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TC Media Acquires Majority Stake In Redux Media

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:57:55 +0000

TC Media announcd it has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in online advertising network Redux Media, a leading online advertising network. The company delivers over 12 billion monthly impressions to more than 80 million unique visitors in Canada and the US (comScore Media Metrix – April 2012). Redux Media’s Real-Time bidding (RTB) solution enables 5,000 publishers to offer advertisers maximum return on investment across 15 content channels.

“We are eager to start our relationship with Redux Media,” said Dominique-Sébastien Forest, Vice President, National Digital Solutions, TC Media. “This new partnership offers a strong unique proposition to our customers by providing access to Real-Time bidding (RTB), private exchange and arbitrage advertising platforms with cutting-edge network capabilities to better serve advertisers and agencies.”

Real-Time bidding has been greatly changing the face of online advertising and industry predictions forecast exponential growth in coming years. Offering new and highly efficient ways of targeting audiences, RTB allows advertisers and agencies to bid and purchase ad impressions in real time. RTB is a great complement to other digital advertising strategies such as reserved pre-paid advertising space, allowing for a maximum return on investment.

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Facebook Goes Public, Valued At $104 Billion, How Will Canadian Team Cash In?

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:57:44 +0000

All of the hard work that Mark Zuckerberg and crew have put into Facebook takes a new shape this morning as the company goes public and he rings the opening bell on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The company is valued at $104 billion, and stocks are expected to trade at $38 per share, which is quite remarkable as they have now amassed over 900 million users. Facebook recorded a net income of $205 million in the first three months of 2012, on revenue of $1.06 billion. In all of 2011, it earned $1 billion, up from $606 million a year earlier. That’s a far cry from 2007, when it posted a net loss of $138 million and revenue of $153 million.

Here in Canada many of our readers have been speculating what type of win fall the Canadian team will have, Managing Director Jordan Banks took on the role back in May 2010, after Louise Clements left the social network. So how bigger will Jordan’s wallet be at the end of the day, now that’s the million dollar question.

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Pre-IPO Facebook Stats

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:34:06 +0000

On the day before the big IPO that the world is watching, here are some stats from Hitwise about Facebook:

Facebook.com received 9% of all US Internet visits in April 2012.
Facebook.com received more than 1.6 billion visits a week and averaged more than 229 million US visits a day for the year-to-date.
1 in every 5 page views in the US occurred on Facebook.com.
Facebook.com has received more than 400 billion page views this year in the US.
The average visit time on Facebook.com is 20 minutes.
The Facebook.com audience skews more female (56%) than male.
Facebook.com became the #1 ranked website in the US on March 9, 2010.
The term ‘Facebook’ is the most searched term in the US and has been for the past three years, starting the week ending July 18, 2009.
Facebook-related terms account for 6% of the top searched terms in the US and Facebook-related terms made up 4 of the top 10 US searches (among the top 100 search terms for the 4 weeks ending May 12, 2012).
Facebook.com users are highly loyal to the website; 96% of visitors to Facebook.com were returning (defined as visited within past 30 days) visitors in April 2012.
10 states account for 52% of visits to Facebook.com - California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina based on year-to-date average.
The top states where users are more likely to visit Facebook.com versus the online population are:West Virginia, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Alabama based on year-to-date average.
The New York City DMA provides the largest volume of traffic to Facebook.com and the Charleston, WV DMA is the area where users are most likely to visit compared to the online population.
Facebook.com is the top social networking site in the US, Canada, UK, Brazil, France, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore markets
Facebook.com is the top overall site in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.Facebook.com ranks 2^nd in the UK, Brazil, France and Australia.

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henderson bas kohn Dominates With 7 Wins At Communicator Awards

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:00:44 +0000

henderson bas kohn is known as a tough shop to work for, but the fruits of the hard work that the team and its founders do pays off time and time again as the industry takes notice and gives them their due respect and recognition. So it should come as no surprise that they have clean up at yet another awards program, this time at the Communicator Awards where they won 7 awards including 2 Gold.

The Communicator Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier client side professionals from a “Who’s Who” of acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Alloy, Brandweek, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, HBO, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo! The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program honouring creative excellence; it receives over 9,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world.

The winning campaigns include:

Mercedes-Benz Drive & Seek – Online Advertising and Marketing (Campaign Business to Consumer) – Award of Excellence
Mercedes-Benz Drive & Seek – Web site (Automotive) – Award of Excellence
Mercedes-Benz Drive & Seek – Web site (Visual Appeal) – Award of Distinction
Mercedes-Benz Drive & Seek – Online Advertising and Marketing (Game or Application) – Award of Distinction
LG Power Up – Online Advertising and Marketing (Game or Application)- Award of Distinction
LG Power Up – Online Advertising and Marketing (Viral Marketing)- Award of Distinction
LG Power Up – Online Advertising and Marketing (Campaign Business to Consumer)- Award of Distinction

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On The Move – Advertising & Marketing – May 17, 2012

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:47:14 +0000

Here are the latest from Canada’s digital community:

Andrew Swartz has been promoted to Communications Manager at Google, previously he was their Communications Senior Associate
Jacky Hood joins Scotiabank as their Digital Communications Manager
Alanna Glicksman moved over to MasterCard as a Digital Marketing Community Manager, previously she was Consultant at Hill+Knowlton Strategies

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Wave Accounting Goes For Gold, Secures $12M In Series B Funding

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:46:28 +0000

Wave Accounting secured $12M in a Series B round of funding for their cloud-based accounting software startup today, which marks another major milestone in the company’s history. In June of 2011, they secured $1.5M in seed funding, and then another $5 million in October, which helped them to acquire Small Payroll and start rolling out of their service into US. Today’s round was led by The Social+Capital Partnership (Social+Capital) with participation from existing investors Charles River Ventures (CRV) and OMERS Ventures.

Since launching back in 2010, the company has grow at a rapid rate and makes it one of the fastest growing financial applications for small businesses. A few of the companies key milestones include:

signed up nearly a quarter of a million businesses, and continues adding roughly 1,000 new signups every day.
attracted business owners in 200+ countries, with 70% of signups coming from North America.
tracked $24.3 billion in income and spending

Wave Account has started accepting advance invitations to US companies that want to use their service.

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Sid Lee Loses Dell, Lays Off Staff

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:35:01 +0000

Anytime that you lose business it is going to hurt at some point, unfortunately for the creative agency Sid Lee they recently lost a staple account as Dell moved their business over to Y&R, after having the account for only 15 months. We have now learned that the agency has laid off as much of 15% of its workforce. With Sid Lee getting hit this hard, one can only speculate as to what is going on internally and what will happen with other marque clients such as ADIDAS.

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CIBC & Rogers To Bring Tap & Go With Mobile Payment Solution

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:34:57 +0000

For years we’ve heard the promise of mobile payments, carriers, credit card companies and eCommerce players such as Paypal have all taked about this space for years. Jack Dorsey’s Square on many levels was the first to really bring the discussion to a physical product and get the ball rolling, as a result the Twitter Co-Founder has helped to foster an ecosystem that represents billions of dollars being spent around the world. This morning, CIBC & Rogers held a media event where they announced a new partnership that will see the two launch a mobile payment solution. With their new solution in place, consumers will be able to literally “tap and go” with their mobile devices to make payments. With “Near Field Communications” (NFC) enabled smartphone running on the Rogers network, consumers will be able to make payments to merchants by tapping special terminals that read your information stored on the SIM chip within your smartphone.

“As the leader in delivering mobile financial services innovations in Canada, we are pleased to introduce yet another innovation in the market that will shape the payments experience of the future,” commented David Williamson, Senior Executive Vice President, Retail and Business Banking, CIBC. “By teaming with Rogers, CIBC clients will soon enjoy the convenience of paying at the checkout with their mobile device while enjoying the existing benefits of their CIBC credit card, including loyalty rewards.”

“Canadians are embracing new technologies at an accelerated pace and we know they’re interested in using their smartphone for mobile payments,” said Rob Bruce, President of Communications, Rogers Communications. “We’ve been laying the foundation for mobile commerce and the ecosystem is ready to give Canadians the convenience, security, and peace of mind they deserve,” said Bruce. “Today’s announcement with CIBC represents an important first step toward a whole new world of mobile transactions which is a key growth area for the company.”

According to their pres release, some of the features include:

Full access to a client’s existing CIBC credit cards on their smartphone at no extra cost – whether Visa or MasterCard – this gives clients the opportunity to earn loyalty points on purchases as they do today.
Multiple layers of security – Paying with your NFC-enabled smartphone will be as secure as using your credit card today. Clients will receive the same fraud protection they do with their contactless credit card, and secure encryption technology will add to the layers of security already in place on credit card purchases. Clients will also have the option to set additional password protection.
No “stickers” on your phone – this new payment capability will leverage the secure SIM card inside a mobile device for payments, meaning clients can manage their credit card credentials on a secure platform, and won’t need to worry about stickers attached to their phone.

Their new solution will only work with BlackBerry smartphones, but Rob Bruce expects to see it working on Apple and Android-based devices in the near future, and further commented that it is in the best interest of manufactures to deliver devices that are driven by consumer demand and need.

During the Q & A period of the session the following was discussed:

Q – When will the mobile payment solution launch?

A – No specific date was given, other than “soon”
With yesterday’s

Q – Are there any additional fees to consumers or merchants?

A – No

What other consumer information will be captured?

Nothing additional will be captured by the solution of your mobile device

Can this solution be used outside of Canada?

Yes, anywhere that you can use a credit card today, you will be able to use this mobile payment solution tomorrow

Overall it is a smart move on the part of Rogers and CIBC, and another way that Rogers will look to lock customers into contracts.

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Dealuxe Rebrands To eLUXE, On Track To Dominate Canadian Fashion

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:13:47 +0000

In May 20111, Joanna Track gave birth to her second startup, Dealuxe and earlier this week the year old the online fashion destination has rebranded to eLUXE. The name is said to help better reflect the company’s focus on further developing its authority in the fashion marketplace. Which also sounds like Joanna has some big plans ahead, and most likely do a few things that others have failed to do and become a dominate force in women’s fashion.

“With eLUXE, our intent is to dominate the Canadian online landscape as the country’s top destination for consumable content,” said Joanna Track, CEO & Founder.

As part of their new brand they have also laid our their guiding principles:

EDIT – Bringing you the best contemporary clothing from recognized and emerging brands across the globe.
EDUCATE – We’ve got you covered – from the latest runway trends to timeless essentials; we’ll do the homework for you.
ENTERTAIN – Devour new and exciting editorial content, shop exclusive promotions, and get a daily dose of inspiration.
EMPOWER – Equipping you with the tools to create and transform your wardrobe.
ELEVATE – Enjoy shopping right off the pages of your favourite editorial features.
EXPERIENCE – Shopping with us is simple and seamless, from browsing and placing orders to delivery and customer service.
ENGAGE – We keep you coming back for more with our relevant content and exciting promotions…
EDITORIAL – Full spread magazine editorials entice you with the latest fashion and beauty trends.
EXCLUSIVE – We bring you hard-to-find and one-of-a-kind – just ask one of our virtual stylists.
EVOLUTION – Changing the way Canadians shop, one click at a time.
eLUXE – Changing the way Canadians shop, one click at a time.

Look out old school, there is a new Queen of Fashion ready to rule!

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Women In Tech, Where Do They Fit? [Infographic]

dforde@profectio.com (Dave Forde) — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:04:06 +0000

There are a few things that you can count on to occur within the technology industry, and one of them is the debate on women in technology. Many often suggest there are not enough women in the industry, while another argument that we often hear is that women should be doing more to get themselves noticed. Women Who Tech put together this interesting infographic below that women within the technology industry:

According to the compiled data, 40%of women believed that companies do not spend the right amount of time addressing diversity whereas 82% of men believed companies do spend enough time addressing diversity – it does reveal that women are making strides in the sector:

Of Harvard University second-year students who declared computer science as their major in 2011, 41% are women.
Fortune 500 companies that had at least three women directors saw more than 53pc increase in return on equity, and return on invested capital increase by at least 66pc.
Worldwide, 187 million women are currently starting or running a business enterprise.
In appears women are great consumers of tech, too. Fifty-five per cent of Twitter and Facebook users are women, and 60pc of Zynga’s social games players are women, according to the infographic.

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50 Canadian Corporate Blogs » Profectio
With lots of great recommendations from the community I’d like to present a list of 50+ Canadian Corporate Blogs. The page will evolve over time, and other blogs will be added as they are recommended, so be sure to let me know who else should be added.

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scriptvote - vote for your favourite php script

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