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There Is Travel In The Future For Canadian Digital Media Companies

Province of BC [1]In conjunction with the British Columbia Ministry of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development [2], the BC Trade and Investment [3] office in Japan is organizing a BC Pavilion at Tokyo Game Show 2010 [4] (TGS 2010) from September 16-19, 2010. The pavilion will be prominently located in the International Zone in order to highlight British Columbia’s digital media and game cluster, and the BC Trade and Investment office would like to invite BC game developers to join them. Here’s why your company should consider attending:

Japan is the 3rd largest market in the world for gaming industry sales; in 2009, sales of game hardware and software in Japan were US$5.9B. The Tokyo Game Show is the largest videogame show in Asia with annual attendance of 185,000 participants over four days. Attendance at this show is an opportunity for BC organizations to market their products and services to the Asian market and forge new business relationships with companies from Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan.

Recognizing the changing nature of videogames in society, TGS 2010 will also focus on next-generation mobile game devices, smartphones, PCs and other new interface models for home consoles. For BC organizations wishing to attend TGS 2010, the BC Trade and Investment office is pleased to offer the following support:

· Booth space at Tokyo Game Show in the BC Pavilion
· Bilingual staff (Japanese/English) to facilitate on-site meetings
· On-the-ground support for business matching
· Assistance with logistics in planning your trip and preparing to do business in Asia

If you are interested in participating in the BC Pavilion, the BC Trade and Investment office needs to hear from you by the end of July so that they can secure adequate resources and booth space for this event. Please contact Rob O’Brien, Japan Manager with the BC government’s International Relations and Business Development branch via email [5] or at 604-505-5896 to express interest, ask questions, or obtain more information about costs involved.

IUGO [6]Our congratulations to Sarah Thomson, who has been promoted to the position of Vice President of Business Development at IUGO Mobile Entertainment [7]. Sarah has been with the premium games developer for nearly 3 years, and since her joining, IUGO has significantly elevated its reputation and awareness amongst industry peers and mobile game enthusiasts. They also have seen success in the challenging App Store marketplace for iDevices.

“This was a well-deserved move for Sarah,” states IUGO’s CEO, Hong-Yee Wong. “She’s grabbed the reins here and produced significant results for IUGO. I have no doubt she’ll continue to take IUGO into new and exciting areas of growth and prosperity.” Thomson has also been speaking regularly at industry conventions, most recently Casual Connect in Seattle.

“I’m very excited and proud of my accomplishment,” beams Sarah. “The company as a whole has been working very hard to make our mark in this competitive space. I feel like we’re only getting started. IUGO’s foray into social games currently and in the future is going to usher in our next phase of success. I am grateful to lead the company towards its next evolution.”

Digital Leisure [8]Digital Leisure Inc. [8] has entered into a partnership with Minnesota game developer and publisher Destineer to develop Dragon’s Lair Trilogy [9], bringing three timeless arcade adventures together on one disc for Wii™: Dragon’s Lair, Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp, and Space Ace. For the first time ever on a console platform, you can experience the stunning visuals and engaging storylines from all three of these classic arcade games created by legendaryMatch Up [10] American animator Don Bluth.

The Dragon’s Lair Trilogy will be completely arcade authentic with the original arcade gameplay modes
and remastered animation. There will be standard and wide-screen editions, an all-new movie guide for beginners and a watch mode which will let you check out all of the Dragon’s Lair awesome animation without playing the game, which will be available for the Wii this fall.

Digital Leisure also has a new title coming out on DSiWare this coming Monday, August 2nd. In Match Up [11] gamers will reveal shapes, colors and even hidden bonuses with a new take on a childhood favorite. Quick hands and a sharp mind are the only way to beat the clock and disarm the explosive cards riddled throughout. For a bit of a slower paced gameplay, you can opt for classic concentration play. Match Up will be available for 200 DSiPoints.

Canada Media Fund [12]New policies in regards to Performance Envelope Calculation Factors were sent out by the Canada Media Fund [13] late yesterday. As a result of the consultation with the industry and funders of the Canada Media Fund (CMF), and in view of the policy direction from the federal government, the Board of the CMF has determined that the following factors will apply in the calculation of the performance envelopes for 2011-2012:

·Audience success (calculated on total hours tuned)
·Original prime time first run
·Historic performance, formerly historic access
·Above threshold licensing
·Regional licensing
·Digital media investment.

The new factor weights are defined as follows:

·Original first run is defined as the first airing of a project (or series of episodes that make up that project) by an eligible broadcaster. Eligibility will be determined based on whether the broadcaster participated in the initial financing structure of the project. This, in essence, allows participation in this factor by second and third window broadcasters who licensed the project, but excludes acquisitions.

·Prime time is defined as the period of time between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., 7 days per week. A project for which the majority of the telecast airs between these hours is considered to be airing in prime time. In the case of single-feed specialty broadcasters, this time period will be extended to the hours of 5:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., 7 days per week.

·For the digital media investment factor, credit will be earned for each dollar of cash financing and CMF envelope contribution provided by a broadcaster to a rich and substantial digital media component, as defined in section 3.2.DM of the Performance Envelope Program Guidelines.

The specific percentage weights to be assigned to each of the performance factors will continue to be assessed. Further consultations with the industry and funders will occur in September and the percentages of each factor will be announced following the final determination made by the Board.

Netherlands [14]The Dutch government is inviting 15 IT and new media companies to visit Holland from 20-25 September to explore this creative hub to Europe. The week will be packed with matchmaking and networking events including PICNIC festival [16] [15].

The Netherlands is widely recognized as mainland Europe’s creative hub, and Amsterdam – the capital city- is one of the TOP 5 most creative cities in the world. The stunning broadband and mobile infrastructure, and the low cost of communication services make that 85% of the Dutch population is connected to broadband. The 16 million inhabitants are extremely web savvy as proven recently when they managed to make their parliament election trending topic on twitter and constantly challenged Twitter’s capacity during the countries World Cup football matches.

The international oriented business culture is also reflected in high adaptation rate of business networks, LinkedIn for example has 1 million Dutch members. Not surprisingly LinkedIn opened their first mainland Europe office in the Netherlands last year and Tijmen Kos, Managing Director EMEA, Sun Microsystems states: “We chose the Netherlands because of the multilingualism, the education level of the working population and the excellent telecommunications infrastructure.”

With a multilingual educational system and an international economic focus as part of their history, the Dutch have embraced the digital technology to pursue a global citizen lifestyle. The country is in fact one big digital test bed, where a successful creative industry sprouted that is combining creativity, innovation and technology. It is also known for its diversity, with Creative Business Services, Media & Entertainment and Arts as the three main divisions in which the Dutch excel.

To offer an inspirational platform and bring together the national and international innovative community, Amsterdam annually hosts PICNIC festival. Thousands of people across the globe gather to share ideas, get inspired and work together on exciting topics. The festival blurs the lines between creativity, science, technology and business to explore solutions in the spirit of co-creation.

During this week there is a special business package available for a limited group of Canadian and US new media, social media, web 2.0, mobile and creative companies. For these 15 North American companies there is a Dutch government grant, so they can join this week filled with matchmaking, network, pressure cooker events and PICNIC festival for free!

The grant is made available by Agency NL EVD International [17], and companies that want to explore the Dutch/European market or are looking for Dutch business partners can apply by sending an email [18] or at Creative Cradle [19].

icore [20]Vancouver-based i.Core Technologies Inc. [20] announced today that it will introduce a free on-demand delivery and billing platform in September, 2010. i.Core’s latest offering, nDebit [21], provides a comprehensive solution that includes billing, provisioning, customer management, authentication, CRM, real-time rating engine and other services.

“We have supported hundreds of service providers over the years. Our customers range from a SOHO with basic requirements to the world’s largest WiFi aggregator who was provided a multi-currency, multi-lingual and multi-channel solution,” says i.Core’s COO Amrit Dhillon. “nDebit is the culmination of years of experience delivering solutions to demanding customers.”

nDebit enhances productivity and profitability by including a collaborative module for marketing and sales teams. Shared online project calendar, contacts and tasks makes it easy for the entire team to stay on schedule. nDebit decreases time to market, increases efficiency and enhances customer loyalty by enabling providers to introduce services rapidly, quickly modify pricing, offer innovative options for prepaid and postpaid billing and uplift customer experience via a self-service center.

Indigo Rose [22]Indigo Rose Software [22] has announced the immediate availability of Autorun MAX 2.1 [23]. Autorun MAX is designed to make it easy for software developers to create autorun menus for use on CDs, DVDs and USB drives. Like its bigger brother, Autorun MAX features a completely visual drag and drop development environment with built-in support for video, photos, text, buttons and music. It can launch any kind of file, from executables and installers to PowerPoint, PDF, Word and Excel documents. It can also open web browsers, email programs and much more.

This professional autorun creator software is from the developers of the industry-standard AutoPlay Media Studio. Autorun MAX shares many of the same features, and all of the same reliability, but in a more streamlined form. It was designed so that even non-programmers can use it to create visually-impressive multimedia autorun menus for software, training applications and presentations.

Unlike AutoPlay Media Studio however, there’s no programming at all. In fact, it’s easy enough for anyone to use. Simply drag and drop your media content onto a blank page and arrange the layout with your mouse. Then, simply choose from a drop-down list what you’d like to happen when one of autorunmaxscreenshot1 [24]your menu items are clicked on. There’s no programming knowledge required. Autorun MAX makes it fast and easy to author and distribute professional multimedia software, even for absolute beginners.

Autorun MAX includes a gallery of professional templates and ready-to-use content, including backgrounds, buttons, panels and sound effects to get you started. With templates included for software installation, document browsing, CD business cards and more, it’s quick to get your autoplay project off on the right foot with even more features that are normally only found in much more expensive products. Things like page transitions, custom window shapes, multi-channel audio mixing, image transparency with full alpha blending, spell checking, integrated CD burning and publishing to an email or web-ready single-file executable.

With its drag and drop design, software developers will be able to quickly create dozens of popular multimedia projects like CD business cards, computer based training (CBT) applications, CD autorun menus, custom web browsers, interactive presentations and more. Autorun MAX is available now for use with Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. Pricing starts at $49 (US) for the Home Edition or $129 for the Business Edition, with online ordering available [25].

intertainment media [26]Intertainment Media Inc. [26] has announced the availability of Ad Taffy’s [27] location-aware solution for online advertising. Through Ad Taffy’s location enhancement features, advertisers can now instantly provide key location information based on a consumer’s present geo-location and connect the consumer and vendor by telephone, outside of the browser automatically. Ad Taffy has completed its beta trials and is now working with key US and international agencies and advertising networks to begin commercialization.

A highly engaging SaaS (Software as a Solution) platform, Ad Taffy can quickly and easily be adapted to run within existing advertising campaigns without requiring new or standalone creative. Ad Taffy can be monetized on a CPM (impression), CPC (click), CPA (action) or CPE (engagement) basis, maximizing efficiencies and budgets.

Current market solutions require consumers to click on ads and go through as many as 15 steps and spend up to 6 minutes to try and reach the desired live contact with the retailer or service provider.

Ad Taffy reduces the friction and frustration experienced by streamlining the engagement process between a consumer and advertiser, instantly providing a map location with the consumer’s current geo-location clearly identified, points of interest and an intuitive navigation process, allowing the consumer to quickly and automatically connect from the ad to the location by telephone via their online, mobile or landline. The automated telephony connection from the browser to online, mobile and land lines is provided by itiBiti, Intertainment’s proprietary communications technology platform.

“Ad Taffy represents a truly innovative way for brands to capitalize on the intent to purchase. Consumers no longer have to continuously click through ads to find information and connect to the vendor. Ad Taffy provides a fluid user engagement experience,” said David Lucatch, CEO of Intertainment Media Inc. / President Ad Taffy Inc. “As a SaaS (Software as a Solution) application, Ad Taffy provides brands and agencies with a simplified solution for greater consumer engagement.

Ad Taffy is built using Microsoft’s Silverlight platform, Bing Maps and Intertainment’s propriety communications technology suite, itiBiti. Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating rich media applications and business applications for the Web, desktop, and mobile devices.

EnStream [28]EnStream LP [28] has announced a number of changes for domestic person-to-person (P2P) money transfers utilizing Zoompass. These transfers are now free through the Zoompass Mobile Wallet, and by removing the fees on domestic money transfers along with increasing sending limits, the Zoompass Wallet brings us a step closer to realizing the vision of a cashless society.

“There is no cost to consumers for transacting with cash today, so in this sense we feel it’s appropriate for us to remove the P2P transaction fees for the same transaction that could be done electronically through the Zoompass Mobile Wallet,” said Robin Dua, President of EnStream LP.

“By removing the P2P fees when sending funds from a Zoompass account, we open up a whole new market opportunity associated with micro transactions,” said Dua. Zoompass users can now pay back friends for a coffee, lunch or even the office lottery pool without incurring any fees. These everyday transactions can now be done electronically, more conveniently and at no cost via the Zoompass Mobile Wallet.

With recent changes to account limits, Zoompass Wallet users can also use the service for larger transactions. Zoompass users can now pay their nanny, send money to their kids off at university, or pay for their hockey league team dues all with just a few keystrokes on their mobile phone.

EnStream is a partnership of Canada’s leading wireless carriers, Bell, Rogers, and TELUS. The company launched the award-winning Zoompass Mobile Wallet in 2009 and began offering Canadians a revolutionary way to send, receive, and request money using the mobile phone.

The Zoompass wallet is now pre-loaded on many mobile phones and is also available online [29] for download – there is no cost to open a Zoompass account.

While sending money from your Zoompass account is free, sending funds through Zoompass from a credit card will incur a 3.5% fee. The new maximum individual transaction amounts through Zoompass are now $750.00 (daily), $1 000.00 (weekly) and $2 500.00 (monthly) with a maximum allowable balance of $2 500.00 in your account at any given time.

The Zoompass wallet will continue to expand with exciting new capabilities that will change the way people transact and interact with their money. “We have been working very hard and look forward to soon announcing several new services that will further demonstrate the convergence of the leather wallet and mobile phone,” stated Dua.