Winnipeg Free Press - February 19/09
Winnipeg: Love & Hate
FROM the complaints you hear around the water cooler about downtown or on talk radio when Hydro tries to buy some warehouses in the Exchange, to the familiar chorus of the Weakerthans’ One Great City, electronic badboy Venetian Snares’ album Winnipeg is a Frozen S***hole, and Guy Maddin’s brilliant “docu-fantasia” My Winnipeg, it easy to tell that Winnipeg artists and residents have always had a love/hate relationship with our provincial capital. That similar feeling about the city is what promoted photographer Bryan Scott to start a blog to document the Winnipeg that most people never think about.
“A lifelong Winnipegger, the love/hate relationship I have with the city is by no means a novel concept,” explains Scott on his site. “I’d say it’s quite universal, in fact, among people who have lived here for any significant period of time. In the end, though, I’m pretty proud of my city — of its colourful history, and its promising future. I hope that the photos presented here depict a Winnipeg that often goes unseen and unnoticed; a multi-layered, architecturally rich city that is more than just the snow and mosquitoes for which it is (sadly) most well-known.”
The Ultimate Joke
THE Ultimate Joker is a new online campaign to lobby Warner Brothers to retire the character of the Joker from the Batman franchise. The fanboys argue that Health Leger has set the bar so high that the casting agents would have an impossible task trying to find someone to fill the deceased actor’s shoes.
“The Joker must die now and forever. Now is the time for him to rest in peace as Ledger has ennobled the honourable villain. We want you to join our crusade to withdraw, for good, the character of the arch villain who killed Jason Todd and left Batgirl handicapped. The ultimate Joker has been shown and deserves this homage.”
Top 15 Most-Visited Canadian Sites
WHERE the Readers Are is the first index analyzing web traffic at Canadian-owned sites. Looking at January 2009, the traffic patterns suggest that Canadians are spending time online reading the news, finding government information, looking up what the weather is going to be like, and trying to find a date.
Surprisingly, Metrolyrics.com took home first place, followed by free dating site Plenty of Fish. The Government of Canada’s website rounded out the top three. Both Metro Lyrics and Plenty of Fish get a lot of traffic from U.S. visitors. Sites that provide some form of content snapped up 10 of the 15 slots. Also, eight of the 10 content sites that made the cut are secondary providers, meaning they are republishing information created for “newspapers, broadcast or other outlet.”
Although Canadians may be going online to look for information on things they may want to buy and have been purchasing more online over the past few years, only one e-commerce site made the list.
While blogs are an important part of the online landscape, it appears Canadian surfers are still relying on traditional media sources for their news and breaking information online.
“Professionally created content commands significant trust, which is reflected in the increased traffic to many of the newspaper online sites, which continue to grow significantly,” explained Pam Foran, president of the New York-based Online Publishers Association. “Consumers need quality content to stay informed on news events and to help make buying decisions.”
