Smibs launches VideoLobby at the Real-Time CrunchUp!

Christy November 27th, 2009 1 Comment
VideoLobby

VideoLobby

Hi I’m Peter Urban from Smibs. We are excited to announce that our most recent software product, VideoLobby has just launched. We were one of only ten companies chosen to demo new real-time web products at the Real-Time CrunchUp in San Francisco last Friday. We were gratified to be recognized for the hard work we’ve put into creating our software. I’d like to give a big thanks to our team who really worked hard to make this launch possible.

VideoLobby is the next big step forward in independent video broadcasting!

VideoLobby is for video broadcasting what Blogger is for text-based blogging. VideoLobby allows people and companies to create a professional looking, custom branded, live web tv show and integrate it into their website within a few minutes and without any technical knowledge.

See a video overview of VideoLobby!

Article from TechCrunch

Edmonton Journal Article

In the past, if you wanted to broadcast your own show you needed to use a video streaming service and then get a web development firm to add the video to your site and if you wanted any other kind of features such as live commenting or archiving, you’d have to pay to have them implemented as well.

With VideoLobby, you can present your online TV show, either live or prerecorded in a clean and professionally branded template that integrates seamlessly with your website. You simply sign up for a free Smibs account, set up your show and your first episode and you are ready to roll.

Another major benefit is that VideoLobby offers real-time web integration. Your viewers can now have conversations via twitter and Facebook right on your show page which is great service to your viewers and simultaneously helps to promote your show throughout the social web.

Finally, viewers can ask questions while the episode is running live and the host can answer the questions during the show in real time.

Hope to meet you soon on at www.videolobby.com!

The Smibs Team


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Alberta Venture reports on our venture!

Christy November 10th, 2009 No Comments Yet

Alberta Venture
This month, journalist Michael Hingston publishes an article about Smibs in the Alberta Venture magazine. We are honoured to be a part of this very popular magazine, particularly with such a nice article written. The interview, which is the basis of the article, is with Peter Urban, the founder of Smibs. It takes you back to Peter’s days as a race car driver in Germany, through his entrepreneurial endeavors to present day as owner and operator of Smibs.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE


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Smibs on code: Upgrading to Git

Forrest August 14th, 2009 2 Comments

A few days ago, our code repository server froze. Nothing a restart couldn’t solve, but this was the fourth time this month. The computer has been running continuously for a couple years, with a few developers constantly committing and pulling changes, uploading files, etc., and it had apparently had enough. Seeing this as an opportunity to fix up our development process a bit, I wiped the drives, and re-installed the OS.

The first thing I wanted to change was our code versioning system. Our office has been using Subversion (SVN) as our code repository for a couple years now. It’s done the job well, and has saved our butts on more than one occasion, but there were a few things I didn’t like. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I like moving around when I work; hitting a coffee shop in the morning, or taking my laptop to the local bookstore on a hot day. Subversion forced me to always have an internet connection to commit changes or make new branches. As a result, I would perform larger commits, or have branches pulling double duty, which is far from ideal. Further, setting up and maintaining the permissions with ssh and multiple developers is quite a pain on Subversion.

A few of our developers have used Git for some open-source projects, and we all quite liked it. We’ve been talking about changing for months, but we couldn’t justify the effort until we had to re-install everything anyways. We decided to use Gitosis to manage the Git server, setup the permissions, and manage users (good tutorial here). This proved to be fairly simple. I then imported all of our previous projects with git-svn with some help from this post. Next, our system was configured to send out a summary e-mail every time a developer pushed a change. Finally, I modified our deploy files so the servers read the code from our new Git server rather than our old SVN server. The entire process was completed in under two days.

While many of us had used Git before there was still a learning curve. I found a very useful guide called “Git Magic”. It starts off with the basics that all developers should know, but moves all the way to “Git grandmastery” in chapter 7.

Final thoughts:

Git has more of a learning curve than I expected, and is more complicated than Subversion — but it is so much more flexible, that I think it’s worth it. You can really use it however is best for you. For some developers, it won’t be much different than working with svn, but I’m really appreciating the differences. I read an interesting analogy comparing clones, branches, tags, etc. with multiple desktops, windows and tabs. The more options available, the longer it will take for a person to come up with the best system for them, but once they figure it out, they can really fly.

I would love to hear your thoughts on Subversion vs. Git (or any other systems you recommend for that matter). Why do you think one is better than the other?


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It’s About Time: Thoughts on Teaser Marketing

David August 10th, 2009 4 Comments

Finally…

Finally after weeks, perhaps even months, I can eat and sleep comfortably once more. Finally I can go throughout my day and not break down into a blubbering mess due to critical levels of mental anguish. Finally I can drive from point A to B without having to pull over on the side of the road and contemplate the meaning of my life. Finally… I know what the “August 5″ campaign in Edmonton signifies.

Metaphysical life-altering experiences aside, Edmonton’s Southgate mall recently finished an interesting marketing campaign to generate some buzz about their grand re-opening after substantial renovations. Featuring new stores, new physical outlay and a “new feel,” Southgate created a marketing plan to gain new shoppers and align itself as a legitimate competitor to the monolith that is West Edmonton Mall. How you ask? By simply posting signs around the city that said no more then “August 5″.

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Southgate's re-opening campaign had Edmontonian's wondering: "What the heck is happening on August 5th?"

Teaser marketing campaigns (definitely not something new or indigenous to Edmontonians) play off of and manipulate the innate human characteristic of needing to understand what is going on. By strategically providing only small pieces of information regarding the actual event/product, advertisers hope to stir up the most powerful marketing tool: word of mouth. In this case, mission accomplished. After only weeks of seeing the signs around the city, I heard numerous mentions of the campaign from all kinds of sources, ranging from newspaper and radio to simple banter between friends. People were agitated by knowing absolutely nothing about something they drove past every day and as a result they spread the campaign around the city for Southgate (at no extra cost).

Probably the most documented case of teaser marketing in recent memory was the 2007-2008 campaign for the movie Cloverfield. Movie advertisements featuring only a shaky camera and a single passing glance of a gigantic monster attacking a city caught people’s attention, but by not mentioning a movie title, release date, or any sort of information that would help the viewers figure out what they just saw, the advertisements caused everyone in the theatre look at each other and wonder out loud “what was that?” They added to this fantastic viral campaign with a website that gave out almost less information then the movie previews but featured videos and puzzles alluding to a post-apocalyptic world, creating more hype towards whatever the hell it was that advertisers were planning on releasing.

The catch to teaser marketing is that with added hype comes higher expectations. After toying with their emotions (as my fragile psyche would suggest) the consumer expects to find a light at the end of the tunnel that really blows them away. Anything less than that and the promoter can face anything ranging from apathy to resentment, severely damaging any hype they had created. Cloverfield did amazing out of the gates, but kind of tapered off by leaving some people expecting more explanation from the promoters as the storyline didn’t finish on a solid note. Southgate attempted to add to their re-opening by hiring performers but, from what I’ve gathered, the event left a few people saying “that’s it?” The teaser campaign can be an incredibly effective tool at drumming up publicity, but due to the hightened expecations a promoter needs to sit down and determine if their product is worthy of the hype.

Tease me all you want, but you’d better have something that’s worth my sanity.


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Gentlemen… Start your sponsorship proposals!

David August 6th, 2009 4 Comments

Sponsorship strategy? Check.
Customer relationship management? Check.
Social networking initiative? Check.
Fireproof racing suit? Check.

racecarAs the dust settles on another “successful” Rexall Edmonton Indy, its attendees are left to nurse hangovers and sunburns while its promoters are left to reflect on the successes and fallbacks of the event. While the race draws annual crowds of well over 150,000 people, the Edmonton portion of the Indy circuit continually reports losses. Why is this? The event is nearly sold out every year, corporate support is strong, thousands flock to the city to attend, yet the race is predicted to lose anywhere between 1-3 million dollars. With low sponsorship numbers and even lower television ratings, what can promoters do to ensure the race continues in Alberta’s capital city? I don’t know the answer (if I did I would have a drastically different job title) but I think a place they could start is by learning from their drivers.

Over the Indy weekend I had the pleasure to spend some time with Canadian driver Alex Tagliani behind the scenes while he prepared for the race and I was absolutely blown away by how hard these athletes work off the track to make sure they still have a ride on it. The economic downturn has hit auto racing, a sponsorship dependent activity, perhaps the hardest of any North American sport and with less money to go around, drivers that become complacent have found themselves without a team to race for. Tagliani, who drives for a small race team, has had to rethink the way he goes about securing sponsorship and think of new, more cost effective ways of drumming up publicity and funding. So much so, that in a July 20 Edmonton Journal article Tagliani “estimates he’s spending about 90 per cent of his time raising money, and just 10 per cent driving.” Be it utilizing social media to boost attention, tireless work with clients and sponsors, or spending weeks ahead attending local festivals and contests, Tagliani not only increased his chances of finding a full time racing team next season but also created new racing fans, which benefits the entire sport.

racecar-detailLike any business, the Indy’s success depends on the performance of the entire crew. With shrinking sponsorship streams the entire industry must enter the pits, get retuned, and strategize for the laps ahead. On that note, I’ll wave the checkered flag on this string of puns and leave the forum open for discussion. What else can the Indy, or any business for that matter, learn from the way drivers secure their own sponsorship and deal with partners, clients, and supporters?


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