I’ve started to build an Atlantic Canada twitter list of those in technology/marketing/ social media and related fields on the right sidebar. If you want to be added to the list, you can follow me on twitter or you can contact me. On the flip side, if you want your twitter removed from the twitter list, let me know and I’ll remove it.

If you’re new to what twitter is, from wikipedia;

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.

Caroline Middlebrook has a very comprehensive Big Juicy Twitter Guide. 

 My reasons for using Twitter:

1. it’s easy to use and doesn’t take much time
2. it helps build relationships with others
3. you’re usually the first to know what is happening
4. if you can’t attend an event, you can often follow a twitter on the event, ie. http://twitter.com/forrester
5. it’s fairly viral with followers and who you’re following, lots of marketing opportunities
6. it’s indexed by google, useful for seo

Most of all, I really enjoy the diversity of people out there and getting the big picture in a micro way of the world outside of mine.

Today StartupNorth compared NB based YourTeamOnline and BC based TeamPages. I don’t have much to add but I do think YourTeamOnline may want to consider adding screen shots like TeamPages. Both teams also mention the ability to control privacy settings in their privacy page at the bottom of the site. If I was a youth coach, I’d want that information stated clearly with the site information before I join. I’d want to be sure I could control what items are viewable by others in the site and what items weren’t. In TeamPages, once logged in, there is a privacy option that does provide a fair bit of choice, but I couldn’t find anything in like that in YourTeamOnline, but I have might have overlooked it. Another idea might be a page a coach could print out to provide to parents that explained what the site manager was and how the site handled the info on their kids with regards to privacy.

Can you tell I’m a mom and that I’ve coached youth leagues before?;)

p.s Yes, as one reader asked. This blog is going to have a female flavour to it.

The New Brunswick Innovation Fund (NBIF) has announced the finalists for the Breakthru NB Business Plan Competition. Breakthru’s purpose was to reward NB entrepreneurs 19 and older who have an innovative product idea for a NB business venture.

mobile2social – Tracadie-Sheila
Combine social media with GPS and Internet enabled cell phones and you’ve got something to sing about. mobile2social is working on a way to introduce GPS technology to the social marketing mix so that friends and marketers can tell where you are and what you’re doing. The project leads are high-tech entrepreneur Mario Basque, marketer Yan-Alexandre Keable and hardware/software developer Éric Dusablon.

Greenlight Geomatics – Miramachi City
Railway companies across North America spend over a billion dollars a year to manually get rid of plant growth that threatens track safety. Using GPS technology, Greenlight is developing an automated technology that will meticulously map and controls herbicide spray without affecting environmentally sensitive areas.
Championing the project is land surveyor Herman Koops, engineering students Anthony Illukwe [software] and John Lord [mechanical], and business students Brad Pierce and Khaled Taha.

Mass Rule – Riverview
General searches on the internet, or “googling” is a no-brainer for most people who want to get general information. But finding out what people think about that information is another story. Mass Rule is developing a revolutionary internet poling solution that delivers searchable statistics about people’s opinions. Shawn Carver, founder of THINK Technology, previously launched one of the first premium text messaging brands and campaigns in Atlantic Canada.

PlayDartsNow.com – Saint John
Game-play is now a mainstay for the virtual world, where people play each other online from all over—something not so easy for traditional games. PlayDartsNow is developing a technology that will turn your dartboard into a virtual playing field. Using a sensory device, you can use your own dartboard to play online with anyone who has the same technology. Heading PlayDartsNow is Justin Kennedy, a private software consultant who has previously advised a number of high profile companies including Microsoft, Sony and Umbra

Trivnet Media Systems – Saint John
There was a time when you could sit in a restaurant, order a meal, and stick a couple quarters in the jukebox station, situated at the table, and play your favorite song. Imagine what you could do today. Trivnet is working on a new generation of table top media devices that adds value for the patron and the owner, including entertainment, information access and billing. Leading the team is marketing specialist Rivers Corbett, and father-son duo John Trivett, a long-time radio broadcaster, and William Trivett, an electrical engineering student.

Carbon Concepts - Fredericton
Today, some provinces and US states give tax breaks for generating your own emission-free energy. But the only way to get the savings is if you can distinguish electricity made from electricity taken from the grid. Most micro-energy solutions don’t know the difference between the two. Carbon Concepts is developing a new measuring device to do this for sale in Ontario—to start. Championing the innovation is Levi Hargrove and Adam Wilson, a PhD and MSc candidate in electrical engineering, respectively.

A total of $245,000 in cash and in kind prizes of support for legal, marketing, website services and accounting services. The prizes will be awarded on November 22. 

It’s great to see this type of event to encourage entrepreneurs in NB. Although I think as a province we could do even more. I’m looking forward to following the companies and hope they help put NB on the map for innovative technology.

That’s  the comment I oveheard recently at a parent’s group.  A homework blog is used by many schools, including the school my oldest attends. Teachers post the current day’s homework for the class up on the web.  Some felt that the students never read the blog, but that it became a place where parents read the blog and then made sure the kids did their homework. The concern being that it  absolved the students of being responsible for their own homework.

There’s a couple of ways of looking at this.  I do think that if it’s only the parents using it and the kids are never encouraged to write it down at school, nor keep track of it themselves, there is a risk for them to become complacent. However, if the students see it as a resource, then it’s highly beneficial. Sick days, days when the student has to leave early or ran out of time writing down the details, it can be very helpful. Not to mention students who may have extra challenges where writing down homework isn’t feasible.  It can also cut down on paper distribution in the class.

In the adult world, we often use other resources to help with our work. I use basecamp, a web based project management system to keep track of our projects, schedules, to do lists and so on. During our weekly conference call, we all discuss items and take our own notes. But then everything is also uploaded on basecamp for verification, record keeping and just in case. No one would say we were being coddled because we put everything in a centralized place for everyone to check. So why not give students the same sort of tools for helping themselves organize their homework.

Like anything in technology, it’s a tool. And with tools, it all depends on how they’re used. I think that having a homework blog with wiki links on the sidebar and videos of events held in class make for a richer classroom experience.

I won’t get into the “should there be homework” issue or the “shouldn’t students be learning through doing” discussion. There are other experts out there that are doing a great job tackling that issue.

radian6 is a Fredericton, NB based start-up that provides advertising and PR professionals a way of monitoring social media. Social media is having a huge influence on how brands are being perceived by consumers. As web users we often participate in social media. Who hasn’t joined facebook yet? Myspace, youtube, blogging, digg, twitter and more all litter the web 2.0 landscape. radian6 has provided a solution to monitor these online conversations

Today radian6 announced that Weber Shandwick, a worldwide leading PR firm will be implementing radian6’s social media monitoring solutions throughout it’s offices worldwide.

When radian6 first launched, there were skeptics about the need for another social media monitoring tool. But I think they’re proving that what they have is targeted, effective and a time saver.  And as Kami at Communication Overtones discovered, it also tracks comments, something that will prove very useful. She was fortunate enough to test out radian6’s software and wrote a review on her experience with it.

David Alston, VP of marketing has been very busy lately. He was recently in vegas for  WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) and I think they’re only going to get busier.  I’m hoping to meet up with radian6 in the near future to interview them as I do have a lot of questions about the software. How they compare to BUZZLOGIC and what kind of information they provide to their clients on interpeting the data. 

Congratulations, radian6,  on your new venture with Weber Shandwick!