The most advanced and comprehensive mobile app for motorcycle riders

Being on a Motorcycle is knowing you’re Alive. Make it count.

We Are Q in partnership with EatSleepRIDE.com® (ESR), a social platform for the international motorcycling community, is pleased to introduce a groundbreaking mobile app technology dedicated to motorcycle riders and those close to them. Exploiting iOS native functionality, EatSleepRIDE Motorcycles for mobile is the most comprehensive and advanced iPhone app for motorcyclists, making riding social and safe.

CRASHLIGHT®, a revolutionary built-in safety crash detection technology automatically detects a motorcycle accident and notifies the riders pre-set contacts of their geographical location. The rider never needs to ride alone. Now friends and family can have peace of mind knowing they will be connected when things go wrong.

The most advanced and comprehensive mobile technology for motorcycle riders

Developed in conjunction with the University of Toronto, CRASHLIGHT exploits built-in sensor technology using sophisticated algorithms to detect a motorcycle accident. The app then notifies contacts via SMS text messages, phone calls and email to ensure the transmission of the message to the recipients. See how the CRASHLIGHT® technology works.

EatSleepRIDE Motorcycles further enhances the motorcycle riding experience through a data dashboard enabling visualization of recorded routes, speed and lean angle. Editorial and crowd-sourced content make it easy to connect and share experiences with like-minded motorcycle enthusiasts. GPS-based social riding features make it possible for riders to see each other’s whereabouts on a map. Geo-proximal search instantly finds motorcycle roads and biker friendly places nearby. A number of screen shots are available here.

Alex Crookes, motorcycle aficionado and President/Chief Technology Officer at EatSleepRIDE enthuses “Car drivers have always been a step ahead of us when it comes to safety. While technology can make the motorcycle itself safer, it hasn’t really been able to deliver accessible safety to the rider until now. Using the mobile device is an obvious choice – it’s always with us. After extensive research and development we’ve created a simple to use, inexpensive tool that’s going to increase the safety of all riders and hopefully encourage more riders to ride more often.”

In North America, Europe, Asia and Africa motorcycling is recognized as a top 10 sport. The worldwide market for motorcycles, including electric-powered two wheelers is forecast to grow by 8% in 2013 alone and inevitably require infrastructure and services to support this growth. As part of the company’s commitment to improve safety and enjoyment for all riders, aggregate data can be leveraged by tourism and road planners to improve routing, road repair scheduling and road safety.

EatSleepRIDE Motorcycles for mobile is currently available for iOS devices, with an Android version coming soon. For more information on the app, check out http://app.eatsleepride.com/ or contact Alex Carroni on alexcarroni@brandorb.com.

About EatSleepRIDE
EatSleepRIDE.com is a social magazine and blogging platform for motorcycle enthusiasts nearby or around the world.

You can find @EatSleepRIDE on Twitter and on Facebook.com/esr.cc and on YouTube at EatSleepRIDE TV and of course on Pinterest

EatSleepRIDE Motorcycles for mobile is the most advanced and comprehensive iPhone app for motorcycle riders http://App.EatSleepRIDE.com. The company is innovating at the Ryerson Digital Media Zone and is funded, in part, by the Canada Media Fund.

The most prestigious and largest documentary film festival HotDocs opens today with the film “The Manor”. First time feature director, Shawney Cohen, asks the question “What happened to a nice Jewish family and their family business”.

Running a startup is akin to running a family business. The business can take over your life. This story is about a family running their business: The Manor Strip Club in Guelph, Ontario.

HotDocs starts tonight

THE MANOR – Trailer for a Feature Documentary (1:40) from Six Island Productions on Vimeo.

***OPENING NIGHT FILM HOT DOCS 2013***
***IN CINEMAS ACROSS CANADA STARTING MAY 10***

A peculiar Jewish family attempt to nurse their relationships and themselves back to health while running a small-town strip-club.

themanordocumentary.com / themanorfilm.com

FAMILY. HONOUR. OIL WRESTLING.
When he was six, Shawney Cohen’s father bought “The Manor,” a small-town strip-club. Hoping to understand what happened to his nice Jewish family, Shawney spends years filming this intimate tragi-comic family portrait that lays bare the nature of dependence and love.

Genre: Documentary
Length: 78’
Director: Shawney Cohen
Co-Director: Mike Gallay
Music: Jim Guthrie
Editor: Seth Poulin
Executive Producers: Paul Scherzer & Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Commissioning Editor: Jane Jankovic (TVO)
Production Company: Six Island Productions
Produced in Association with: TVO, and with the assistance of the Shaw Media-Hot Docs Fund and the Tribeca Film Institute

What went down with Ford Figo and WPP?

As part of the creative process, Ford’s ad agency, WPP tried a few creative executions that were “not meant to published” as part of a “paid campaign” for the new Ford Figo car available in India.

This advert shows Silvio Berlusconi, former prime minister of Italy and candidate in the current campaign, giving the “V” for Victory sign from behind the wheel of a Ford Figo with three tied-up women in the back.

This other image depicts Paris Hilton at the wheel of a Ford Figo with the Kardashian family tied up in the back.

A third image shows three male race-car drivers tied up in the back of a Ford Figo.

Ford said: “We deeply regret this incident and agree with our agency partners that it should have never happened,” said Ford, in a prepared statement. “The posters are contrary to the standards of professionalism and decency within Ford and our agency partners.”

WPP also released a statement saying that it “deeply regret[s]” the existence of the “distasteful” posters.

Would you fire the Account Director at WPP for this one? Leave your comments!

Crossmedia Toronto, Feb 21, 2013

Crossmedia Toronto will take place on February 21st, 2013 at the Toronto Reference Library. It’s a 1-day conference with a twist: twenty-six leaders in technology, mobile, gaming, and music present 7-minute demos throughout the day.

The day is jam-packed. It will be hard to walk away empty handed with the proposed line-up of international demo-ers.

My picks
I’m interested in hearing from Andrew Macdonald, General Manager of taxi startup Uber which has done a remarkable job disrupting the car-for-hire business in New York and has since moved into 30 cities all over the world.

I’ve not heard anyone from Bitcoin speak previously, so it will be a treat to hear Peter Vessenes, Chairman & Executive Director of Bitcoin Foundation talk about the decentralized digital payment system. Will Vessenes mentions this recent news: 23-year-old who recently released new chips that ‘mine’ Bitcoins 50 times faster. We shall see.

Jeffrey Remedios, President and Co-Founder of the Arts & Crafts music label will be on hand to talk about digital disruption in the music business. Remedios is an inspiring entrepreneur. His record label includes a few artists you may have heard of: Broken Social Scene, Feist, Los Campesinos! and more. I recently read a great Globe and Mail article about Remedios’s unique approach “in an industry under siege” - it’s worth reading.

Veronika Sonsev, previously of AOL and now CEO and Founder of InSparq will be on hand to promote her startup and demo the company’s solution for social commerce.

The 22 remaining speakers are equally impressive. However, for me, the pinacle will be the 25 minute one-on-one with Reddit.com General Manager, Erik Martin. Reddit is that colossal tell-it-like-it-is, no holds barred, link sharing website you may have heard of with no apparent revenue model.

If you’d like to attend, register for Crossmedia Toronto this week – the conference will likely sell out. See you there.

First, we got to work on understanding what was being said by real people about both the Prius c and Venza brands. All mentions were dominated by “professional” bloggers. These bloggers get paid to review a car the same way a journalist reviews an automobile for a newspaper, website or other publications.

In an advert, there’s very little room to tell a story about the people who buy and drive the cars. We felt a real voice from actual potential drivers was missing. So we set out to find test drivers – people who we thought would benefit from a week test drive of both the Prius c and the Venza. Those people for whom the cars were actually made and to tell their stories.

Once we connected with the test drivers, the idea was to give everyone the car for a weekend and simply get their feedback. During each test drive, the drivers were encouraged to post their thoughts in social spaces using brand hashtags. Test drivers were not professionals and no one was paid to participate.

Then later on, we connected with the drivers to get their story on video. The videos were intended to convey an honest and real point of view of the Prius c and the Venza driving experience. From the driver, to the camera as passenger. We wanted to keep it simple, but produce videos that were after all, shareable and easy to watch. No advertising executives were on set, no one from Toyota was present when we shot the videos. Just a camera crew and the test driver.

A key success element in my mind was to stay away from car commercial stereotypes. We wanted to reach out to people who don’t normally “look” like they should be on TV. At the same time, our intention was to create a cross-promotional opportunity for the test drivers. By enabling them to promote their own businesses or endeavours, we created a built-in reason for sharing the videos.

The result is an authentic and playful look at the people who drove both the Prius c and Venza cars. Yes, these are advert stories, however it was important for us not to overdo it on the “car ad” angle while at the same time, we didn’t want to pretend this was an indie video. What do you think?

The Quebec team also used our idea for the French Canadian market however they choose to bring a more advert feel to the video.

Day 1, Monday, December 3th is about media buying and selling. You can purchase a one-day pas for $350 which includes your ticket to the Digi Awards on the evening of Tuesday December 4th. I missed the awards show last year but I got a number of good reviews from the guys at Proximity BBDO – they had a great time. You can buy your Day 1 pass here.

Day 2, Tuesday, December 5th is all about media creation and of course the Digi Awards that evening. The highlight for me will be Anna Serano’s Q&A with Cory Doctorow who you may have heard of. He’s the co-editor of the most read and linked-to blog in the world called Boing Boing The two-day pass is $645 and includes the Digi Awards as well as one-to-one meetings with a bunch of panelists. Along with the nice food at the Carlu – it’s definitely worth it. You can get your two-day conference pass here.

If you can’t do the Day 1 & Day 2 passes, you can get a ton of networking done over drinks at the Digi Awards. Tuesday evening tickets go for $50 and you can buy your ticket online here.

I’m honoured to be a member of the nextMEDIA advisory board and I’m pumped about seeing the Canadian digerati out at the event next week. Bring your business cards!
@marinamann

Picaso said, ‘If you can imagine it, it can come true.’