Montreal Tech Watch

Akoha, one of the most secret technology startups in town, seems to be finally ready for launch, with a private event coming up next week.

The project, whose development started more than 1 year and a half ago, plays in the social gaming space, with strong incentives for users to interact with others. Here’s a video interview of Austin Hill for those who want to know more about Akoha.

Apart from the few pages on the website though, the Akoha team never released screenshots nor did they demo’ed the project. Here’s then a chance for you to get a preview of Akoha, and also meet the team. It’s planned Thursday, August 28, at Opus Hotel, from 5pm. Details from Austin Hill here:

What is Akoha? We can’t tell you yet. The details are hush-hush, shrouded in mystery and wrapped in enigma. But if you like what you see and you’re feeling adventurous, we’ll give you a mystery starter kit that lets you join the fun immediately.

Our friend, Canadian musician David Usher, will be at the event to play a few songs from his upcoming album. We look forward to having you join us for drinks, great music and a mystery gift.

Time: Thursday, August 28, 4:45pm
Place: Opus Hotel, 10 Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal, Québec, H2X 4C9
RSVP by August 26 to info@akoha.org

This event is not open to the media except by invitation. Because this is a sneak preview, we’ll ask you to sign a FrieN.D.A. (friendly non-disclosure agreement) to keep the information about our project confidential until Akoha launches.

You can RSVP via Facebook, on Upcoming.org, or by email. This is a private event with limited space, so you must RSVP to info@akoha.org by Tuesday August 26th in order to attend.

Company: Domus Media

Position: Intégrateur de Sites Internet

Responsibilites and Tasks:
- dans l’immédiat, intégrer 2 nouveaux sites Internet;
- participer à la conception des sites et favoriser l’amélioration de ceux-ci;
- faire les mises à jours chaque fois que nécessaire (aux deux semaines environs);
- réaliser les animations flash pour ces sites;
- assurer la qualité, l’optimisation et la structure du code.

Required Knoweledge:Disciplines possibles :

• Arts visuels (design multimédia)
• Design graphique Baccalauréat
• Intégration multimédia Diplôme d’études collégiales

Exigences
- avoir une excellente connaissance du language web;
- connaître les rudiments de l’animation graphique
- posséder l’aptitude à travailler dans une équipe multidisciplinaire;
- faire preuve d’autonomie et d’organisation;
- être créatif, avoir l’esprit vif;
- avoir à son actif au moins 1 an d’expérience en intégration web et en conception de site web;
- posséder les connaissances dans la conception et la réalisation de portails interactifs, un atout.
- avoir une très bonne connaissance du français

Compensation:
Poste d’intégrateur web à forfait

Additional info:

How to apply:

Faites nous parvenir votre C.V. une brève présentation et un portfolio (de préférence par courriel) dès que possible et avant le 1er septembre 2008, à:
Yves Lessard
C.P. 1024 Tring-Jonction (Québec) GON 1XO
Télécopieur: (418) 426-1031
Courriel: ylessard@domusmedia.net

View the complete list of job listings
Submit a job ad

Syntenic has launched a brand-new website, which explains their full array of services. Previously, Syntenic just provided a blank homepage and an interface for their clients.

The new Syntenic website focuses on 3 services: optimization of the network used by the web application, the design of a customized web hosting environment for the web application, and business consulting for the application’s lifecycle.

I’ve had once a long conversation with Ian Rae, president of Syntenic, and he presented Syntenic as a customized web hosting company, for companies and expanding web startups which would want to go beyond managed hosting the like of Rackspace.

It’s great to see such an expertise in Montreal. I know their team works closely with web startups and entrepreneurs. They’ve been to Blitzweekend, and they are also part of the BitCurrent network. Do have a close look at Syntenic then, for those of you who are running or launching web apps.

Following the series of “was-too-busy-to-even-think-blog-it-here”, UNYK.com has launched recently public profiles for its 9 million users.

As you all know, UNYK is an online address book that solves the problem of outdated friends’ contact details. When one of your contact changes his/her phone number for instance, UNYK will then update your address book automatically, on your desktop software. This was 3 years ago. The webification of software has since then hit the technology world, with users moving their address book to the web or just plainly using shifting products such as Facebook to manage their contacts.

To stay current, or should I say, stay hip, UNYK has then launched public profiles, available to unregistered users, with a salt of search engine optimization and social networking. UNYK also announced the new feature as a way for users to control their digital identity: link your identity to this public profile, and it’ll be the one appearing on Google, instead of random results from third-party websites.

I might be wrong; but I see incredible opportunity with UNYK, with its claimed 9 million users. They could turn overnight into a hot destination. What I’d do is just forget the desktop software product; and instead leverage the user base to launch a new product. I’m thinking about new ways of Digital identity; there are of course lots of other new opportunities. And you? What would/should UNYK do?

BuyCanadianFirst wants you to do one thing, which is … buy Canadian products, as the name suggests.

In case you didn’t get the concept, they included a generous amount of maple leafs in the website’s design, bright reds and whites, plus 16 instances of the word “canada” in the homepage.

The venture in itself was started last October by Isabelle Rémy, who wanted to gather in one place all consumer products made by Canadian companies. There is a more elaborate story here; where she links the website’s inception to the rise of globalization and the wish to offer an alternative to imported products.

The back story is cool and inspiring; although this is the kind of project that I would have expected to come from a federal agency. Or maybe from a trade association which would want to advertise a category of products. Melissa Thibodeau, the Director of Marketing and Business Development explains though that it’s a private venture and they’ve planned from the beginning a variety of revenue models, from listing fees, affiliate marketing, advertisings and also sponsorships.

BuyCanadianFirst has for instance a whole media / blog section which I guess is geared at driving traffic to the website and also build up an audience of Canadians interested at buying regularly Canadian-made products.

The second section of the website is an exhaustive product database, with the aim of covering all consumer goods. You can’t buy directly the products though as they refer you to the store or manufacturer of the product.

Since I am not a heavy shopper, I am not really planning to use regularly BuyCanadianFirst. I do know though that there will be an audience for the website, in a world where most consumers don’t buy anymore for the inherent functionality of a product but mostly for its different emotional value or the product story. Good luck then to the buyCanadian team!

MontrealTechWatch has had up to 10 contributors in the past, a few have moved abroad, a few have started their own ventures, while the rest were just one-time writers. For the past 2 months though, I am the only contributor to the blog. This unfortunately didn’t allow me to cover everything going on in technology in Montreal. I’ve just checked and there were for instance 4 projects/startups that were missed on the last five weeks due to time restrictions. There are also at least 3 upcoming events and conferences that I won’t be capable of going to.

So here’s a call for anyone willing to be a MontrealTechWatch blogger. It’s the right position if you:

• love technology and innovation,
• are interested in what others are doing, and want to tell about it
• are a technology entrepreneur, or a developer, or a designer,
• have a talent for communication, or at least want to learn how to communicate and tell a story,
• want to write either in French or in English (no preference)
• or want to shoot videos or podcasts, instead of writing, in English or in French,
• know people in the local community, or at least want to go meet the people doing innovative projects
• know also there’s technology innovation outside of Montreal and are aware, even loosely, of what’s going in Canada, Europe and other parts of the world
• are entrepreneur-minded, in the sense that you’re capable in a fast-moving environment, with few rules, few guidance and few resources, lots of things and opportunities to grab, and wants to get his/her hands dirty (not really, but you get the image)

I’m looking for someone who wants to contribute regularly; as it’s better to get one post regulary (even if it’s just one contribution every three weeks), than have someone who can write 6 or 7 posts in one week and then do nothing for the following months. If you just have 3 or 4 hours avalaible each week, it’s ok.

This is not a job of course. Everything done here on MontrealTechWatch is done for the community. If you contribute, it’s mostly for yourself. Maybe because you love meeting passionate people in tech. Maybe because you have a strong desire for learning and want to jump in social media. Maybe because you know we’re having fun doing events. Maybe because you want to get real-world experience where you have to get out there, explore what’s going on, and produce original work.

If this is your kind of thing, send an email at news@montrealtechwatch.com , or send a tweet; we can also meet at next StartupDrinks on wed 27th.

Thanks to everyone who came this morning for the Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast!

Between 30 to 35 people came, which is a record for the breakfast. We had new faces, new entrepreneurs, pros working in diverse startups in town, many having new projects. We even had one guy (or girl) who left and forgot to pay for his benedectine eggs! An investigation has been started!

All in all, a great event. There should be a brand new spot for next time, perhaps with a bit more organization (or perhaps even less, who knows…), but as usual, it’ll setup it so that people can have great conversations; share about them and their projects & experiences.

Now, everyone needs to go back to work! :)

More pictures of the event *yeah, it’s poor cameraphone quality.

Thanks everyone for the feedback on the Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakast! The post was up initially to “gauge interest” for these breakfasts, and I think the comments went beyond expectations, proving that there’s strong interest for meetups and meeting entrepreneurs. Even if there were a few diverging comments, most wanted an informal event, that would be scheduled early and where they could exchange in detail with other attendees. And also still have a vibe different than those found in the usual 5 à 7 business networking events. We’ve got now a wiki for those who want to continue contributing ideas.

Ben Yoskovitz has published the event for tomorrow on facebook. It’s 8am to 10am (instead of 9am to 11am), although as everyone knows, you can come up and leave at any time.

If you plan to come tomorrow, you need to sign up there so that others can have a minimal idea of who will be there.

The place is always Bistro Etc, 1291 Avenue Mont-Royal. It’s about 5-10 minutes from the Mont-Royal metro station. Original plan was to choose a new place, somewhere between the plateau and downtown, but we couldn’t find one in time. Still, Tanya is making a list of potential places for next month. There’s also one at Praized (add the “mteb” tag to places)

Hope to see everyone there tomorrow! As everyone knows, everyone’s welcomed and it’s pretty much informal. In the past, we’ve had bloggers, video-bloggers, technology consultants and developers, marketing specialists, tech entrepreneurs, reporters, technology lawyers, angel investors (and a few VCs) etc.

Again, special thanks to Ben, who even if he’s running Standoutjobs, still finds the time to contribute to the community. He’s a great model for everyone.

The MontrealTechWatch server has been moved to slicehost, for reliability, and also for architecturing reasons.

I missed some of the action which might have happenned here, but there should be a follow-up soon; plus a few user comments might have been lost in the transfer process. Thanks for keeping up.

I wrote in march a rather quick summary of the “Anges Financiers” gala, with a last note stating how the featured companies had interesting ideas but without any potential “breakthrough” technology. Christian Laforte, CEO of FeelingSoftware, replied then with an elaborate analysis on what they’re doing and where they were going.

Since then, I’ve met and discussed with Christian and Joshua Koopferstock, through different events, and realized that while the company gets less attention or exposure than pure web plays, it’s actually an impressive technology and they are doing strong R&D.

Even then, all of these seemed distant since they did software for game producers and other highly specialized markets such as video fx.

I’m happy then to see that they are launching a new product this week that would give them a much broader appeal, both for artists and for consumers. Presto3D is a new online marketplace for high-quality 3D models, where any 3D artist can upload their work and earn up to 70% royalty for any successful sale.

The website in closed beta test right now, but Montreal Tech Watch readers can access the site with the code access presto0473

Of course, there are already websites doing this, such as the 8-year old Turbosquid. However Presto3D brings unique new features:

• customers can preview the 3D models prior to purchasing (this requires a plug-in that currently works for Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows, with mac version under development)
• converts models to/from the most popular 3D formats
• will allow contributors and clients to embed the 3D models on their own web site, blogs, etc.

Christian Laforte stated that this is a niche market (evaluated at $3-6M in the US and Europe) that hasn’t evolved technologically, and they are working on developing new innovative features that would bring 3D modeling and manipulation to mainstream users, like working with Adobe to integrate 3D directly into Photoshop. There will also be an option to access their “Reconstruct” technology, which is automatic creation of 3D models from a set of photos, taken from different angles, a tool that was previously only avalaible on proprietary software.

While I am not (anymore) a user of 3D software, I certainly see a more exciting product in FeelingSoftware’s new offering, with a bigger potential (ok, I am biaised :-)