If you’re a student, a recent graduate, or just part of the regular-old-workforce and curious about what its like to work for a Start-Up - this FREE event is for you. The Career Fair will take place on Wednesday, May 21st at 3:00pm at Republic at 958 Granville Street.

BONUS: Everyone is invited to stick around for a complimentary beverage and networking at Launch Party starting at 5:30pm. You can register for both events on Facebook - LPV4 here and the Start-Up Career Fair here.

Many organizations are adopting social media relations as part of their online marketing activities. But, the first foray into blogger outreach can be unnerving, especially if you’re new to courting online influencers. You don’t need to be nervous about blogging or participating in online communities, but you need be aware of common pitfalls and how to avoid them. This session covers seven risks to watch out for when running a social media marketing campaign, including:

• Your campaign doesn’t get off the ground
• Things go too far
• You get rejected
• Your initiative dies on the vine
• You’ve got the Cluetrain goggles on
• You’re self-absorbed
• Not being proactive

Registration and networking starts at 6:00pm and the presentation kicks off at 6:30pm at the YWCA Hotel. Tickets at $15 if you RSVP by email in advance or $20 at the door.

Scrabulous

One of the founders of Scrabulous, Jayant Agarwalla, flew over especially from India to share his experience in building one of the most popular (and controversial) games on Facebook. His app, which has taken no outside funding to date, generates about $25,000/month from ads placed above and below the game. It was launched in June 2007 and already has 3.2 million users! He mentioned that the Facebook application directory and the “mini-feed” have been the main generators of traffic for his app.

Funding in Canada

There was an interesting panel discussion on the funding climate in Canada which featured both venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who have successfully raised financing here. Jeremy Wright of b5media noted that his has been the only media company investment by Canadian VCs in the past 4 years (having raised $3 million from JLA and Brightspark). Vikas Gupta of Transgaming said that his company has found raising financing from strategic investors in the US more lucrative. The lone VC on the panel, Alan Gershenfeld, talked about the need for startups to focus on building their core value proposition as opposed to overloading their product with features. The consensus seemed to be that there is money available from angels and VCs in Canada, just need to know the right people.

Wireless innovation

Panelists from RIM, Viigo and Quebecor Media talked about innovations in the wireless world and what role their companies are playing in it. But as an audience member pointed out, the Canadian carriers basically stifle innovation in the mobile space here with their policies. There was a strong call for them to be more open, otherwise we are left discussing the innovations going on in the US and other parts of the world.

Web 2.0

The concluding session on the state of the web, which featured a presentation by Salim Ismail (former head of Yahoo Brickhouse), was the highlight of the conference. Salim talked about how the web has evolved from email in the 80s, to the web browser in the 90s and now the RSS aggregator in the 00s. In the 90s, there were few publishers of content (CNN, ESPN, etc) and millions of viewers. But with the advent of Web 2.0, that has meant that there are now millions of publishers as well - individuals creating their own blogs. And RSS / syndication ties that in to how that content is consumed. Salim also mentioned that the current publically searchable web is about 60-80 billion webpages, but that there is a 400-500x bigger “hidden web” which Google, Yahoo, etc don’t search. This is the data stored in the databases which is only retrieved when specifically asked for. Intriguing stuff.

And then there were other discussions on the future of gaming platforms, interactive marketing, the growing talent crisis and on the relevance of copyright as an effective legal tool. Along with the engaging sessions, the main value was in the tremendous networking opportunity with the speakers and delegates from a variety of interactive media backgrounds. Overall, ICE08 was a brilliantly organized event held at a fantastic venue (The Carlu) and I am already looking forward to the one next year!

QuarterNote will gather real time user generated social network opinions on artists and songs and organize that information into a dynamically generated visual framework (similar to The Baby Name Wizard). By using state-of-the-art text and visual analytics, QuarterNote will help music fans locate, explore and experience new music that fits to their particular tastes, in a compelling interactive environment. To spread the word, QuarterNote will provide users with the tools and widgets to talk about the music they discover on social networking platforms such as Facebook.

Fabro is an experienced entrepreneur who has founded, grown and sold several technology companies over the past two decades. He was a co-founder of INSINC and Datamax Technologies and until recently was President & CEO of ThoughtShare Communications and Qumana Software.

Speaking of Qumana, now that Fabro and team have have moved on to this new music project, Qumana’s blog technology is looking for a new home - ideally a corporate group that can further develop the technology and continue to expand its user base. More on that in a future post.

Response for Hillary Speaks For Me, a SplashCast project that allows individuals to view and add videos showing support for US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stands to eclipse all SplashCast efforts to date.

In two weeks, the SplashCast application has garnered hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of Facebook users, and hundreds of short videos submissions. But perhaps the most impressive stat is the press coverage the application is generating, both online and off:

HillarySpeaksForMe has been mentioned on several major blogs such as Politico.com and Daily Koz. I got a kick seeing Wolf Blitzer mention the effort on CNN. It was also fun to see a clip of young supporters chanting “Hillary speaks for me” at a rally in Texas.

For more information on the progress of the app, visit the SplashCast blog. To see the player in action, visit HillarySpeaksForMe.com.

Hot on the heels of their demo, GigPark launched their social networking/online reviews start-up to the masses today. GigPark allows members to easily find services through recommendations from friends and from friends of friends.

GigPark is the brainchild of Noah Godfrey and Pema Hegan. The GigPark founders were the Founding Publisher and Founding Editor of Dose Magazine and came up with the concept when looking for an employment lawyer to review their termination package after Dose was closed. Apparently when one door closes, another one does open.

GigPark opened as invite-only in November 2007 and sat at #27 on our most recent Toronto Start-Up Index.  With a solid base of members, a popular Facebook application, and a growing list of recommendations ranging from doulas to mechanics, the site is open to everyone.

Related posts:

• Scenecaster Monetizes Open 3D Space for the Web

While the application’s usefulness is limited to cute social interaction, it also acts as a clever gateway to EQO’s service. The configuration page encourages signing up to EQO, and lists your friends in other countries with the rates for contacting them. EQO branding is tastefully applied throughout the application. Vibrator follows a trend that many companies are taking with Facebook, where the application is not core to the company’s business, but provides peripheral value and brand exposure to new audiences. BC Hydro’s Green Gifts follows this same model. Many people wonder “how can you make money with a Facebook application?” One answer is that you don’t have to; there are ways that it can provide indirect value.

Related posts:

• Make Global Calls On Your Cell Phone with EQO

Although it’s too early to declare full-fledged Facebook fatigue, the writing on the wall - metaphorically and literally, since site members use a “Wall” to communicate - suggests disenchantment among the ranks.

According to traffic monitor Alexa Internet, page views on the social networking site are down one per cent over the last three months as of Jan. 16. By contrast, rival Canadian site Nexopia, which launched a year earlier and is arguably more vulnerable to user ennui, continues to trend upward.

The Alberta-based site, which caters to the 14 to 20 demographic, has seen page views climb 31 per cent over the same three-month period, with members - nine in 10 of them Canadian - up nearly 20 per cent. It may be as simple as the first law of nature: Teenagers, as a matter of self-preservation, don’t want to be where their parents are.

Makes sense really. While the 60 million member strong Facebook (seven million of which are Canadian) has become the “national water cooler for adults”, Nexopia has attracting the younger set and currenly has 1.2 million members. Only six per cent of Nexopia’s members over 22 years of age.

Nexopia got its start when founder Timo Ewalds was in Grade 12 and his school banned floppy disks as a security measure. He created Nexopia as a way to send files home and later realized that the site would work well for interacting with friends. By the time Ewalds was in university, the project had grown to the point that he dropped out of school to foster Nexopia full time. Nexopia is #1 on January’s Alberta Start-up Index, so I suspect we’ll be hearing more from Oil-country this year.

Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, myspace … what does the social media revolution mean to marketers and communicators? How is it redefining how we communicate, connect, network and build relationships with customers, stakeholders and even employees? How are companies using social media to increase visibility and build awareness? What are the risks and pitfalls of using social media? And what’s coming next?

This January 28th discussion will be lead by Raincity Studio’s Kris Krug and Social Signal’s Rob Cottingham and they’ll share insights into how social media is evolving, changing the rules and empowering people.