People who think that the startup climate in Canada might need some help, well I think this announcement should suggest otherwise:
Today we are announcing that we have taken an initial round of financing to expand StartupNorth, launch new startup focused projects and to further expand our blog-related publishing business. Most of you are aware of our first addition to the SUN network: wirelessnorth.ca Source: StartupNorth » Blog Archive » We are funded! StartupNorth takes a $3.2 million series A financing
Congrats to Jevon and David.  Now, given the hints that they’ve purchased some blog networks and have cool things in the …read more

As I arrived in Vancouver on Wednesday, I got an email from Keith of CoverItLive giving me a heads up on some new features that are now live…and these features rock!
If you’re a CIL user you might have received the email from Keith, but if you didn’t here are the new features:
New Features:

Quick Launch:  If you are covering breaking news or just need to start live blogging ASAP, Quick Launch (in the My Account section) let’s you launch a live blog immediately.  Just paste the Viewer Window on your blog and start.
Panelist/Producer (multi-authored live blogging):  A much requested feature, …read more

I’m heading to SXSW in the morning.  But before I do, and before I start my SXSW coverage, oh yes there will be blogging–and pictures!, wanted to mention the recent news about LearnHub:

LearnHub.com launches – Teach and Learn Online | StartupNorth
Victoria Start-ups get Press | Techvibes Blog
LearnHub Launches, looks great » ThomasPurves.com

I gave LearnHub a quick look today–not nearly long enough I think–and read the coverage and I’m pretty interested and intrigued.  You all know that I’m a big advocate of not only life-long learning, but also leveraging technology to make education more accessible to all.  From what I’ve seen …read more

Ontogenix, according to their homepage, wants to become something new in the social media ad space: “Ontogenix is focused on becoming the leading, trusted social media advertising company.”  From StartupNorth, now they have some money to help them meet that goal:
Ontogenix is raising the round to go to market with their first product, an Interest Correlation Engine. The technology is designed to increase the relevance of ads presented on social media sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, etc.) by targeting users based on their individual interests. The company searches for information on the general public’s interests, attitudes, and opinions on hundreds of …read more

Got a cool email today about a new site/service that let’s people in urban areas who have an extra parking space (driveway, etc) offer it for rent to people who need a place to park:
Why not park on someone else’s driveway for less? Source: ParkingHunter.com: Hundreds of parking owners across North America are making extra cash with ParkingHunter.com

I took a quick look at the offerings for Vancouver (there are also searches for Toronto, New York, Calgary, Boston, Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities as well):

Looks like pretty decent coverage of the city.  The shot above is around …read more

I’ve been keeping an eye on Mark and company over at PlanetEye since their beta launch.  I haven’t been in a while, but I did know about the local guides plan…because I know the woman covering Vancouver (I don’t know if she is written publicly there yet, so I won’t out her).
Local guides are what, imho, is going to make PlanetEye cool.  Yeah you want to see the sights of a city.   Sure we want to know about the restaurants and places to see, but what you really want is the inside scoop.  When is the best time to get …read more

I got a cool e-mail from the team at FreshBooks this morning.  Wait, cool email from the company you send invoices through?  Umm, Tris what’s in your coffee, buddy, you might be thinking.  Well first I like to hear from the companies and services I use and support.  Especially when I get tips, tricks and a little behind the scenes information.  The FreshBooks Supper Club, launched today, is a nice little notice.  Couple tips, a customer spotlight (and who doesn’t like that), and a bit of tongue-in-cheek talk about their upcoming road trip:
That being said we at FreshBooks …read more