Online Publisher Networks in Canada

July 19, 2012

While I've worked with the Indian and US-based digital markets before, the Canadian space is still new to me. I'm fascinated by the two dichotomies. On the one hand, you've a larger percentage of internet users than any other country in the world. On the other hand, advertisers are still fairly conservative about investing in online strategies.

I've been researching the space online of course, but I find great value in also talking to digital media professionals and getting their take. I love how friendly Canada is... almost everyone's willing to take time out to talk. Yesterday, I'd an informational call with Steve Macfarlane, the VP of Business Development at Suite 66. 

Suite 66 focuses on their publisher network, which includes some high-trafficked local sites such as BlogTo (my personal go-to for all things TO!). While Steve was quick to point out that Suite 66 isn't the biggest agency in the space, they do have an impressive set of long-established loyal clients, and plan to keep growing, a little bit every year. 

He confirmed a few theories I'd developed from my initial reading:

- There are quite a few competitors in the Canadian publisher market, but US still has fiercer competition 

- The majority of agencies in Toronto use 3rd party RTB systems & ad exchanges to allow for economies of scale

- The market's fairly well informed about ad exchanges and how they work 

The publisher side of things isn't my area of expertise, but if anyone's interested: he mentioned that several traffic monitoring agencies were looking to hire. You'll find the listings on the IAB Job Board. 


Next week, I'm talking to Sarah Trimble, Director of Interactive Marketing & Community at Sears. I've rather of gushing to do about Sears' innovative mobile strategy, but I'll reserve it for the post summarizing our conversation!

Exploring the Uniiverse: Stir-Fry Session

July 17, 2012

I'm back after an unexpectedly long, but much needed, hiatus. I spent the last week doing close to nothing, and I think it helped me deal with this. I did make it to Toronto's first TEDx salon for the year, a discussion on collaborative consumption based on this video. 

TEDx Salon, picture from site

I'm not necessarily persuaded by the speaker's conviction that barter-sites will, or should, replace consumption as we know it today. That said, I do use quite a few of these 'new-age' sites frequently, including AirBnB, Netflix, Freecycle, and Meetup... they've shown me Toronto in a way that conventional sites couldn't have, and I enjoy the open, sharing culture of this city.

Yesterday, I attended my first event from Uniiverse, 'the world's local platform for collaborative living.' Catchy, what? :) They've a great collection of listings, some free, some cheap, others justifiedly priced - and they invite you to host your own too. It's a fun way for people to share & showcase their, and other peoples', skills and/or products. 

Picture from site

I've been eyeing it for a while, and finally took the plunge with this stir-fry session. I'm an oil-wuss in my own kitchen, so it was definitely great partnering with someone gutsier. I also fell in love with Walmart's cut cauliflower/broccoli package and definitely need to change my vegetable shopping patterns. So those are my two big takeaways, other than a couple of boxes full of the yummy stuff we stirred up!

We spent an hour cooking up Tofu & Veg Stir Fry and Thai noodles with coriander, and then about ten minutes devouring it. The sad truth of relativity applied to cooking. It was a great meal though, and felt like it hardly took any effort at all to throw together. I'm definitely going to attend more of these in the future. 

A lot of people have been telling me I should host cooking sessions of my own in the free kitchen space at the Uniiverse office. I've to say, I'm tempted. Cooking together is way more fun than cooking alone. Let's see what August brings.

#TwitterParty She's Connected

June 26, 2012

The Event

Logo from the site

I've mentioned before, in my first post, that the active Blogger community in Toronto is the prime driver behind my starting this blog up. And Social Media Women (@ShesConnected) is one of my favorite groups to web-stalk because of the warmth and energy of the network they've built. I'm working on building this blog into something I can add to their impressive repertoire of networked blogs, but in the meanwhile, I settled for joining the fun ladies at a #TwitterParty, in anticipation of their upcoming She's Connected conference.

Me at the Event
Did you know that it only takes an hour of frantic tweeting for a topic to trend? Seriously, that was the fastest hour of my life, keeping track of the #sccto hashtag and trying to answer all the questions as they sped by! It was also my first Twitter party, and I intend to attend many more.

From this one, I already got the links to some great blogs which look like reading fodder for the next week. I also have a whole new bunch of followers/people to follow, and we all know there's nothing like some Twitter love to get us through the week. Where else will people hang on to gripping narratives of your opinions on everything under the sun? I love Twitter.

What I loved: The speed of it all had to be seen to be believed. There were twenty new tweets every minute! I also loved the enthusiasm with which everyone recalled last year's conference. Ford's Karaoke booth, in particular, seems to be on the top of most people's memories. And you always know an event's successful when sponsors are happy to come back the next year! (Take a bow, @chickenfarmers)

What I didn't love: Many of the questions the host posed were about last year's conference and it emphasized the sad fact that I wasn't around here last year, boo! Hopefully we'll cover more general topics and talk about what we want to see at this year's conference in the upcoming Twitter Parties. I was also so bummed that the free conference passes I'd been eyeing all week went to others, as part of a lucky draw! Oh well, there's always next month. Because, in conclusion, I will definitely be back!

Overall: Read the last line above :)