Is social media just hype?
Posted by Daniel Francavilla in Web 2.0 on 27-06-2010
View Comments
No. It’s a new way of communicating. Any time, any where. Sharing photos, videos, links, thoughts. I think it would be ignorant to say it’s just “hype”.
And 96% of Generation Y has joined a social network!
So do you think social media is just hype, or is it the biggest movement since the industrial revolution? Watch this video by Phil Guest below.
Tourists and the G20 in Toronto
Posted by Daniel Francavilla in Life on 19-06-2010
View Comments
Stephen Harper insists that the G20 is an opportunity to showcase Toronto to the world, which is why the city is rolling out the Welcome Wagon—er, the Salutation Sound Cannon.
If you’ve already booked your trip to Toronto and don’t belong to a governmental delegation or protest group, you might be wondering what to do this weekend. The answer? Go to Montréal.
Several key tourist attractions are closed G20 weekend. The CN Tower, which bills itself as “Canada’s most recognizable and celebrated icon,” will be closed from June 25 to the 27 due to its proximity to the Convention Centre. It will reopen on the Monday.
The Art Gallery of Ontario will also be closed, as will the Mirvish productions Mamma Mia and Rock of Ages, both at theatres on King Street Street. TheGlobe and Mailreported that the theatres will be dark the entire week of June 21 to June 27 due to security concerns, as well as concerns about ticket holders not being able to get through traffic jams and police blockages to get to the venues.
Even tours will be hard to come by. Toronto Hippo Tours is moving its operations from Front Street to the Delta Chelsea Hotel in the weeks leading up to the G20 weekend, but it expects some route alterations in the days immediately before the summit. “We’ll be closing for the actual weekend of the summit,” said PR Manager Anne Greenwood. “There’s not much we can do.”
Unpredictable traffic schedules and an inability to navigate such large portions of the downtown core have forced other tour operators to close as well. Toronto Tours won’t be operating its City or Harbour tours, and a Gray Line operator said the company hopes to be running, but can’t speculate yet on details or even whether it’s possible.
All of that, of course, is contingent on tourists being here that weekend at all. Sarkozy probably won’t be taking in the Textile Museum, but delegates from all over the world are taking up hotel rooms. The Globe thoroughly canvassed area hotels, none of which have available rooms and only a few of which have non-summit guests.
If you’re one of the lucky few to have a room, there’s another unknown variable to throw into the mix: the potential hotel workers strike. It’ll likely affect the French delegation at the Novotel most, but the threat of full-scale tourism shutdown looms large.
If the summit’s not your thing, Weir reminds us that Toronto really does have a lot to offer beyond the CN Tower. “People will discover new things about Toronto that weekend, especially the scope and breadth of the city,” he says. “With the World Cup, every neighbourhood in the city will be alive and electric and completely remarkable. People can move about the city and, while some downtown attractions are closing, others, like the ROM with Terracotta Warriors [opening June 26], are opening massive global exhibitions that weekend.”
Failed to boost my juice
Posted by Daniel Francavilla in Life on 08-06-2010
View Comments
Only one problem: there’s NO Booster Juice anywhere in Union Station!
Clearly, that didn’t work out for Booster Juice. Kind of just confused me, and made me want a smoothie (and reminded me everywhere I looked). So, what next? Look for a place that has smoothies!
Take a look at the amount of advertising here, with Booster Juice telling me their stuff is both Awesome, and Awesome for Me; and look at the outcome in the end.
OK now…
Oh, a JUGO Juice. Great. Actually no, not liking the raw carrots and prices right now.
Perfect, Second Cup! They (used to) offer SPC student discount of a free size upgrade. Grrrrr.
But hey, there’s cold drinks on the menu!
Leaving on the GO with a Second Cup Strawberry Fruit Chiller.
Poor Booster Juice just handed this customer off to someone else.
Babies and Mother’s Day
Posted by Daniel Francavilla in Life on 09-05-2010
View Comments
Who hates the idea of cute, innocent, awkward and entertaining babies. Sure, people who have had to deal babies waking them up dozens of times a night may have a different perspective.
Even still, it’s difficult to find someone who hates babies altogether. Babies are pretty cool if you get to leave them in the care of their parents.
For Mother’s Day, a really unique film about babies is being released. It’s called, of course, BABIES.
The official description says this “visually stunning new movie simultaneously follows four babies around the world – from first breath to first steps. From Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo, BABIES joyfully captures on film the earliest stages of the journey of humanity that are at once unique and universal to us all.”
Happy Mother’s Day!
Thought Print was dead? Magazines and the Power of Print
Posted by Daniel Francavilla in Design, Technology, Videos on 03-05-2010
View Comments
Thought that print was dead? These magazine executives don’t think so.
(That’s obviously a good thing for Graphic Designers and those in the print and publishing industries).
Have a look at what they have to say about Magazines and the Power of Print! In this short video, leaders of five major magazine companies talk about the vitality of magazines as a medium.
The “Magazines, The Power of Print” campaign will launch in nearly 100 magazines, reaching 112 million readers per month, to promote the strength of—and consumer commitment to—magazines.
Thanks to A View from an Ad Guy for spotting this!
Photos to Go
Disclaimer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
