Monthly Archives: June 2007

CanWest unveils local search and directories

CanWest Mediaworks has announced plans to publish local directories, in print and online, in three cities.

Ottawa is first on the schedule, with a directory to be launched this summer. Similar products will appear in Regina and Saskatoon early next year. According to the announcement:

The Ottawa directory will offer consumers complete business listings, glossy print maps, a complete and easy to reference government section, community information section including schools, recreation, and parks information, a restaurant guide for dining selection, and large ads full of information to help fine-tune buying decisions. The initial online offering will also include mapping, search and driving directions.

CanWest’s portfolio includes the Ottawa Citizen, Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon StarPhoenix daily newspapers, the canada.com portal, and broadcasting stations.

In addition to advertising in the print directory, businesses can advertise online in their local pages on the canada.com network, offering advertisers potential cross-promotion alongside the CanWest network. Online advertising can be purchased with specialized packages to meet individual businesses’ needs, offering advertisers the choice to include ad creative, URLs, email addresses, additional descriptive text, and more.

Read More

Design an Olympics logo

Olympics 2012 logo

Unimpressed by the logo [above] for the 2012 London Olympics unveiled this week? You’re not alone.

The BBC website has a number of alternatives, submitted by its readers, including some very nice work.

If you’d like to try your hand, you might ponder this advice from Seth Godin:

If you’re given the task of finding a logo for an organization, your first task should be to try to get someone else to do it. If you fail at that, find an abstract image that is clean and simple and carries very little meaning–until your brand adds that meaning. It’s not a popularity contest. Or a job for a committee. It’s not something where you should run it by a focus group. It’s just a placeholder, a label waiting to earn some meaning.

No word on whether the existing London 2012 design could be replaced if enough people don’t like it.

Read More

US journalist offers outsourced news of Indian politics

😉 Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten isn’t standly idly by while low-paid journalists cover Pasadena, California from computers in India.

He’s decided to try outsourcing himself, starting with coverage of the Tamil Nadu state legislature in southern India, which he has been following via webcast. Well, he followed one meeting at least. Enough to get the gist of things.

This first report is now being offered to Indian publishers for only US$2, a bargain rate that should offer better value than using journalists closer to the scene, what with their demands for as much as 10 or 12 thousand dollars in annual salary.

While his grasp of Indian politics may not be perfect, Weingarten has all the tools of the modern outsourced reporter at his disposal, namely a computer and an internet connection. So Gene, over to you:

CHENNAI, INDIA — A man whose name is, I swear, “Somnath Chatterjee,” addressed the state legislature here today. Mr. Chatterjee was introduced as the leader of the “Lok Sabha,” which is evidently some sort of important national lawmaking body about which few details are available at this time.

Mr. Chatterjee is apparently in ill health, as he arrived surrounded by attendants in white hospital garb. However, he proved hale enough to mount the podium, where he delivered a lengthy speech in praise of an elderly, revered local government official whose name sounds something like “Dr. K. Haminahamina,” a name that, unfortunately, didn’t get any Google hits. But it’s got to be pretty close…

I know you’re going to want to read the rest of Weingarten’s debut coverage of Indian local government. It’s funny stuff, but also ironic, in that the Indian journalists recruited for the Pasadena site probably have a much better grasp of Amercian culture than the typical American (or Canadian!) has of theirs. One of them studied journalism in California.

I’m curious to see how the outsourced news on Pasadena Now works out. I skim the site occasionally, but have yet to see anything labelled as having been written by one of the Indians. Anyone else spotted their work yet?

Read More

Confirmed: Google buys Feedburner

Feedburner confirmed today that has been acquired by Google.

In an announcement posted on the Feedburner site, the company recounts the benefits of the deal, then takes a look ahead:

…there is an immense amount of work to do in order to a) continue to provide our customers with the best feed analytics, b) begin to provide a more comprehensive 360-degree view of audience and reach, and c) enable publishers to most efficiently determine the best ways to distribute and monetize their content.

Read More

Massive staff cuts at web publisher Geosign

As many as 100 of the 215 employees at Guelph, Ontario-based niche web publisher Geosign have lost their jobs.

The story seems to be that the company, which less than two months ago captured $160 million in private funding, was caught in Google’s crackdown on AdWords arbitrage.

[Click that link above for a video explanation of AdWords arbitrage, using some Geosign sites as examples.]

Geosign runs 180 consumer-targeted sites, including gizmocafe.com, hockey.com and thewheelchairsite.com.

Geosign isn’t saying much, and has posted no information about the layoffs on its website. Nor can I find anything about this on the Globe & Mail or Toronto Star sites, even though the layoff notices apparently went out four days ago.

But comments posted online by people identifying themselves as workers laid off by Geosign suggest the layoffs affect anywhere from 38 to 100 staff.

More from Dave Forde at Profectio and at threadwatch.org.

Read More