Press Release posted on New Media BC Website

February 2, 2006

Vancouver, BC – New Media BC announced today that there will be a BC led new media symposium in Torino, Italy, during next week’s Winter Olympics.

The event, billed as “Olympics and Web 2.0″, and slated for February 17th, will showcase a pioneering cluster of British Columbia companies leading a shift towards Web 2.0 – what is being called the evolution of the Internet.

Vancouver-based Web 2.0 companies, Bryght and Raincity Studios, will lead sessions examining the emergence of citizen journalism and its anticipated impact on Olympic coverage and how podcasting is bringing a whole new sound to sport. Urban Vancouver bloggers will participate from Vancouver via a live connection. Snowboarding Olympic gold medalist, Ross Rebagliati, will take part in the Vancouver activity being held at the Take 5 Café at 7 am (4 pm Torino time).

According to symposium organizer Kris Krug of Bryght, the time is right and Torino is an ideal place to spread the word about this new movement in Internet usability: “Having an international audience on hand coupled with the energy of the Olympics only serves to further the momentum of the Web 2.0 revolution.”

“Vancouver has emerged as a real leader in Web 2.0 activity,” says Duff R. Gardner, VP, New Media BC. “The Olympics offer a great opportunity to profile just how much of an impact it is having on the way athletes, spectators and citizens interact with the Web during major sporting events.”

The Olympics and Web 2.0 Symposium will be held from 1 to 5 pm on February 17th at BC Canada Place at the 2006 Torino Winter Games.

About Bryght:

Founded in the summer of 2004, Bryght is an open source company with offices in Vancouver, BC. Bryght’s mission is to provide the best community content hosting and tools available, giving people and organizations the ability to maintain dynamic and leading-edge websites and web presences. We believe in open formats and standards, and our team is actively involved in the international open source community. Through our development efforts and partnership agreements, Bryght’s goal is to continue to provide innovative solutions for management of content, communities, and communication.
www.bryght.com

About Raincity Studios:

Founded in 2003, Raincity Studios is a Vancouver-based award-winning, full service, new media firm focused on web marketing, web 2.0 development and web design. Raincity also develop web-based communication applications for educational institutions such as BCIT, and is a reseller of weblog services for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
www.raincitystudios.com

About Urban Vancouver:

Urban Vancouver is Vancouver’s blog. It is the online community for “the rest of us”. Membership is free to anybody with a Vancouver connection. Members can post to their own blog, submit their event listings and add photos, audio and video. Since its inception in April 2004, Urban Vancouver has become the premier place for Vancouver related expression on the web ranging from personal reflections, diaries and journals to citizen journalism.
www.urbanvancouver.com

About New Media BC:

New Media BC is a not-for profit industry association whose mission is to advance Vancouver and BC as the World Centre of New Media and Digital Entertainment. Through networking events, peer-to-peer mentoring programs, advocacy work and marketing, New Media BC is building the new media community locally and promoting it abroad. The region’s new media industry is made up of close to 800 companies with combined annual revenues in excess of $1 billion. New Media BC hosts the annual Vancouver International Digital Festival (VIDFEST), currently Canada’s biggest digital content event.
www.newmediabc.com / www.vidfest.com

For additional information:

Kirstin Richter
Manager, Marketing and Communications
New Media BC
604-739-9878
kirstin@newmediabc.com

-30-

Today, I went to a demo meeting at ComVu, a local mobile company with Kris and Roland of Bryght.

On our way there, Kris used Roland’s Nokia N70, on loan to him as part of their blogger outreach program, to film this short vidcast.

We joined Duff from New Media BC and Aileen from Leading Edge BC in a Demo of the platform and phone presented by their CEO William Mutual.

I really enjoyed the demo and seeing the phone in action.

Here’s a summary of the meeting posted on Roland’s blog.

As part of the planning process for the events at the Torino Olympics with New Media BC, Mobile Muse and Raincity Studios, Kris and I met the folks at Comvu, yet another local Vancouver mobile company. They have a cool product: a way to broadcast from your mobile device (Windows Mobile only for now, but Linux and Symbian versions are coming soon, wish comvu had a blog so I could know more about what’s happening because I know there’s a fascinating story there that’s not being told) LIVE to people on the Internet who can watch on their mobile devices or on a web browser on their desktops. A great complement to the timeshifting of videoblogging. In fact, apparently the live video is saved on server and has RSS so it could be video podcasted and blogged after the fact!

The Comvu demo was great. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get this service bundled in with your mobile phone from your carrier for a reasonable monthly fee? Wouldn’t it be great if you could see a demo of this during the Olympics and see how we can broadcast from our mobile devices from Torino to Vancouver and Vancouver to Torino? Well it’s not a pipe dream; we’ll do our best to make it a reality soon hopefully during the Olympics timeframe! And of course I am working to get them to give a demo at MoMoVan say in March or April.

Poste on Roland Tanglao‘s blog.

I just received an email from the fine folks at ComVu, it looks like they will loan us some mobile webcasting video phones to use in Torino and we will be collaborating on some presentations and technology symposyum at the BC Canada House next to the Media Centre in Torino from the 14th to the 18th of February.

I’ll post an update as soon as I get more information.

We need your feedback please, what would you like to see us cover while we are there? Dope me a line with your comments (Please keep in mind we have to follow the broadcasting rules and licences in effect with any Olympic events..)

Over the past month, Kris Krug of Bryght, Robert Scales of Raincity Studios and various other Vancouver companies have been working together with New Media BC and Leading Edge BC to coordinate a technology symposium at the BC Canada Place next month during the Torino Olympics in Italy.

This morning as part of my first assignment for Urban Vancouver, I attend Vancouver Mayor, Sam Sullivan and Vancouver 2010 CEO, John Furlong’s announcement at the Vancouver City Hall.

In just one month, Sam Sullivan is to accept the Olympic Flag at the closing of the Torino Olympics, making him the first quadriplegic to have such honor.

I managed to video the announcement on my PDA2K while Kris Krug took some great pictures of Sam and John.

Here’s an extract from the official press release

The flag ceremony protocol begins with Torino Mayor Sergio Chiamparino returning the Olympic flag to Dr. Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Dr. Rogge will then present Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, the only elected Canadian official in the Closing Ceremony, with the flag, symbolizing the official beginning of Vancouver’s responsibility to host the world in 2010.

Mayor Sullivan is then required by IOC tradition to wave the flag back and forth eight times. Because of the physical challenges to Mayor Sullivan inherent in his participation, a number of innovative accommodations are underway, including a custom-made holster on the Mayor’s motorized wheelchair and the installation by the Torino Organizing Committee of a customized elevator within the stage.

“I’m greatly honoured to represent Vancouver and Canada in Torino,” said Mayor Sullivan. “We are thrilled to be the host of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and invite the world to our beautiful and progressive city and country.”

“Mayor Sullivan will be acting on behalf of all Canadians, and I can’t think of a better person to represent this nation’s spirit, determination and commitment to ability over disability, said Vancouver 2010 CEO John Furlong.”

Upon the Mayor’s return to Vancouver the Oslo flag will be put on public display in Vancouver City Hall and a replica flag will be raised outside City Hall on Tuesday, February 28. The flag raising event is just one of the activities planned in Vancouver to celebrate the flag handover. For more details, visit Vancouver.ca.

Great Shots from KK

Picture by Kris Krug

More information to come over the next few weeks, it looks like we are to cover more events from both Vancouver and Torino.

Technorati Tags: Torino Olympics, Vancouver 2010,Raincity Studios, robertscales, 2006 Olympics, Vancouver, VanOC, Sam Sullivan

Kris Krug from Bryght is spearheading an initiative to have a delegations of companies, including Raincity Studios travel to Torino, Italy for the Olympics next month.

Yesterday, Kris and I met with members of New Media BC to explore ways to join our efforts.

At first glance, it looks like we will be there between the 14th to the 26th of February. During the first few days, we will be hosting a few media events and information sessions on “Web 2.0 and the Olympics” at the BC Canada House, next to the Media Centre. We plan on doing some Olympic blogging, podcasts and vcasts on location and attend a few events.

Here’s a little clip from Boris Mann of Bryght, speaking about Mobile Media and the olympics, posted on Now Public

You can expect us to blog more about this over the next few weeks as our planning effort translate into a more concrete plan of action.

For more information or if you would like to join the delegation, please contact me (robert at raincitystudios dot com) or Kris (kris at bryght dot com)