Blogs & Pods

Open Letter to VANOC Media Relations and Press Operations from Social Media Makers

DaveO — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:31:16 -0500

NOTE: Sent to VANOC {mediarelations@vancouver2010.com, pressoperations@vancouver2010.com} Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008.
Cross-posted at: urbanvancouver.com, 2010.dailyvancouver.com, nowpublic.com, etc.

Hello VANOC Media Relations and Press Operations,

I am writing today on behalf of Raincity Studios, a Vancouver-based social media company who owns and publishes a suite of media properties. We had hoped to talk about social media (blogs, podcasts, twitter, wikis etc.) at the World Press Briefing this week, however we did not receive any response from the applications we submitted to the participate in the event. So, as per Mr. Furlong's suggestion at the Vancouver Board of trade meeting last week, we are liaising with VANOC.

In brief, we'd like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience while keeping out of the way of the IOC IP lawyers. As a company and as individuals, we've produced extensive, non-accredited coverage of Beijing 2008, Torino 2006, SLC 2002, and Nagano 1998. With the next games literally in our neighborhood, we'll be hosting an independent, international media centre at our Gastown loft office. As part of this, we'll organize events like photo walks and aggregate fan-made content for the enjoyment of a worldwide audience. We'd like to work with you to do this for mutual benefit.

As you likely know, Vancouver is a hub of innovative journalism with companies like ourselves, Now Public, and others plus renowned conferences like Northern Voice. Raincity Studios/Bryght are also an "official weblog service provider." My colleagues Robert Scales and Kris Krug were published in the academic paper "Pathway: Critiques and Discourse In Olympic Research," participated in the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies in Beijing and will be presenting about the experiences at the noted SXSW Interactive conference in 2009.

Between my colleagues and myself, we've posted thousands of photos, dozens of audio and video podcasts along with hundreds of blog posts, updates etc. from several Olympics. Additionally, we've cooperated with mainstream media and published Olympic-related coverage in the LA Times, BBC online, plus outlets in Poland, Brazil, Shanghai, and so on.

In Torino, Scales and Krug (and others) tested cutting edge equipment for Comvu and produced a cross-ocean symposium "Athletes and Social media" between Turin and Vancouver. In Beijing, they tested camera for Qik and contributed to many mainstream media outlets. Our own media properties include DailyVancouver.com, UrbanVancouver.com, Hockeynw.com, plus dozens of other presences, and we are allied with dozens of other media properties in BC and around the world.

Mr. Scales is China desk editor for Now Public and has presented to numerous international business groups about Olympics and business. Mr. Krug is ranked #4 on Vancouver Sun's "Internet Most Visible in Vancouver" list, both Krug and Scales were included on Tech Vibes "Vancouver Digital Media People to Watch 2008" list and appear on various other "best of" lists.

As for myself, I've produced extensive photo essays of event venues and published interviews with Canadian athletes like Duff Gibson, Ross Rebagliati and Crispin Lipscomb and written magazine articles about Olympians. I also appear on CBC Radio One discussing sports culture and new media as the producer/host of the Canucks Outsider podcast.

Bear in mind, aside form the occasional stipend, we do this work for no pay.

We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide. We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes' families' stories, and stories from fans who saved and traveled from around the world for this experience. In other words, we plan to encourage and aggregate fan coverage of the individual's "on the street" experience of the Games. We are locals who have watched (and helped pay for) the development of the Games since before the Plebiscite - as a result, we are tuned in to the issues and excitement surrounding the Games.

To begin our liaison relationship, we would like to attend the media briefing portion of the Worldwide Press Briefing on Thursday. We'd also schedule a follow-up conversation with the appropriate point of contact to discuss how we as a weblog vendor company, and as individuals, can be involved in providing amateur coverage of Vancouver/Whistler 2010.

With Best Regards,

daveo (and Robert Scales and Kris Krug)
--
Dave Olson
Community Evangelist
Raincitystudios.com

PS These links will provide a flavor of our point of view:

* Raincity Studios Olympics posts: http://raincitystudios.com/search/node/olympics
* Olympic overage at Daily Vancouver: http://2010.dailyvancouver.com
* Beijing kick off post: http://raincitystudios.com/blogs-and-pods/daveo/beijing-2008-social-medi...
* Krug's Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/kk/tags/olympics
* Scales' Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/raincitystudios/tags/olympics
* Olson's Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/uncleweed/tags/olympics
* You Tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/robertscales
* Olympic Outsider podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/olympicoutsider
* Scales' Olympic coverage on Now Public: http://my.nowpublic.com/user/6247/assignments
* SLC 2002 photo/video essay: http://olsonboys.org/galleries/olympic-gallery.html
* Torino/Vancouver Symposium: http://2010.dailyvancouver.com/torino/symposium

Raincity Studios/Bryght Hosting is looking for an experienced System Administrator to join our team.

Scales — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:02:24 -0500

Raincity Studios/Bryght Hosting is looking for an experienced System Administrator to join our team.

You will help with the day-to-day operations of our hosting environment, a 30+ server CentOS based Xen cluster. Your average work week will involve working on client issues, server auditing, server updates, server upkeep. You will be expected to be on call for the infrastructure.

Experience with CentOS/RHEL, Apache, MySQL, Subversion, BIND, Postfix, PHP configuration, RPM building and the Xen Hypervisor required. Experience with Nagios monitoring, Puppet/CFengine management, Drupal and Amazon web services preferred.

Excellent opportunity to expand your skills and work with experienced developers and a company focused on Open Source and customer service. Ability to quickly pick up new technologies and adapt to a fast paced work environment required.

Job Details:

Work with Bryght's support staff to solve client issues, such as SSL configuration, memory balancing on a small virtual machine, web configuration and optimization.

Work with Raincity developers to provide development environments for their work and management of the Raincity/Bryght office network.

Manage dozens of physical server, 100s of virtual server environment, ensuring performance, security and uptime. This will largely require enforcing management best practices for a virtual hosting environment.

Work with product development team to roll out new hosting options, such as Amazon EC2 based offerings.

Continue building out management services, such as locally cached CentOS repositories, monitoring, SNMP graphing, centralized backup, SSH key based authentication and Xen management.

Contact robert(at)RaincityStudios(dot)com with CV and expectations.

Social Media Training for Journalists at CBC

Kris Krug — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:39:14 -0500

As the national broadcaster, the CBC has a special place in hearts of Canadians. Growing up in the USA, there is really no equivalent - PBS is well intentioned but just doesn't have the public mind-share the 'Ceeb garners with important documentaries and top-shelf sports coverage. Now that i think of it, the ability to satirize politics and still gets funding tell me that something like the CBC could never exist back home!!

I think the CBC (with help from Tod Maffin no doubt) have done a very good job of delivering new media content via podcasts and other channels while some aspects need some improvement (more openness please).They've learned a lot in the past year or so about developing digital content.

CBC is taking steps to get the internal teams more social media literate with an event on Friday, Nov. 21st moderated by Megan Cole. I'll be joining CBC journalists and employees on Friday for a conversation about using social media tools from Twitter to Flickr. Specifically, I'll be discussing how journalists and marketers can use Facebook and other emerging technologies and tools to enhance media coverage by building community as well as connecting fans with artists.

Follow along with blog and twitter coverage and see the reactions and comments to the presentations - I am look forwarding to learning a bit more about the process of producing "traditional" media and plan to listen more than speaking.

For more info, here's how the CBC describe the Lederhouse Social Networking Workshop:

Social networking has recently supplanted e-mail as the most popular use of the Internet.

Many of BC's best facebookers, flickrers and twitterers are CBC employees. Some of us don't know a SMS from an SOS.

That's why some CBC'ers will be gathering at the end of November for a day long seminar on social networking. We'll find out how some of us use it to make our jobs easier, and how others can learn to tap into its power.

We'll meet journalists who twitter, and producers who digg -- and create a project or two to try at your desk.

It's a day set aside for social networking -- about social networks.

See ya there or see ya online.

Stop the Internet Gatekeepers! Share your opinion with the CRTC ASAP

DaveO — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:58:54 -0500

This action alert is re-purposed from: The CRTC Should Stop Internet Gatekeepers

In the coming days the federal communications regulator will issue a landmark ruling that has huge implications for Canadians’ access to the Internet. The CRTC decision will determine whether Bell and other big telecoms can continue to “throttle” Internet service. Please take a few seconds to tell the CRTC to stop Internet throttling. Your voice could be the deciding factor!

The commissioners have already twice delayed releasing their ruling, suggesting that they are struggling to make a decision. We need to make it very clear to the CRTC which side the Canadian public is on. Find out how to help at: http://saveournet.ca/content/take-action.

Tell the CRTC to stop Internet throttling now!

Until recently, Canada's Internet was an open network – a level playing field for free speech and innovation. All that is now threatened by a handful of corporations that want to control a “gatekeeper network” in which they decide what content and services get the fastest access to our homes.

These companies have been caught:

* throttling or slowing Internet traffic to businesses and consumers;

* blocking access to websites that criticized them;

* crippling consumer devices and applications.

The upcoming CRTC decision will have major and long-lasting implications for our Internet. Our online level playing field of innovation and free speech hangs in the balance.

Please Take Action and invite your fellow Canadians to do the same!

Action Tasks

Blog in the place where you are - Placeblogger launches with News Challenge grant

DaveO — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:53:42 -0500

Another Raincity Studios project released to the public - this one is a location based feed aggregator called Placeblogger.com.

Designed to gather a deep view of their any micro-location, readers can follow all your local content in one place or track the news in places you've lived or want to visit. Travelers can reconnoiter destinations and arrange coverage to coincide with their itinerary. I.e. blogging from Seattle on Monday, reading blogs, in NYC on Wednesday, and reading and writing Prague blogs on Friday.

The geo-located aggregate feed also bakes-in geo-tagged Flickr photos, Wikipedia content, Google maps. Participants' fave blogs, posts, locations, etc. are gathered at your personal profile page. Bloggers can add their content on-the-go by attaching their location to posts creating a travel timeline of content + location.

Raincity Studios worked with Knight Foundation 2007 News Challenge grant winner Lisa Williams to create this project which is a new way to quickly get to know about a specific location in a deep manner whether the place is somewhere you live, or you are just passing through. Her objective was to create a tool where

The project used most all facets of the inter-disciplinary team including strategic planning to custom code development, database migration, full UI grapic design and themeing, and finally deployment. Placeblogger is one of the first tenants in the Bryght Canadian data centre and hosted in a Bryght Drupal-optimized VPS .

You can check out the Placeblogger portfolio narrative to learn more and consider stopping by to sign up for a Placeblogger account and tell the world where you are blogging from.