The CNMA’s are an important event for Canadian new media companies and worth following. Dig into the finalists when you have a chance and see who’s making waves across Canada.

As Ali de Bold, winner with ChickAdvisor, shared with me:

These awards are fantastic for companies looking to get exposure and recognition for their company. Not only did it give us a platform to speak in front of future clients and collaborators, winning our category gave us an extra measure of credibility that continues to open doors.

As far as this year’s finalists are concerned, I can say from the judging process there were some interesting battles, with each of the judges bringing different insights to the table.

Some things we all agreed on, including that as good as the finalists in our category are, they can do better. That’s not an indictment of the quality of the entrants, rather to say, in the evolving social media space, the great work is only going to get better.

Check out this year’s finalists and snag your tickets to the Dec 1 show.

The post Canadian New Media Awards finalists announced. appeared first on Say Yeah!.

DesignGuru Talks: Online Identity. 

Friday, April 23, 2:00p at the Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue, 4th Floor, Alterna Boardroom.

We’ll be discussing a variety of issues around how individuals and organizations can maintain a harmonious identity across varied platforms on the Web.

Participants include:
Qasim Virjee – Design Guru’s Principal
Behrouz Hariri – Graphic Designer
Jaime Woo – Social Media Strategist/Consultant
Lee Dale – Culture, Inspiration & Community, Say Yeah!

The event will be held in the Alterna Boardroom at the Centre for Social Innovation from 2:00p to 4:00p. The event will also be recorded for a future episode of designguru.tv. There is no charge for this event.

Sproutup, May Edition. 

Currently scheduled for May 27. Location TBD.

This evening event will include a long-form presentation geared towards entrepreneurs along with a handful of product demos. We’re pleased to be demoing Kipu to the Sprouter community. There is no charge for this event.

NXNEi

Monday, June 14th to Wednesday June 16th at the Hyatt Regency, 370 King Street West

We’ll be joining the value billing panel, Time To Abolish The Hourly at the inaugural NXNE Interactive. This discussion will centre around digital services pricing and alternatives to time based billing such as value billing. A suitable discussion for any creative.

Additionally, there are a ton of other fantastic speakers at NXNEi, including the always inspirational Ze Frank. Not to be missed!

There are a number of ticketing options beginning at $149 for the 2 day presentations package.

Looking for a panelist or speaker for your event?

Hey, we’re always happy share one of our slide decks in person or join a lively discussion, so don’t be afraid to ask.

The post We’ll be presenting at these upcoming events in April, May and June. appeared first on Say Yeah!.

A good technical book will achieve two goals: inform and inspire. Now, a great technical book, that will motivate. It will force you to act. Not out of obligation, but with verve that’s usually reserved for a kid in a candy shop. And the Facebook Cookbook is motivating as hell.

It’s so motivating that I’ve passed off the book to our other team members, Matt and Jim, to get them on board with not just some of the Facebook app ideas I’d like to explore this year, but some of the other technical insights that are found in the book. We’ll see if they’re as excited as I expect them to be after having a read. And, who knows, maybe a great Facebook app will come out of it. As long as it doesn’t involve Zombies, I’ll be excited to work on it.

So, let’s talk about application ideas. Clearly, the Facebook application environment is super crowded, with volumes of applications in all sorts of categories, but there’s always room for new successes with a well executed idea. More important than anything, with the Facebook Cookbook Jay’s been able to get me to explore ideas that may otherwise have been put on the back burner, simply because of a perceived complexity in building for a new technical environment. The directness with which Jay and guests such as Jeffrey Tseng and Ilya Grigorik (among other great contributors) tackle not just the technical aspects of the Facebook Platform, but supporting technologies, Facebook specific marketing, and more, demystify this new environment.

Even better than breaking down the process of moving from idea to app to growth, across all of the key aspects of managing a successful Facebook app, the Facebook Cookbook is full of detailed and specific insight. For example, Application Notifications are limited (such as the notification you’d get from Scrabulous (now Lexulous) saying “Mike Fragomeni has played a move in Lexulous. You may have moves pending in other games too. Click here to view your games.” (By the way, Mike’s pretty good if you’re in the mood for a challenge)). The Application Notification limits are also based on user feedback. For example, your notifications can be flagged as spam, which sicks the Facebook Platform Police on you. So, you need to be very careful about how you manage your notifications. Rather than ramping up to the maximum number of notifications, play with your wording and context of delivery to ensure that you have a healthy opt-in rate, aren’t getting flagged as spam, and aren’t losing app users because they’re getting tired of all the messages they have to sift through every time they log in. Once you find the right balance, that’s the time to increase your flow of notifications. And, the more engaged your users are, the more notifications your app will be allocated. Win win.

There are great insights just like that throughout each chapter of the Facebook Cookbook. I know I’m writing more about idea generation and marketing. That’s simply because I don’t play much of a role in coding these days. That’s where the aforementioned Matt and Jim come in. I can say that the thoroughness of the technical aspects of the book is impressive, with Setting Up Your Environment, FBML, FBJS, FQL and FB API chapters accounting for 70% of the book. Each section with more great insights on subjects from caching to connecting to user data and other integration points.

Facebook Cookbook is so thorough that we not only find a great and relevant discussion on the social graph, but we also have the opportunity to compare the Facebook Platform against Google’s Open Social and the wealth of networks that are connected through Google’s platform. You even get an answer to the question, is it better for your app to have access to more people on different networks, or have access to a more connected network? Better yet, why not do both? Facebook Cookbook includes details for architecting your app to run on both platforms with as little rework and maintenance as possible.

All this and beyond the publication Jay’s still hands on continuing to work with the Facebook Platform to come up with new insights.

Clearly, I heartily recommend the Facebook Cookbook. Truthfully, I have just one complaint. This has to do with a tremendous error in the book that I really hope will be corrected in subsequent printings: Jay, the toilet paper should fall on the front. Come on, man!

The post Facebook Cookbook Review appeared first on Say Yeah!.

I see our lovely Groundhog Day link is hosted at winstormdp.com. A quick WhoIs check later and I’ve got contacts from winstormdp.com and winstorm.ca to write:

Sent by Lee February 2, 2009 12:44:32 AM:

Hi Mike/Jason:

Any idea on why Jerry Kambic (http://twitter.com/AtomicShroom) is spamming people on Twitter with: http://winstormdp.com/groundhogday2009/emercial.html?id=12333490470.72261&template=default

You should probably put a stop to that.

Peace.

Lee

Followup the next day. Not bad. And it’s from Jerry. My man on Twitter:

On February 2, 2009, at 12:14 PM, Jerry wrote:

Lee, I apologize for causing you any trouble. I did not mean to Spam anyone. I was just replying to a bunch of folks by wishing them a Happy Groundhog Day with a link to the event. I am new to Twitter and will not repeat what I was doing.

Sincerely, JK

Well, Jerry. There’s a bit of confusion here on Twitter etiquette. ie, what is deemed a reply vs what would be considered, say, an intrusion. Maybe I can help:

Sent by Lee February 2, 2009 2:30:01 PM:

Thanks for the followup.

Twitter is about having a conversation. Randomly messaging dozens of people you’ve never met and haven’t taken the time to get to know (y’know, by reading their feed) all with the same stock message (ie, not speaking to them directly or saying anything personal) is the equivalent of going up to a girl at a bar and dropping your pants, and it is most certainly not a “reply” to anything. To put it another way, it’s spam. Point being: Join the conversation, don’t interrupt it.

There’s no quick fix here or with any social media. If you want to participate, you need to do so by listening, learning and responding to each individual within the context of the conversation they’re having.

If you want to share your Groundhog Day message, then post it once to Twitter. If your followers like it, they’ll share it out, and their followers will do the same, and so on. Forcing a link on people you don’t know will just get you blocked. And then you’re out of the conversation permanently.

Best of luck.

Peace.

Lee

Oh, Jerry. Way to hang in there, man:

On 2-Feb-09, at 2:46 PM, Jerry wrote:

Thanks for the advice. I’m learning.

Peace, Jerry

And the moral of this story is, there’s no need to be rude if someone is invading your Twitter space. It’s much better to be presumptuous, assume that you have something to teach them about how they’re supposed to use Twitter, and that they’re willing to learn from your fine example. Just like Jerry is.

Of course, there are other approaches.

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