Flickr is one of Vancouver’s greatest Web 2.0 success stories. Born in Yaletown, bought by Yahoo, and continues to go strong (at least me and my 14,000 photos hope so). Today (like “today” as in midnight Pacific time) Stewart Butterfield’s latest project has a name, a look, and some light shed upon it.

Over the summer Stewart let the world know that Tiny Speck was the new project he was starting, and it would be a game of some sorts. Okay, we’ll buy that. Flickr started out as a game, so, this isn’t a stretch. CNET got the exclusive on tonight’s “launch” of Glitch (don’t forget their Twitter account):

Glitch, at its most basic, is a 2D Flash, Web-based, social MMO with a heavy puzzle-solving component. Or, as the team likes to call it, a “collaborative sim.” Its back story centers on a great but very dark future, and a group of scientists who discover a path back in time to create the optimistic future everyone wants. “The whole world was spun out of the imagination of 11 great giants,” Butterfield, who often speaks in a soft, hard-to-hear voice, said. “So you have to go back into the past, into the world of the giants’ imaginations and grow…the number of things in the world, grow it in terms of physical dimensions, to make sure the future actually happens. So all the game play takes place in the past inside the world of the giants’ imagination.” Images: Stewart Butterfield’s new gaming start-up Practically speaking, Glitch is a social game (see sidebar for more detail about the game) about learning how to find and nurture resources, identify and build community, and proselytize to those around you. It’s not about epic, bloody battles. “Rather than you and me fighting each other with swords,” Butterfield explained, “it could be you and me having rival religious factions battling each other for converts.”

link: Watching the birth of Flickr co-founder’s gaming start-up | Geek Gestalt – CNET News

I’m intrigued. I’m not a big gamer. I haven’t been for years, but there is something here that I’d like to try. Maybe it’s getting in at the beginning. Maybe it’s because (insert movie voice-over) “From the people who brought you Flickr…” caché is just too much to pass up.

Is there room in this world for another game? If Facebook is any indication, yeah. If nothing else I hope this isn’t going to be another Facebook game I’m going to have to ignore and block. Games are great, games that make me pester my friends on Facebook I can do with out, thank you.

Along with CNET’s “and now we bring you…Glitch!” post the companion piece on Stewart’s journey to make Tiny Speck is probably worth more of a read, since I think it gives a little more insight into what is going on in the greater scheme of things.

Interesting how Stewart is unveiling Glitch just as Vancouver is welcoming the world. I think it’s fitting, actually. Flickr revolutionized how we share pictures and is one of the best things to come out of Vancouver, makes sense to launch something when Vancouver is again in the spotlight.

Do we really need to get people in a room to talk about social media? Seriously, won’t SMC Vancouver just become some kind of self-referential echo chamber where everyone is an “social media expert” or consultant or “social media marketer”? Come on who needs to talk about social media, haven’t we got it all figured out by now? Does anyone really need our advice on how to navigate the morass of social media that we currently live in?

In answer to all those questions—yeah we do.

Oh sure, there is a great risk with any professional organization that it just becomes an insular bubble. Doesn’t matter if the group is for bloggers or plumbers or accountants, sometimes the only other people who want to talk about the details of what we do are other people who do it too.

Social Media Club, started by my friend Chris Heuer and something I was involved with early on, is built on the mission of education and outreach. Social Media Club Vancouver has had an on-again-off-again history. Part of the problem with a lot of social media people, we get tremendously busy in the blink of an eye. Social Media Club Victoria has some great folks behind it (they could be happy that I didn’t try to get SMC Victoria going, ugh that would have been disastrous).

I think it’s easy to dismiss social media as “easy” and “common sense” when you’re in the midst of it all. Come on, what’s so hard about talking to people? Isn’t working with social media just another core competency that people just have now?

Not so much. As much as I think that everyone marketing themselves as a social media consultant isn’t a great idea, I do think helping people learn the ropes, especially for their businesses, is an important thing to do. It’s hard not to be accused of hyperbole when I say that social media has changed everything that we do now, but it has. Newspapers, shopping, learning, reading, computing, even dating has been influenced and changed by social media. Ten years ago if a company screwed a customer, you were extremely lucky to get local news coverage. Today any company can have its image tarnished in a few hours or days.

I don’t read newspapers often, but I write for one.

When I’m looking for something from a new game to something as mundane as groceries I turn to social media—and I get the answers!

What I hope Social Media Club Vancouver becomes is a true educational group. We need to have both higher level discussions about where the whole industry/medium is going as well as help people learn how to use the plethora of tools available to them. We don’t need another group for parties and tweetups. We need a group to hold hands-on workshops and media days. We need to connect investment money and the startups who need it. We need to help foster careers that people can make an actual living doing, not something that people love to do but can live doing.

I think the time is right and we certainly have the talent in Vancouver to do it.

So who needs a social media club anyway?

We do.

We shouldn’t be surprised that after seeing the list of nominees for most influential women in Canadian social media that when the guy’s list came out it would be stacked with a lot of Vancouver (and environs) folks on the list…

Boris Mann bmannconsulting.com
Darren Barefoot http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/
Jon Husband http://blog.wirearchy.com/
Jordan Behan jordanbehan.com
Kris Krug kriskrug.com
Leonard Brody http://www.nowpublic.com/leonard_brody
Rob Cottingham http://www.robcottingham.ca
Tod Maffin http://www.todmaffin.com/blog

[From Vote: Who Is Canada’s Most Influential Man In Social Media? | Profectio]

Congrats to all the nominees! All the guys on the list are well deserving. Of course there are people missing from the list, there always are some gaps, but we can certainly be proud of what Canada is bringing to the world of social media.

Last night we had the first of what I know will be many Best of 604 galas. It is safe to say if you are involved in social media, in town, and not sick you were there at The Cellar last night.

The winners from last night were the cream of the crop, but honestly the big winners are all of us.

Honestly.

The community came together and had a blast. The hum of conversation was constant. I think I heard “Oh! You’re… Great to finally meet you in person…” hundreds of times during the evening.

People were genuinely glad, happy, and excited to get together and meet.

Rebecca, you did something so awesome, that you deserve and award.

Next year I’m sure it will be bigger, better, and also become the official blogger Christmas party of the year.

On a more selfish note, Media2o gave away a $2500 studio package and my good friend Monica Hamburg won the prize! I hear she is going to give it to her partner Chris, but maybe we can convince Monica do to something for Connected Life in the future.

In true social media form, here is a Flickr slideshow of all the pics tagged “bestof604″ … enjoy!

DaveO and I were chatting this afternoon about net neutrality as I was helping him with a post he’s writing for the Raincity Studios blog and we thought that in concert with Saturday’s Media Democracy Day here in Vancouver more Vancouver Geeks might want to get involved.

So Vancouver geeks speak up! Write about public policy issues around technology and democracy – net neutrality, copywrong, media access, voting, or whatever you think fits. Vancouver is well known for not only its thriving tech scene, but also its intellectual depth surrounding tech issues as well. Well then, let’s show off a little. How to get involved? Simple, write your post, link to Dave’s on the Raincity blog … and that’s it.

Dave’s post on net neutrality will go up tomorrow and I’ll be doing a follow up post as a part 2 on this blog. Dave will gather the links to all the posts on his post so we can all connect the dots around the city.

Then on Saturday why don’t you wander down the the Main Branch of the Vancouver Public Library for a full day of media related events—Media Democracy Day Vancouver – October 25, 2008 | Media Democracy Day.

We’ve all been seen the power of citizen media in the past elections and the spread of news, this is great but we all know that we depend on infrastructure and rights for this to continue.

What’s your burning issue around media democracy and freedom?

Update: Dave’s post on net neutrality is now up on the Raincity Studios blog

One of my favourite things about the Vancouver tech community is, well, the community. One of the main reasons I decided to throw caution, and a job, to the wind and stay in B.C. instead of moving to Toronto was the community and circle of friends I have here.

So true to Vancouver form, after chatting with Raul this morning (and confusing him with a bad pun), he let me know about tonight’s Ideas On Tap event tonight in Yaletown (W00t! Walking distance!).

The event is free, and open to all techies around, but you do have to register (for headcounts and a name tag thingy).

Although I’ve been a part of the tech scene in Vancouver for a long while, I wasn’t during the Dot Com boom and bust so I didn’t know the context and history of the event. That gap was filled by Rebecca’s post from earlier this month announcing the re-launch of Ideas On Tap. Being the tech maven she is, Rebecca will also be participating in Ideas on Tap (live blogging I’m guessing).

Me, I’ll stick to live tweeting and taking pictures. I’m guessing that this will be a venue for the flash, but I doubt I’ll pull out The Lens for this one.

See you tonight.

Don’t know what it is about that squat building on Dunlevy, but lots of cool stuff comes out of there. Yesterday I told you about Tagga’s taggamobs for BlogWorld Expo, now I bring you: Mini-meme—MINI meme – The Ultimate in branded turnkey video contests.

Chatting with Nadia yesterday I got the scoop on Memelabs’ award-winning video contest software/service and how it had become so popular they decided to spin off what could be called “Memelabs Lite”.

First, I had to understand what Memelabs was all about before I could grok Mini-meme.

In a few words, Memelabs powers video-based contests for clients. Like a contest from the GAP for people to record how they contribute to society by volunteering.

People record the video, it’s submitted, and people vote. Then there is a winner.

What has made it simple is the backend that powers it all, but what has kept more people from using it is that until now every contest had a custom look at feel—something that is out of the reach of non-profits and small businesses.

Seeing the opportunity with smaller clients Mini-meme was developed to make the process easier and less hands on for the Memelabs folks.

What’s different? Self serve and templates. Instead of a completely custom look and feel you get a choice of templates, adding your logo, and choosing a colour scheme. Instead of Memelabs doing all the management of the contest, you do.

Nadia said the hour that Mini-meme clients are given for training is plenty. They made the backend management portion smoother, cleaner, and streamlined (I’d liken it to the difference between WP and Drupal).

Since people tend to be natural hams, especially when there is something to be won, I think this could become a fun, maybe even compelling, way to build some buzz.

Contact the folks at Memelabs through the Mini-meme site to get more info on it.

See also: Techvibes and Memelabs