Toluu

Mark Evans

Insight and Analysis from North of the Border

Five Questions with….Social MentionToday

A week or so ago, I wrote a post about Social Mention, a start-up out of Ottawa that does social media search - blogs, micro-blogs, comments, news, video, etc. To learn more about the company, I fired off some questions to founder Jon Cianciullo.

Q: Can you tell me about Social Mention’s roots? Who’s behind it and what was the inspiration to create it?

A: The idea for Social Mention isn’t wholly original. The web has a lot of search engines, but the problem is most of them search the “Web”. Conversations today are expanding beyond the Web and, ultimately, beyond the reach of conventional search engines, and into the world of instantaneous status updates, micro-blogs, comments, bookmarks, video feeds, and photo streams.

For years, whenever I wanted to track what people were saying about me or some Web app I launched, I would have to conduct multiple searches every time on Google, Technorati, Flickr, Twitter,

Matt Mullenweg: Wordpress Evangelist/Rock StarYesterday

Aside from the sizzle within the next Wordpress upgrade (aka 2.7), one of the most interesting parts of WordCamp Toronto was experienced the community’s adulation for Matt Mullenweg.

It’s pretty amazing to see how Mullenweg, who still all of 24-years-old, handles himself as Wordpress’ chief evangelist with such ease and charm. Despite Wordpress’ rise as the blogging platform and Automattic’s emergence as a venture-back entity ($29.5-million in the last round from investors such as the New York Times), Mullenweg still seems the same guy who founded Wordpress.

As Automattic (the parent company behind Wordpress.com) grows, Mullenweg is spending a lot of his time within the community, traveling to more than a dozen WordCamp around the world this year. Clearly, it’s a role he enjoys; highlighted by the fact he stayed the entire day at WordCamp Toronto after tal

Wordpress 2.7 is the Real DealOctober 5

For all the excitement about Wordpress 2.5 with its pretty new design, Wordpress didn’t change all that much for me.

The layout was different, the design (provided by hot-shot consulting firm, Happy Cog) was a lot more user-friendly but Wordpress continued to be Wordpress. By that, I didn’t do much with it other than install a few plugins - after getting used to the new widget system. Most important, I continued to ignore Wordpress’ publishing tool; using Ecto as my publishing tool.

But judging by what I saw yesterday at WordCamp Toronto, that could all change with Wordpress 2.7, which Matt Mullenweg announced will be released next month. In particular, the dashboard and the writing tool are going to be overhauled in a major way that I think are going to be a lot more interesting and exciting than Wordpress 2.5.

This most noticeable change in 2.7 will be the navigation bar being moved to the left-hand side of the page. Within the writing tool, there will be drag-and-drog functionality so you can configureit how you want, and the ability to collapse wid

Search within Search…and FlockOctober 4

I’m trying to pay attention to what’s going on at WordCamp Toronto but squeezed in a few minutes to highlight a couple of interesting things discovered on the Web this week.

In doing a search for The Guardian, this was the first result on Google. It’s search within search.

As Flock continues its battle for a foothold in the browser market, it seems to be focusing more on meeting the needs of niches. Here’s Flock’s browser for the fashion/entertainment world.

It’s a smart strategy given the competitive landscape but not sure it’s going to work. Then again, it seems to be a better route than trying to be all social media all the time.

Canada’s Do Not Call System Good but FlawedOctober 3

Canada’s much anticipated Do Not Call system (aka The End of Telemarketers) finally launched earlier this week as two million people registered during the first 60 hours.

The response was so enthusiastic that the Web site, which is operated by Bell Canada, crashed. And while people who managed to register their telephone numbers should be pleased, it does not mean the end of telemarketers calling you.

This is because the exemption list seems to be a mile wide and a mile deep. It includes:

- Canadian registered charities;
- Political parties, riding associations and candidates; and
- Newspapers of general circulation for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions.

You’ll also continue to get calls from organizations that you have a relationship. This includes companies that you have:

- Purchased, leased, or rented a product or service in the last eighteen (1