PICK 20 Roundup of Canada’s Leading Web 2.0 Pioneers

Backbone Magazine has announced the second annual PICK 20 roundup of Canada’s leading Web 2.0 pioneers.

Created by Backbone and KPMG, the PICK 20 is the only national ranking of its kind and some of the judges and winners are our friends.

Among the Judges
Super-smart social media and digital marketing expert, Kate Trgovac is president of LintBucket Media, a boutique marketing agency headquartered in Vancouver which focuses on social media, community building and digital content creation. We love Kate and her marketing and technology blog.

Among the Winners

#8 NowPublic Friend Michael Tippett
http://www.nowpublic.com

Crowdsourced/participatory news gathering

A winner last year, “NowPublic continues at the forefront of the reinvention of news media,” according to O’Connor Clarke. “They continue to impress with the rate of their growth, their constant innovation and their overall leadership in defining the future of citizen media.” Napier said the company’s “scan tool, which acts as a filtering system, appears to be positioned to help readers get the information that is most valuable and relevant to them,” but Trgovac, while impressed by the company, is “still not sure how they make money.”

11 ThoughtFarmer Friend Chris McGrath, and social media gurus Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo who introduced me to ThoughtFarmer
http://www.thoughtfarmer.com

Intranet software which incorporates social networking features

A winner last year, ThoughtFarmer “is still great, although they’ve got some tough competition. Still, it has a solid team, smart products and really cool marketing,” according to O’Connor Clarke. Trgovac also sees “lots of competition in the marketplace” but also calls ThoughtFarmer “one of the best social intranet applications I’ve seen, with a great interface and features.”

#20 Pixton Friend and CEO/Creator Clive Goodinson and Creative Director Daina M. Goodinson
http://www.pixton.com

A site where people create, publish, share and remix comics

Geist enjoyed seeing something “new and creative” and Shende said Pixton “outputs creativity, collaboration, crowdsourcing and community all in an innovative new spin on an old, previously non-democratic medium.” The judges hope Pixton can monetize the service. “If the company can continue to attract classrooms willing to try the solution, and highlight the value delivered to entice institutions to pay for the subscription, the company could turn a fun comic-strip tool into something that’s really adding value and providing a revenue stream,” Napier said.

Congratulations to all 20 winners!

SES San Jose: Day 2 & 3

As I mentioned last week, Search Engine Strategies is taking place in San Jose August 10 to 14.

I’m envious of those who get to go so this is my pitch for what sessions you should attend so that I can follow the tweets and blog posts.

August 12 - Wednesday, Day 2

9:00am-10:15am
Geek Speak Track: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
I love to speak geek. And I’d love to better understand duplicate content and content syndication through RSS and feeds—“Will other sites be considered the “real” site and rob you of a rightful place in the search results?”

10:45am-12:00pm
Geek Speak Track: Landing Page Testing and Tuning
Geekdom 2x. Tim Ash of SiteTuners.com is one of my favourite speakers. I get him.

4:00pm-5:15pm
Vertical & B2B Track: The BuyerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patterns
I know I left a long break here but I’d probably be chatting or attending the Google sponsored session. I would definitely be back from hiatus in time for Gord Hotchkiss, another dynamo and not-to-miss speaker. According to the session notes, “A major B2B research initiative, conducted by Enquiro with input from Google, Business.com, Covario, Marketo and DemandBase, showed that most marketers aren’t effectively leveraging online assets to their best potential.” Did we need a full study? Yes, because the BuyerSphere project looks at how online strategies became artificially separated from traditional best practices, how they can be more effectively integrated and the part search plays as a major influencer. B2B is big.

Moderator: Gord Hotchkiss, President & CEO, Enquiro
Speakers:
Mark McMaster, Senior Planner of B2B and Technology Markets, Google
Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com
Susan Scarth, VP Marketing, Demandbase
Jon Miller, VP Marketing, Marketo
Dr. Matthias Blume, Chief Analytics Officer, Covario

August 13 - Thursday, Day 3

9:00am-10:00am
Morning Keynote: How to Prepare for the Future of Search
Keynote Speaker Charlene Li, Co-Author, Groundswell, Founder, Altimeter Group, is 100% worth hearing.

10:30am-11:45am
Organizational Track: Electronic Contacts and the Long Arm of the Law
Johnnie Law my friends is worth knowing. The ease of e-commerce over brick-and-mortar business does not preclude the legal requirements that are unique to internet businesses situated anywhere in the world. Even offshore internet businesses can be held accountable under a variety of US federal and state laws concerning gambling. Know the rules.

Moderator: Anne F. Kennedy, SES Advisory Board, Founder Partner and CMO, http://Joblr.com and Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink
Speakers:
Robert Friedman, Partner, Kelley Drye & Warren
Mark Rosenberg, Of Counsel, Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.

12:45pm-2:00pm
Organic Track: News Search SEO
Boxcar Marketing likes online press releases and news search engines so we’d be ready for this panel on generating targeted traffic with the use of press releases and news content. Extra! Extra!

Geek Speak Track: Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps
Our double whammy of course is that friend and colleague Matthew Snyder, CEO of Mobify, is on this panel discussion about user migration to a mobile environment.

And yes, stick out the whole day.

It’s not to late ... Register Today!