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I recently had the pleasure of speaking at one of the hottest digital media events held in 8 cities around the world - Social Media Week - about some of my favourite topics - media, broadcasting and the Internet. Marie (my partner-in-crime on NatandMarie.com) and I lead a conversation called “Engaging Entertainment.” Needless to say, this was a pretty exciting milestone (and experience) for our team. I love getting to chat to people about online video and how it’s evolving. But adding livestreaming and true engagingement into the mix was truly inspiring. Here’s the description of the talk:

“What if you took any camera that could stream, free services, inexpensive tools a supportive circle of friends and hedged a major bet on a motley crew of statistics sourced from several online sources? You’d see a batch of new talent and new growth emerge that blur the lines between radio, television and social media engagement. Live streaming entertainment is on the 2011 docket for the team behind NatandMarie.com. From the technical to the marketing, from the production to the delivery, the show’s team will share some behind-the-scenes tips and overcoming challenges on creating engaged entertainment for the 21st century.”

You can watch the LiveStream of the talk here (it doesn’t ACTUALLY start until around 20 minutes into the recording).

Not sure if you’re following me on Twitter or Facebook, but if you are, you’re probably aware by now that my partner-in-crime, Marie, and I have launched a live streaming talk show that explores all the best there is to experience in online and pop culture. We geek out over the latest viral videos, YouTube WTF discoveries (like this video about Japan’s virtual diva, Hatsune Miku, who is now a 3D hologram performing for thousands in a live concert??), Twitter trending topics, fascinating online personalities, buzz-worthy news and mixing a cocktail-of-the week (usually of our own creation), all while engaging with our viewers live on Ustream, Twitter and Facebook.

Oh, and we have a very cool growing team so far including Matt Read doing all our hyping and moderating online, as well as Roberto Sarjoo who is our resident DJ-extraordinaire spinning the latest singles every week exclusively for our crowd. And I can’t forget the amazingly unique (mind-bogglingly unique…have you seen their Harth Night? Or heard their self-produced tunes?) BNotions boyz who are letting us crash their pimpin’ office for our studio set.

Considering all the online video experience I’ve had, live streaming is an area I’ve been curious to explore. And the R&D with Marie has been fruitful and giddy-worthy, indeed.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook!

Check out for more shinanigans on our YouTube

And track us on Twitter with #NatandMarie when we’re airing every Wednesday, around 8 p.m. ET on NatandMarie.com

You know that weekly wine show I produce with Frogwater Media called Naked Wine Show? Well, it has evolved and has been picked up by FoodNetwork.ca! It went through a wee bit of a re-brand as “Grape Notes” (which I suppose is a little more network friendly) but features our awesome host, Susan Sterling, doing her thang daily. And instead of just reviews we’re also doing wine How To’s, Memory Notes (ie. how to determine notes in wine like apple, coffee, dirt etc) and Top 5 lists!

Here’s some coverage you can read more about it from TechVibes, MediaCaster and Food Network itself!

Check out a new wine-y episode every day on FoodNetwork.ca.

And make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

Considering I’m a nerd for doing interviews, I rarely am faced with the opportunity to be the interviewee. However, The Questionnaire recently reached out to do a Q&A with me, and I’m pretty pumped with the results. They profile notables within arts and entertainment, so I’m honored to be featured among the likes of Veronica Belmont, Amanda Congdon and The Guild’s Sandip Parikh.

While reading through the questions, it really reminded me of those Proust Questionnaires featured on the last page of every issue of Vanity Fair. They’re painfully fascinating and for such a concise limit of words offer an explosion of insight about an individual.

Here’s a snippet:

What turns you on creatively?
Strangely enough, showers are where I get the most of my ideas. I guess there’s some sort of clarity when you’re “washing away” everything else under a hot jet of water.

What is your favorite sound?
The ocean. Or a huge, booming belly laugh from the people I adore.

Pretty cool, right? Check out the rest of the interview here!

I recently entered a rather FANTASTIC sounding contest with a fellow parter-in-crime, Marie Nicola of TwentySomethingTV and Karmacake.ca fame, to win the best travel job ever. Coincidentally that’s the name of the contest, BestTravelJobEver.com.

It seems like Flight Centre, who’s putting on the contest (along with a slew of sponsors including Intrepid Travel and Air Canada), have jumped on the social media bandwagon to rally up the most adventuresome, travel lusty communicators across Canada to create a short video about why they’re the best choice to win the contest.

The videos are up for voting for the month of April and then the Top 25 videos are evaluated by a panel of celeb judges. Six entrants get sent on a trip by Intrepid Travel to vlog to their heart’s content. And then the best two from that gets the GRAND PRIZE from Flight Centre.

Here’s our rather salacious entry. We decided to go for the tongue-in-cheek testimonial approach. Plus, it’s the first piece of video I’ve been the editor for in a looong while. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out:)

So guess who’s a columnist for Women’s Post?

Yep. Me. How rad is that?

It’s a bi-monthly column called “Bridging the Gap” and its aim is to discuss the interactions between Old Media vs. New Media.

I’m pretty pumped because I get to use this forum to analyze and geek out about all the different moves played by traditional media outlets like TV, magazines and newspapers to try to make themselves more relevant via the rapidly changing medium of the Net. On the flipside, I also get to talk about New Media and how its users have been working to legitimize themselves and build business models around the content they’re creating on the web.

My first column really sums it all up:

The Internet has been a catalyst for change for a lot of different industries, but particularly within the world of traditional media, like newspapers, magazines and television.

Over the last six years, I’ve worked various media roles, from a chase producer for Canadian network programs to launching five online TV shows. Coming from a background of both traditional and “new media,” which essentially means online publications and web shows, I have had the benefit of seeing how both worlds have been growing and adapting to each other to accommodate this paradigm shift in how media is being consumed by the general public.

With regards to video consumption, for example, ComScore’s latest Video Metrix data report released April 2009 ranked Canada as the highest in online video viewing - beating countries like the UK, Germany, France, and the U.S. - and reported that the average Canadian online viewer spent 10 hours viewing online content, up 53 percent from last year.

The Internet really is the Wild West for mass media and in this column I’ll be taking a look at how the web has affected traditional mediums and point towards concrete examples of stories like networks launching webisodes to complement their TV shows or original web-only series; citizen journalism or viewer-created content becoming more sought out by news organizations; and newspapers and networks embracing the two-way conversation the Internet has become notorious for.

I’ll even be bringing to light examples of how web start-ups have made the leap into traditional mediums, with online magazines expanding into print or web series being sold to networks and launched as TV shows.

It seems the medium is no longer the message. Not entirely, at least. Content is king. And hopefully this column will help make sense of it all and offer a forum to explore, discuss and bridge the gap between Old Media and New Media.

Every year the CBC holds an annual televised event called “Test the Nation” where Canadians (in-studio and in their homes) participate in a LIVE two-hour interactive IQ test.

There are half a dozen in-studio teams, and this year I was called upon to join arms with the NERDS heh heh. Quite frankly, it was a team of Nerds AND Geeks, but the difference between the two (whether there really IS one) will be left for another blog post.

There were a total of 180 participants divided into six teams, including Twins, Politicians, Believers, Atheists and Contact Sports Athletes. It was a “star-studded” event with the likes of Justin Trudeau, Marc Garneau, Little Mosque on the Prarie’s Brandon Firla and Dragons’ Den’s Brett Wilson. And the TV special exceeded a million viewers across the nation. Pretty rad.

Naturally Team Nerds won. Could it be any other way?:)

Here are some pics of our hijinx:

Check out the episode and cheer along with the Nerds in all their glory:)

One of the shows I produce, Naked Wine Show, won a Tasty Award this week. Yay!

What are the Tasty Awards?

Held in San Francisco, it describes itself as the Oscars of the food, fashion, drink and style industries and awards people for outstanding food and fashion programs on television, film and online.

Luckily, the Naked Wine Show made the cut as a nominee in the “Best Critic/Review Show” category. And then beat out unbelievable competition like Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk’s Wine Library TV. For those who don’t know, GaryV’s held the stranglehold on anything having to do with WINE on the Internet for years. So…this really does feel like a double whammy of an achievement for the show.

NewTeeVee broke the story. Then win was also featured in the New York Times and CNN. Badass.

You better believe we celebrated with wine. LOTS of it:)

The past few days have been rather interesting, as I’ve been adjusting to life back in bustling and teeth-chatteringly cold Toronto.

Why, you may ask?

Because I just came back from my dream trip to India! (No, I’m not gloating. I’m just grateful for being able to say that:) I just spent 3 1/2 weeks wandering through central, north eastern and southern India and my GOD, all the reading and interviewing and research in the world couldn’t have prepared me for the raw and unapologetically chaotic world that is India.

People have often asked me why I decided to go to this land of spices, mythology and aggressive development. My answer is simple: I’ve always been drawn to it. Ever since I was about 12, I used to sit in my parents’ living room every Sunday morning and watch Bollywood movies on TV. I usually didn’t understand a word of it, but something about the stories and the way they were presented always drew me in. As I grew older, more and more things about the culture and society intrigued me: the spirituality; the vibrant clothing and jewelry; the mouth-watering cuisine; the traditional values and how it clashes with the rapid westernization of their youth today; the music and movies; the dichotomy of rich and poor; the sheer factor that once you’re there you can’t believe that all the little pieces that make up that society somehow manage to grate against each other and function. It’s like a beautiful engima.

So you see, I could never avoid going. And thus begins my love affair with India. Because once you’ve had a taste of her, I sense you’ll always be drawn back for more.

My partner in crime in my day-to-day life, Matt, joined me on this spicy adventure. And I gotta say, when you stick a journalist and a filmmaker together, you get some pretty informative AND entertaining video diaries:)

Our journey starts in Mumbai then goes up to the mountains of Darjeeling, down to Buddha’s home of enlightenment, Bodhgaya, then over to the holiest point of existence for Hindu’s, Varanasi. It then treks over to Agra, home of the Red Fort and Taj Mahal, then to the palaces of Jaipur and a hop, skip and jump down to the southern state of Kerala, infamous for its backwater boat rides and ayurvedic treatments. The final destination? Notorious Goa, known for its white-sand beaches (spotted with cows, of course!) and echoes of the trance party scenes of the 90s and long-haired hippies before then.

I was recently called by a gal pal with whom it was inevitable I would become friends with, Amber Mac, to guest star on her new-ish (well, re-booted) show Webnation on CP24.

Obviously I was ecstatic to join her and got to come on to do a review of an app that has recently become very popular on the iPhone due to T-Pain’s shenanigans online -  Auto-Tune.

Although I thoroughly embarrassed myself trying to sing the Canadian anthem into it (though my most intimate friends assure me I was bubbly and adorable AS WELL as informative) I also got to review two of my personal faves on my iPhone, Shazam and Recorder.

I still need to get the video to embed to my site, but for now here are some pics and the URL where you can watch me in action: