good can come of this.

Canadians are heading down by the busload to the United States to help one political faction take power away from the incumbent regime, according to the Metro News in Vancouver. How much longer will the world have to put up with our Canuckian political adventurism?

In all seriousness, a couple of Canadians heading down to the United States to support Barack Obama are not a direct threat to democracy in the United States. On the other hand, Canadians really ought to think about how it would look if the reverse was happening and Americans were busing up here to help Harper, Dion or old Jack get a leg up on their rivals.