VANCOUVER

BOOOOOOOM.COM

What began as a way for Vancouver artist Jeff Hamada to keep track of all his favourite art and artists, this independent site (that’s Booooooom with seven Os) expanded to hosting online creative projects and now gets more than 2.5 million monthly page views. The site collaborated with Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are blog WeLoveYouSo.com last fall to celebrate the fi lm’s release with a contest, asking readers to build their own play fort and submit a photo of it. In March, the site’s “Small Victories ” project asked readers to submit photos of “the quietly beautiful, unintentionally funny, people and things all around us.” The collection was then featured as an art show at a gallery in Hong Kong.

VANCOUVERISAWESOME.COM

Bob Kronbauer hosts an online gathering of creative folks from around the world called Club Mumble, runs a two-person design consultancy and directs an ongoing documentary series called Little Giants that focuses on artists and skateboarding. The artist/designer also thinks Vancouver is awesome: his website focuses on the city’s creative community and prides itself on its positivity. From promoting local bands to interviewing celebrities about why they love Vancouver, Kronbauer and his army of contributors’ irony-free enthusiasm is infectious.

CALGARY

MOBOVIVO

MoboVivo (mobovivo.com) has developed a tool called “previiw” that allows consumers to create 140-second previews of television shows and post the clips to social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. The idea is that content owners can stoke and monitor online conversations about their brands while protecting copyright. No wonder CEO Trevor Doerksen was the People’s Choice for Best Entrepreneur at the MediaFresh 2010 Digital Alberta Awards.

SUITCASE INTERACTIVE

This Calgary shop has packed a lot of good news into the past few months. The streak includes a slew of new hires last December, business wins such as a summer promotion project for WestJet and industry award recognition–the agency’s web work for Athlete’s World earned Best Commercial Website honours at the MediaFresh 2010 Digital Alberta Awards.

TORONTO

THIRD TUESDAY ( meetup.com/third-tuesday-toronto ) is a free monthly meetup for Toronto-area communications and marketing execs (more than 2,900 have registered as members) interested in sharing and learning about social media. Each meeting typically includes a guest speaker discussing the latest technology and trends in social media.

SIMPLY GOOD ( simplygood.com ) develops location-based mobile content, and recently partnered with Scotiabank to activate applications for all of its sponsored events including Caribana 2010. The tech company is probably best known for developing the Night Navigator app that launched last fall as part of arts festival Nuit Blanche. It had 13,000 navigation requests and made the top 25 app list for that weekend on iTunes.

THE JORDAN RULES ( thejordanrules.com) Blo gger and ad exec Jordan Julien sends out a newsletter called The Jordan Bits every Wednesday with at least fi ve links to articles or tools pertaining to social media that he fi nds most helpful. Currently a usability manager at Trapeze, Julien has worked on improving customer experience on sites like CanadianTire.ca, eHarlequin.com and Opto.ca.

TREND HUNTER MAGAZINE ( trendhunter.com) Jeremy Gutsche launched the online mag in 2006 because he wanted to “build a home for new business ideas and creativity.” It features regularly updated items on advertising campaigns, pop culture, business and technology .

TWESTIVAL TORONTO ( toronto.twestival.com ) uses social media for social good. Local chapters host events that support community causes over a designated weekend. All events are organized by volunteers, with 100% of ticket sales benefi tting the projects. Said to be the largest global grassroots social media fundraising initiative to date, Twestival has helped raise over $1.2 million within 14 months for 137 non-profi ts worldwide.

MONTREAL

DIGITAL DIMENSION is a six-time Emmy-winning shop that specializes in high-end visual effects and 3D animation for the fi lm, television, commercials and the interactive entertainment industry. Film credits include The Last Samurai, Scream, Scooby Doo 2 and Blade 3.

PRAIZED develops programs that enable publishers to provide their users with an easy way to recommend local places to each other. Sites like GasTicker.com, Answers.YellowPages.ca, TwitArea.com and mainstweb.com use the Praized platform.

AKOHA INC. is a social media company that uses the Internet and mobile technologies to encourage people to embrace and share special moments. Akoha is a real-world and virtual game where players carry out missions that involve performing small acts of kindness. As players perform more missions they advance in the game. Missions include: “Donate an Hour of Your Time,” “Give Someone a Book” and “Make Someone Smile.”

HALIFAX

A big proponent of homegrown creativity, Jake Owens launched THESPONGE.CA, an online hub that showcases the work of Atlantic Canadian visual artists. He also manages the animation department at postproduction company Hatch Post. Hatch, a sister company of Egg Films , has worked for clients such as Bell Aliant and Dalhousie University.

Halifax’s MINDSEA DEVELOPMENT INC. is heating up the mobile space, specializing in creating applications for devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Google’s Android. Launched last year, the shop has already created apps for realty companies Tradewind and Viewpoint, as well as a Transit to Go app that helps consumers navigate the Halifax transit system.