An interesting (if highly technical) article at the RFID Journal about the AMT’s use of radio-frequency ID technology at the Laval bus terminals at the newly-built Cartier and Montmorency metro stations, to keep track of buses and their arrival times.
Category Archives: On the Net
What would you ask a Ron Paul supporter?
The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell has an article discussing the “wingnuts” who flood the Web, stuffing virtual ballots in favour of Republican presidential long-shot Ron Paul.
Just as interesting are the comments attached to the story, many of which are from people from the U.S. and elsewhere who had never seen the Globe and Mail before today. (A couple called globeandmail.com a “no name website” and suggested he wrote the article just for the traffic it would bring from Ron Paul supporters.)
I’m going to be talking to a Montreal-based Ron Paul supporter soon for an upcoming article. What questions should I ask him?
Compass needs a needle
Just what we need: Another Internet marketing blog has been launched. Because Internet marketing is woefully underrepresented in the blogosphere already, with only 10% of the top blogs having that as a subject.
Now all we need are more celebrity gossip blogs and blogs filled with pictures of pretty girls.
MAGLOCK CONTROLS ACTIVATED LOLOL!!!!!!!!!111222
There hasn’t been enough Star Trek content on this blog recently, so to make up for it I give you:
A person in Quebec was infected with HIV today
A sobering video by AIDS Community Care Montreal, on World AIDS Day:
(via Talk to the Hump)
Cherry Chocolate Rain
Good God.
Tay Zonday has gone mainstream:
Cherry Chocolate Rain (via Transmission Marketing)It’s cute, but the fact that the original song “Chocolate Rain” was about how racism still permeates society, having its remix/sequel video done throwing money around, surrounded by gangsta rappers and video skanks and shelling a soft drink… I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be ironic.
Good for Tay Zonday for capitalizing on his immense success. As for Dr. Pepper’s marketing department…
UPDATE: I got an email from a company whose job it is to search the Internet for Tay Zonday blog posts, pointing out another version of the song promoting Comedy Central’s Last Laugh ’07 tonight, singing about celebrity gossip (is that worse than a soft drink?). No word on when The Comedy Network will air the program in Canada.
How to piss off a blogger 101
- Setup a website that purports to be some sort of independent news source.
- Take a blog post and put it on your website without asking permission. At the end of the post, include a plea for money.
- When the blogger you just stole from err, politely requests that the post be taken down, respond by replacing his byline with your own, removing the link to the blog in question and keeping the plagiarized content pretending it’s your own.
There you go folks. Getting on my shit list in three easy steps.
So to be clear: “The Canadian National Newspaper”, a.k.a. AgoraCosmopolitan.com knowingly plagiarizes content.
UPDATE (Dec. 1): It goes without saying that I’m not the only one they’ve ripped off.
Canoe.tv: Clueless
For the first time ever, a Canadian company is going to be broadcasting videos on the Internet.
At least that’s what Quebecor would have us believe. They’re calling their new service Canoe.tv Canada’s first Internet broadcaster. In its newspapers, it clarifies that it’s the first Canadian web broadcaster “to feature specially commissioned programs in English and French“, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
The service, available in French and English, is basically a YouTube clone, only without any of that user-generated content junk that nobody wants. It also includes live content from networks like LCN, though the live feeds use Windows Media instead of Flash like the rest of the site.
On the French side, its content includes Prenez garde aux chiens, as well as interviews from Larocque-Lapierre, Denis Lévesque and others. Curiously, no Vlog despite the fact that Quebecor Media owns the show and the show is about online video.
The English side is even stranger. There’s more content from CBC (Just for Laughs, Rick Mercer, Peter Mansbridge, etc.) than there is from Sun Media’s crappy SUN TV. There are, however, plenty of Sunshine Girl videos.
But aside from their arrogance proclaiming to be the first to do something everyone else is already doing (in fact, the entire site was designed by a company called Feed Room), here’s why I don’t like the site:
- There’s no way to embed individual videos in blogs
- There’s no way to comment on videos
- Videos are referred to as “stories” in the “bookmark” page (that’s how you find out how to link to individual videos), and have 81-character URLs (just long enough to get cut in emails — YouTube’s URLs are half that length, and they have a lot more videos)
- Navigation uses some sort of proprietary Flash/JavaScript system which breaks just about every tool my browser has (opening links in new windows, the back button, scrolling)
- Videos are undated (probably deliberately, since most of them are old)
If I wanted to design a web video portal that was doomed to failure, it would look something like this. It might get some traffic, thanks to exclusive video (though anything worth watching is available straight from the source), but it’s not going to take off.
In short: FAIL.
UPDATE (Nov. 29/30): Some more reaction from the blogosphere:
- Eric Baillargeon has some criticisms of his own, including the lack of closed captioning.
- Video Qualia: “Canoe.tv sent la panique“
- Goudaille: “J’aimerais donc lever mon chapeau à Canoe qui n’avait pas oublié d’enregistrer le nom de domaine canoe.tv.”
- Inside the CBC: “chock full of CBC content.”
InfoPresse points out that the site has virtually no fiction content, because of licensing issues. Le Devoir also has an article with detail about the problem.
UPDATE (Nov. 30): Pierre-Karl Péladeau does a very awkward-sounding presentation of Canoe.tv. In it, he says it’s a “totally Canadian” site, which is laughable because it was designed by an American company.
He also says that Sun Media can do a better job than the Canadian Television Fund at producing Canadian programming. The CTF funds things like Degrassi: TNG, The Rick Mercer Report, Slings and Arrows, ReGenesis, Intelligence and Little Mosque on the Prairie, all of which won Gemini awards this year. Sun Media funds sucker-generated-content show CANOE Live and … uhh … that’s about it.
Also, the Sun Family blog points out that 24 Hours Toronto didn’t even bother to rewrite the press release announcing the network so it conforms to its style.
UPDATE (Dec. 6): CBC tech guy Bruno Guglielminetti (whose name I can spell without looking it up first) interviews Peladeau for an article in Le Devoir.
UPDATE (Dec. 11): Intruders.tv has an interview with Dominique-Sébastien Forest, who has some long title at Canoe.tv. In the overly long interview that sounds more like a press release until the last few minutes, he notes:
- They’re working on getting a real-time Flash encoder for live feeds, which are currently displayed through Windows Media.
- Quebecor doesn’t consider CBC as competition online. They’re just another content provider who will share in the revenues.
- The site is focused on professional content only (you know, like the Sunshine Girls I mentioned above).
- It doesn’t offer embedding because their content license agreements don’t permit them to.
- Nobody apparently noticed that there are no dates on the videos.
- They’re working on adding comments to videos, like Espace Canoë has
- He’s confirmed that Vlog will be coming back as a web-only show on Canoe.tv.
So so so, solidarité? Is that the best you could come up with?
Montreal writers were out marching today to show solidarity with their WGA friends south of the border. Jack Ruttan has some pictures and video, as does Martine Pagé.
Don’t tase me, ho ho ho
Sorry for the headline, but it’s all I could think of after seeing this ad (via Muddy Hill Post) from the Taser folks:
The ad is for the Taser C2, which comes in different colours and is apparently marketed as a form of self-defence mechanism for infants when they’re separated from their mothers.
It’s also “police proven”, as shown from the great Taser–saves–lives stories we’ve seen in the news lately. It’s a track record to be proud of.
For those of you unfamiliar with the cultural reference, Wired educates.
Explore Montreal via Flickr
Flickr has launched its “Places” feature, which allows you to explore geographic locations through the photos taken there. (Or at least the ones that have been geotagged or located on a map.)
The Montreal page has some pretty sweet photos of the city.
If only bus drivers had writers like these
Via Martine, the WGA, the American writers union which is currently holding us hostage by denying us House-isms on strike for the rights to more than mere pennies from DVD sales and all of nothing from online publishing of TV shows and movies, isn’t lying down or holding useless marches with picket signs. They’re creating media to rally support for their cause.
In essence, it’s a tactic we’ve seen before but on a much larger scale. When CBC employees were locked out in 2005, they started producing blogs and podcasts to keep communication going. After it was over, the blogger for CBC Unlocked, Tod Maffin, was given the job of running Inside the CBC, a decidedly uncorporate, uncensored blog about the inner life of the Mother Corp., with its blessing.
Locked-out journalists at the Journal de Québec are still, since April, putting out a competing daily newspaper as part of their pressure tactics. The move has rallied support among other unions (who have helped them financially) politicians and newsmakers (who refuse to deal with Canoe reporters, a fly-by-night “wire services” and other scabs) and readers (who have cancelled subscriptions and are picking up the competing paper).
With Hollywood, the tactic that’s getting the most play is online video (ironic since the dispute is over how little they get paid for online video). Writers for popular shows like The Office, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have been cracking jokes on YouTube, and the actors are coming out to support them. Some like McDreamy and co. talk calmly about the issues, others like Sarah Silverman make the funny, and then there’s Sandra Oh.
The latest campaign, called “Speechless“, involves short black-and-white clips of actors in a world without scriptwriters. Most of them are of the actor-stands-blank-faced-and-says-nothing variety. Others are pretty funny. There’s a new one every day.
Some of my favourites below:
Montreal Geography Trivia No. 3
Name the metro stations featured in this short film (YouTube version, QuickTime version).
Political punditry is not journalism
Radio-Canada turns the lens on political has-beens turning to “journalism” by becoming TV pundits:
Coulisses Du Pouvoir Ex Politicien A LaTelevision
Uploaded by mediawatchqc
To their credit, my good friend Laflaque makes fun of the issue better than I could:
Laflaque Le Club Des EX
Uploaded by mediawatchqc
Sheila Copps, Liza Frulla, Michel Gauthier and their ilk say they provide a valuable service, they aren’t attached formally to their parties anymore and can speak their minds, and they can provide unique analysis as former insiders.
But political punditry is the most pathetic form of journalism ever created. It fills airtime with people shouting at each other, debating along party lines, defending their friends and attacking their enemies. Even if they feel they’re free to speak their minds, they’re untrustworthy on their face (especially now that they admit they had to lie while in office).
Another problem, that nobody talks about, is that there’s an assumption among journalists that just because they have ex-members from each of the major parties that they’re fair and balanced. But what about the parties who aren’t represented in the legislature? What about special-interest groups with views that differ from the major parties? They’re unrepresented.
What we need are more political journalists uncovering stories, not political losers killing time yelling at each other about inside politics that nobody cares about.
Ann Bourget using YouTube in Quebec City race
Ann Bourget, the leader of the renouveau municipal de Québec party and front-runner in the race for Quebec City mayor (a special election was called to replace Andrée Boucher, who died in office in August), is using a blog and YouTube videos as part of her campaign.
Using the Internet isn’t new for Bourget, who has had an online presence since at least 2005, but she’s still kind of getting used to the YouTube thing (she giggles quite a bit in her latest video).
The Internet presence is a huge improvement over the boring party website and she spends time tackling real issues by answering real questions from her website’s visitors. It’s a lesson for people who want to run a local campaign.
Her latest video, which answers a bunch of questions, starts off with the most important one: Will you bring the Nordiques back?