Canadian Startup and Tech News Speed Linking

Here are some news items that have caught my eye in the past bit, with a little commentary as well.

Most people will tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So if you’re in Montreal, and you’re interested in technology and entrepreneurship, you should think about joining us for breakfast on Tuesday, May 13th @ 9am at Bistro, Etc. May’s Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast

Viigo has announced a new round of funding today. They had previously raised a total of $6.4M and this round, at $1.5M now puts them at a total of $7.9M in angel and VC investment. StartupNorth » Blog Archive » viigo.com – A new round of funding and a cool new app

I’ve tried Viigo and b5 even has their own version of it for download … I’ve played with some of their alpha products in the past.  I’ll be interested to see what comes out of this new investment.

I am putting the final touches on an auto-clustering, multi-size pointer map using Google Maps plus javascript magic. It is interesting to see a map of all the startups in Canada — lots of new discoveries. a canadian startup » Blog Archive » StartupMap

Catch the Brainwaves is our ongoing series of interviews with a variety of folks participating in blogging and social media. I ask them ten questions and they respond with their brilliant answers and insights! Today we have a special Q&A session where we are featuring Toronto Globe and Mail technology writer and blogger extraordinaire Mathew Ingram. Mathew Ingram | Broadcasting Brain

So, with the most recent release, we’re giving away a snippet of HTML code that you can use to embed your map into any website. The embedded map is interactive and lets users move around to discover your photos without having to visit the PlanetEye website. For example, you can drag the map and as you do the photos at the top will be updated to include the best ranked photos in whichever area of the map is currently visible. You can also mouse over the photos and a little yellow viewfinder will hint at where that photo was taken. This feature works for your own photos or those from other people that you have collected into Travel Packs.PlanetEye » Blog Archive » PlanetEye maps everywhere

Facebook-like services for firms, allowing their employees to improve in-house communications and share information. The financing will enable IGLOO to extend and commercialize its suite of collaborative social networking tools.IGLOO raises $4 Million from RBC | Techvibes Blog

I got an email from Robert about this earlier this week.  Social networking in the enterprise, yes this has potential.  If you can combine it with really god collaboration tools, then IGLOO could really shine.  While there are free, open-source ways to do this stuff, IT likes software that you get support with.

Fresh off of the recent Vancouver NetSquared event (also known as NetTuesday), I just got swamped with work and thus was pretty much unable to write a recap. However, since I have a meeting shortly and I can’t really focus much on work, I figured I might as well write a couple of comments on the meeting. Vancouver NetTuesday for May 2008 recap « Random Thoughts of a Student of the Environment

I have been talking with the guys at 37signals and we have decided to open up the Lypp + Highrise Mashup contest to include all of the 37signals APIs. This means that developers can integrate Lypp with Campfire, Basecamp, Backpack, Writeboards et al! 37signals & Lypp VoIP Mashup Expanded « A blog about Telephony and Business Communications | Lypp VoIP API | Lypp.com

The CIX is not perfect. The concept of pitching a room full of VCs for money has some serious flaws, not the least of which is the fact that the majority of the VCs who attended CIX in the morning did not stick around to see the pitches in the afternoon. Add on top of that the likelihood of this conference giving birth to a successful deal directly from the pitches, and you are in for a lot of disappointed attendees. It is my hope that CIX will look a lot different next year. Normally that would be too much to ask, but in the last few months I have gotten to know Robert Montgomery, the invisible hand behind the CIX conference, and he gives me hope. StartupNorth » Blog Archive » CIX – Our chance to create something great?

This week was a slow posting week here on ML2.  It’s given me a chance to reflect a bit on what I’m writing here.  For the next little while I’m going to experiment with these speedlinking posts, the daily bookmarks posts, a few reviews, and more general Web 2.0 articles.

Yes, I’ll still be covering Canadian tech, that isn’t going to change, but I do want to expand the readership and appeal of this blog beyond our borders.