It is about that time of year. Back to school, subway packed, frosh week...and TIFF.

I have posted about the festival in the past since I used to work on publicity...but as an outsider this year, and as Film Friday post, I will review TIFF's online presence.

Website: The website is fine. With a target audience ranging from pure cinema lovers, sales people, publicists and well...the talent, the site has to provide all the information that their range of audience needs. And it is all there. But that is it.

The problem though is navigation. Unless you really know the festival and/or the site, it is hard to find the information you are looking for. If you are browsing, it is extremely easy to get lost.

Blogs: The site does have over a handful of interesting blogs with decent content, but again, it is very hard to navigate. You have to continuously 'click' to read more of the post toggling between blogs is onerous.

One main feature they failed to implement quite easily are RSS feeds for their blogs. Yes, they have them other key areas...but not for their rich content. :Z

Star Gazing: A big part of the festival are its stars. There is nothing like being in Yorkville and seeing a famous movie star right in your backyard. So, how about engaging the community and having them send in their celebrity photos. Heck, in the age of camera/PDA phones, this is a free be.

I guess a main reason is because they have the Holt Renfrew Gallery - but one photo a day seems worthless particularily since the photos picked are the same ones we see on the front page of the papers anyway. Come on! You run the festival, give us regular folk an inside look.

Pump up the volume: One item I do like this year is TIFF's use of Y&D square for music and special events. This expands the festival beyond Yorkville and Scotia Theatre. However, nothing is really being done online as an outreach to the public to get them out to these events.

TIFF related, but not TIFF owned:

Facebook Application - now this makes sense. An application that allows you to organize with your friends the movies you are going to watch.