Over the last few months, the major Tdot papers have been playing around with their websites. Adding video, photo streams, RSS etc. to their content mix.

During my daily visit to thestar.com - I came across Our Faves Toronto on the left side of the page, below the fold...still in BETA BTW.

I find this really interesting. Why?
1. Social bookmarking only for Toronto? Very similar to 43 things.
2. This is not made by Torstar Media (from what I can tell)...
3. Have they finally realized that it is about the reader...not the paper?
4. Community building...hope not at the expense of less content from reporters.

I get more and more impressed by the NY Times multimedia tools.

It must have been a year or so ago that they started to incorporate more slideshow/audio essays to go along with their feature articles. I thought this was great. Using the web to bring your feature article to life. It now becomes multi-dimensional.

After flipping through the first few pageson their .com site, I came across a feature on Michael Haneke - one of my favourite directors.

The feature and essay were very good - but more importantly for me (in my field), I really liked the ease-of-use of the tool as well as the smarts in making the content and other related content all link together pretty seamlessly.

1. It was slideshow is introduced later in the article layout. Meaning, if I am bored of the first few paragraphs and/or don't want to continue on...there is something else to attract me and stay on topic.
2. The tool itself is dead simple to use - with send to a friend and linkability features.
3. The option to read similar stories and 'search' available at your fingertips.

Was doing some research on roofing.ca (that is another story)and was surprised to see a huge banner ad from Referendum Ontario and their campaign - yourbigdecision.ca

So of course, being mouse happy today, I clicked on the link and came to a very nice clean site regarding the upcoming referendum, happening in conjuction with the provincial election.

And gosh darn it...look what else I stumbled upon.



...yet, another widget.

It is very very rare that I get a piece of communication (DM, ad or email), that makes me act immediately.

However, earlier today - I got an email to download a webinar on Website conversation. So I did. I clicked on the call to action, filled out my details (which I did truthfully) and a few seconds later - up came the webinar.

With paper and pen in hand...there I was, listening...learning...

3 minutes into the presentation - the webinar died, is dying...as I type this, it is still loading...10 minutes...12...15.

Now what?
- I closed the window.
- I will probably hesitate before I download another webinar from that organization.
- The presentation was on website conversation...really? They feel they can talk about that?
- When they contact me, which I am pretty sure they will - I will have to tell them of my seriously bad web experience.

So we are at aout the half-way point at TIFF and I have a few WOM observations:

Fantastic WOM:
1. XX movie is great, you really need to see it (coming from a movie pal).
2. XX is great in XX movie, worth a look (coming from a movie pal).
3. A seriously great party tonight at XX...XX will be there BTW...confirmed.

Scary WOM:
1. XX is staying at the Royal York, you can stalk them there.
2. There is free starbucks coffee in the louge...get caffinated.

Bad WOM:
1. XX was terrible, don't go and see it.
2. You will love XX, go see it (coming from pushy publicist)
3. XX is in town, I 'might' be able to get you an interview...but you will have to cancel another.