Rachel Foster is our latest prize-winner, landing herself a sweet HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook, thanks to the contest put on by Metro Canada and Gigpark. Upon hearing the news, Rachel said, “I was just complaining to my husband that my laptop is too heavy to carry around and gives me shoulder pain.” Well, today is her lucky day! Rachel tried her luck by making 4 recommendations including one for graphic designer, Saul Alvarez Jr. If you’re looking to refresh some designs, he may just be your man.

Rachel is a copywriter at B2B, specializing in helping marketers generate more leads and sales. She also loves lindy hop and pilates.  You can check B2B out here.

Do you want an HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook, too? Then get recommending! For our next Metro Canada/Gigpark contest, recommend any business on Canpages or GigPark through the Metro readers community for a chance to win. The more recommendations you make, the closer you are to the prize!

Photo by Ashley Virginia

Clean out desk. Check.
Put business cards in recycling bin. Check.
Shake hands and share hugs. Check.
Play one last game of foosball. Check.
Have a drink (or two). Check.

Today is the day that we, the proud founders of GigPark, officially leave GigPark in the hands of the good and talented people at Canpages.

What does this mean for you, our loyal users and business owners on GigPark?
Well, you won’t notice a thing. GigPark will continue flourish and get better within Canpages, as it has since the two companies came together in August ‘09. And with yesterday’s announcement that Yellow Media Inc. is acquiring Canpages, we are even more excited about what GigPark will be able to deliver to its wonderful community.

And from our perspective, as exciting as it is to move onto new challenges, it’s hard to leave your baby. Building and growing GigPark has been one of the most rewarding, educational, and fun experiences in our lives. It’s been a helluva ride. [wipe tear now]

Since this our last GigPark blog post, we want to express a few very necessary thank yous …

To you, the GigPark Community, we’d like to thank you for your relentless participation and for never shutting up. Whether it was a sharing your recommendations on gigpark.com, emailing us with ways to improve, or tweeting a thanks, your feedback made us better every day and we are eternally grateful for that.

We’d also like to thank everyone at Canpages, especially Olivier Vincent and Matt Jackson – both of whom saw the vision, championed the cause, offered support every step of the way, and were an absolute pleasure to work with.

To our incredibly gifted, uber-fun, and coffee-addicted team – Paul Dowman, Tony Targonski, and Gianni Chiappetta – you guys built a beautiful, rock solid product that we are proud of. We would be lucky to get the chance to work with you guys again. Gracias amigos.

And finally, a very special thanks to our wives, Ros Hegan and Erica Godfrey. With your support, dedication, feedback, ideas, and unwavering love, anything was possible and continues to be possible.

Keep recommending! And please feel free to stay in touch via Twitter: @pema and @noahgodfrey.

Pema & Noah

Photo by ApramSi

Scot Thom is the winner of our latest HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook giveaway brought to you by Metro Canada and Gigpark. Scot made 6 recommendations including one for Green FX Landscaping – the perfect service for the upcoming spring season!

Scot is VP of Sales and Marketing for Gobi Canada, a company that helps small and medium businesses secure financing and grow. You can recommend his business, Gobi Canada, here.

Congrats, Scot! What a great way to start the weekend.

For our next Metro Canada/Gigpark contest, recommend any business on Canpages or GigPark through the Metro readers community for a chance to win another HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook. Every recommendation is another chance to win!

Photo by...Andrew Kufahl

GigPark wants to welcome its newest team member, Sarah Dea. She will take reign as community coordinator and handle all that is social media, customer query and putting a smile on everyone’s face. Sarah is a new media junkie and moonlights as a freelance photographer. Her diverse background in journalism, media production and communications will surely help GigPark flourish.

Welcome to the team!

You can reach her at: sarah [at] gigpark [dot] com

With GigPark in great hands and better than ever, the time has come for Pema and me to hand over the day-to-day controls to a new product champion to lead this incredible team and take GigPark to the next level.

We’re sticking around for a while to lead the candidate search and transition to the new leader.

Interested in the job?  Here’s the posting.

It’s the one of the best opportunities in the country that comes with lots of responsibility, freedom and the opportunity to have significant impact on our parent company, Canpages, the fastest growing local search and directories publisher in Canada.

So if you are a smart, enthusiastic, web-savvy individual and you have the desire (and skills) to call the shots for growing web app, you’d be bonkers not to apply for this job.

As for Pema and me, you’re not getting rid of us so quickly … we’ll be around for a bit before setting off on our next adventure.

Photo by Thewmatt

Who’s that guy with the 47″ LCD HDTV? His name is Daniel Rose and he is the winner of our latest contest.

Daniel has been sharing his recommendations on GigPark for over a year now. He’s made a bunch of good ones but my favourite is his recommendation for Vertical Thinking, an online print shop that does quality business cards, delivers great customers service, and offer reasonable pricing.

And if you’re looking for company that can design and facilitate a workshops to tap the collective intelligence of your organization, you might want to check out Daniel’s business, Omakase Group … it’s been recommended 4 times! :)

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. We’ll be back with lots of great prizes in 2010.

And remember, if you come across any great businesses over the holidays (restaurants, hotels, travel agents, snow removal companies, heating repair, etc.), tell the world and do that business a favour by recommending them on Canpages or GigPark.

Happy holidays!

Photo by The Suss-Man (Mike)

Congrats to the winner of latest contest, Tara Joyce, who snagged herself a sweet HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook. Tara made 5 recommendations, including a unique one for custom, hand-made lingerie.

Tara is a writer and strategic coach from Toronto who helps business owners with marketing a web development support. You can recommend her business, Elastic Mind, here.

And as a reminder, we’re doing one last contest in 2009 – this time we’re giving away an LG 47″ LCD HDTV. Recommend now and recommend often to increase your chances to win.

Photo by kimrose…

As you may have noticed, we’ve been giving away lots of prizes recently. Well, we found room in the budget for one more contest and the prize is a good one … an LG 47″ LCD TV!

Make 1 recommendation, get 1 chance to win.
Make 2 recommendations, get 2 chances to win.
Make 3 recommendations, get 3 chances to win.
And so on …

You can recommend your favourite local businesses on Canpages and/or GigPark. And it only takes a minute or so to create a recommendation.

You only have a week though because the contest ends on December 21st.

Ho ho ho.

Photo by Malingering

Bhupinder Deogun made 194 recommendations last week (that’s a lot!) which means he had 194 entries in our draw to win $2000 cash. Well, it worked because he is our latest winner – congrats Bhupinder!!

Upon hearing the good news, Bhupinder said: “Get out of here!!! Are you kidding me? WOW! I can’t believe it.”

With his new fat wallet, Bhupinder has his eye on a new 52″ Sony Bravia LED TV. Good choice!

For the rest of you, you’ve got another shot to win this week as we’re giving away a slick HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook. Maybe you’ll be the next Bhupinder?

Photo by aresauburn™

Two weeks ago, we gave away a shopping spree to Best Buy.
Last week, we gave away cash.
This week, we’re giving away an HP Mini 10.1″ Netbook!

To enter the contest, recommend any business on Canpages or GigPark. Every recommendation is another entry to win (yup, 47 valid recommendations = 47 entries in the draw to win).

The contest is short – ending December 14th – so recommend now!

Buona fortuna!