City of Edmonton Archives Launches First Online Exhibit Featuring Ella May Walker
The City of Edmonton Archives is going virtual with its first online exhibit profiling Edmonton author, artist and archive-advocate Ella May Walker. Key to the city’s artistic and historic communities, Walker was an easy choice for the première of the exhibit, which allows users to navigate through the city’s rich history without paying the price of admission at a museum. After moving to Edmonton in 1920, Walker was a member of the city’s Archives and Landmark Committee in the 1940s and ’50s – decades important to the building of the city’s archives, which now include 270,000 images and six vaults of documents. She died in 1960, but the exhibit hopes to revive interest in her work. Read more 
Huffington Post Canada to Expand to Alberta and BC Fall 2012
Weeks away from celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Huffington Post Canada, AOL Canada and the Huffington Post Media Group (HPMG) announce today a regional expansion that will include HuffPost British Columbia and HuffPost Alberta. The sites will feature HuffPost’s signature mix of news, blogging, community, and social engagement, to capture the unique cultures of both provinces, with regional editorial teams leveraging the power of the HuffPost platform to deliver the most important and most entertaining local stories. HuffPost British Columbia and HuffPost Alberta will bring HuffPost’s blogging platform to the Western Canadian media market, not only connecting readers with the news they most care about, but inviting them to tell their own stories. Read more 
Digital Alberta Awards in Calgary on June 4, Submission Deadline on May 14, 2012
The Digital Alberta Awards, now in its second year, is a program designed to recognize leaders in innovation, creativity and the evolving digital media sector in Alberta. Join Digital Alberta on Monday, June 4th at Hotel Arts in Calgary to celebrate achievement in Digital Media in Alberta. Two new categories this year — Best Campaign by a Media Outlet and People’s Choice Award for Most Inspirational Digital Leader. Sixteen awards will be handed out during the Digital Alberta Awards Gala on June 4. Submission deadline is May 16. Read more 
iMedia 2012: Edmonton’s Social Media Conference, May 5, West Edmonton Mall
The iMedia Conference was created for all social media enthusiasts. Anyone who loves to blog, tweet, interact on facebook or simply connect online is encouraged to attend. The conference will include 2 keynote speakers and attendees choice of registering for 4 breakout sessions throughout the day. A panel of local #yeg iMedia-lites will be featured during lunch! iMedia was created by Carol McBee & Gillian Galante for social media enthusiasts of all backgrounds. The goal is to bring people together to foster new relationships as well as for personal and business growth. Read more 
Alberta Podcast > John de Ruiter Edmonton-Based Philosopher and Author Podcast on iTunes
John de Ruiter is an Edmonton-based Canadian philosopher and author whose thoughts have reached and influenced thousands of people. He teaches through public question-and-answer meetings held at his College of Integrated Philosophy also referred to as the Oasis Centre at 10930 – 177 Street in Edmonton, Canada, and in city and university lecture halls in many countries around the world. Meetings at the College are held on Mondays and Fridays, at the beginning and end of the working week, with an afternoon and evening meeting on Sundays throughout the year, except during a five-week break in the Summer, when John de Ruiter takes a vacation. Read more 
State of the Digital Publishing Industry in Alberta
Digital Alberta engaged in one of the industry’s most exciting discussions at the State of the Digital Publishing Industry on March 28, 2012 with notable panelists, Guy Huntingford, CEO and Publisher of the Calgary Herald and Doug Lacombe, Communications specialist and founder of communicatto. Panelists were hosted by President of Digital Alberta, Michelle Sklar who moderated the panel. The panelists gave their perspectives on the current state of the publishing landscape, challenges publishers and other content creators face, Citizen Journalism and what the future of publishing looks like. What was clear was the importance of recognizing that publishers need to publish for a broad range of audiences, and that going where there are eyeballs is key to connecting with readers. Read more 
Magazine Spotlight: Social Media Monthly, a Fine Production
S
ocial Media Monthly is not an Alberta magazine, normally the topic of this category, but is nevertheless a most interesting magazine — at least to me – in that it is a print magazine promoting social media and online technologies. According to its website the magazine was conceived at the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas and was launched 53 days later on May 20, 2011 at BlogWorld 2011 in New York. Three weeks later it secured national distribution in the US through Barnes and Noble. The magazine was honoured as one of the top magazine launches of 2011 by MIN, an organization that reports on the publishing industry. Published by Robert Fine, the founder of Cool Blue Companies and author of The Big Book of Social Media Case Studies, Stories and Perspectives, the magazine seems to have hit a sweet spot, at least with companies offering web based social media services and social media conferences across the US. The magazine is now sold in 19 countries and 15% of the subscribers are from outside the US. Not bad for the first year in the life of a print magazine in a digital world. Read more 
Khan Academy, Free Online Learning Resources for a World Class Education
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. They’re a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge thanks to the support of Bill Gates and other philanthropists. While some of the videos are required viewing for rocket scientists, the site has other learning resources in Art History, World History and even videos to help improve SAT scores. Check it out at www.khanacademy.org.
Pinterest Hits 10 Millions Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever
It’s beautiful, it’s addictive, and now Pinterest is having its glorious hockey stick moment. TechCrunch has attained exclusive data from comScore showing Pinterest just hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, crossing the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history. In fact, users are spending so much time sharing their favorite images that now only Facebook and Tumblr have more social media time on site than Pinterest. Who’s propelling its rise? 18-34 year old upper income women from the American heartland. See the rest of the report on Pinterest on TechCrunch.com.
Shaw Media, Astral and CBC Launch New On-demand Digital Music Services in Canada
Online platforms that allow users to discover and share new music, and create new business opportunities for advertisers, are seen as a growth market by broadcasters and music publishers alike, reported Mediacaster Magazine today. Canadian Music Week sponsor Slacker, as well as Rdio, Spotify, Pandora and Jango are just a few of the unaffiliated new streaming music services available in Canada; now, leading broadcasters are joining the game and launching their own music brands online. Astral Radio is leading the way among radio broadcasters in Canada with confirmation of its plans to launch a new on-demand music and music video streaming service. CBC has already announced its plans for the launch of a new digital music service, with online programming and on-demand services, based on recent agreements AVLA, the International Audio-Video Licensing Agency. Shaw Media recently made its own online music announcement, as well. Read more 
Startup Hackathon + Global Game Jam Edmonton January 27 – 29, 2012
Startup Edmonton and GameCamp Edmonton join forces to bring you Startup Hackathon + Global Game Jam – the city’s biggest-ever 54 hour marathon of coding, design, and lots of energy drinks. Make an app, make a game – just make something people want. Like previous Startup Weekends, developers, designers, marketers, players, and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups. Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over the weekend, teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, and culminating in a final demo night where teams show off their prototypes and receive valuable feedback. Read more 
Startup Edmonton Announces First Annual Skunkworks Winners
Startup Edmonton’s Skunkworks is a hands-on competitive program that brings together developers, designers and entrepreneurs to create and prototype solutions for real world problems in different industries. Multi-disciplinary teams work with real world customers and organizations to develop prototypes and make pitches to a panel of judges. Winning teams then advance to the next round where products are refined and implemented through actual customer pilot programs. The first Startup Edmonton Skunkworks initiative was held in conjunction with the Alberta Motor Association. The results are in, and they have announced the three local Edmonton startups selected to move onto the next phase: to work directly with the AMA to plan and scope a pilot in early 2012. Read more 






Marilyn
Jones is a corporate and social media advocate for individuals, small businesses
and nonprofit organizations in Alberta. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada and is the proprietor of RiverCity Productions. You can contact her
by phone at 780-695-5675 or by email at marilyn@mediamag.ca.