HuffPost Canada Music launched today, joining AOL Canada's family of music properties which includes AOL Music Canada, Spinner.ca, The Boot, The Boombox, Noisecreep and AOL Radio. The site combines The Huffington Post's powerful engagement and blogging platform with groundbreaking music content, original one-on-one interviews, exclusive videos, performances and more.
To celebrate the launch, HuffPost Canada Music has teamed up with Universal Music Canada to offer the chance to win a trip for two to New York City to see The Smashing Pumpkins live in concert. The contest invites visitors to test their Smashing Pumpkins knowledge with a unique trivia quiz and then gives them a chance to enter to win.
Launch partners also include Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. and their media agency, PHD. Ads for their Back-to-School campaign are running across all AOL music properties, including HuffPost Canada Music.
The Huffington Post Canada launched in May 2011 as the first international edition of The Huffington Post, and now reaches 3.4 million online Canadians through its various Canadian channels and sites. It has an ever-growing social following, boasting more than 51,000 Facebook fans, more than 36,000 Twitter followers and receiving more than 14,000 comments per week.
*Source: comScore, Inc., Total Canada, Home & Work, June 2012. 3 month average from [M] AOL Music. The Huffington Post data from [E] Huffington Post Global.
We're excited to announce that HuffPost Live, our new live streaming network, will be coming to a screen near you on August 13. One of our goals is to create the most social video experience possible, so we're inviting our HuffPost community of readers to now join us live on the air to become an integral part of the dynamic, ongoing conversation that is the heart and soul of HuffPost Live.
HuffPost Live is built on a platform that includes many innovative features that we would like you to learn about before we go live so you'll be as prepared as our hosts and producers. Read a full list of FAQ's about HuffPost Live here.The HuffPost community is growing exponentially and HuffPost Live will take it to the next level.
More than 12,000 people gathered in France for seven days to discuss, debate and celebrate the best in creative advertising during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Among those attendees were creative agencies from around the world including Crispin Porter Bogusky, BBDO, Leo Burnett and the global leadership teams from brands such as Coca-Cola, Hyundai and Visa. AOL was on the scene, both on the ground and online, highlighting our thought leadership in online advertising and creativity through stage presentations, panels, events and activations.
During the "Engaging Generation Social" presentation, Rene Rechtman head of AOL Advertising International and CEO of GoViral, spoke about "high impact formats and how brands should concentrate on creating a peer-to-peer environment." Meanwhile, Arianna Huffington and Roy Sekoff presented "Tapping the Zeitgeist: The Participation Revolution, Unplugging to Recharge, and Tweeting Our Way to Compassion," a session about building a more human Internet. They also previewed HuffPost Live (formerly called Huffington Post Streaming Network) on a global stage for the first time. Video highlights from both sessions are available here and here.
AOL Agency Development, a small strategic team dedicated to building and strengthening our relationships and business across the four largest holding companies, held numerous meetings and events designed to dig deeper into the challenges, opportunities and successes in the agency business. During AOL and Interpublic Group (IPG)'s panel discussion on "Why Brands Matter," panelists from AOL, IPG, Initiative North America and Purpose spoke about the unique role advertising and creativity can play in building a better world. AOLer, David Shing also sat down with WPP's GroupM CEO Rob Norman and Y&R CEO David Sable for a discussion about the year's biggest trends, prior to a dinner for 40 WPP clients at the AOL suite.
AOL spent a full day with Publicis hosting two panel discussions, the first, made up of six senior creatives from across VivaKi and Leo Burnett, explored the best work of 2012 for an audience of 100 clients. Publicis ad agency Digitas also brought the highly successful Digital Content NewFronts, of which AOL is a founding partner, to their global clients in Cannes. During a private panel for 50 attendees, Karen Cahn represented AOL speaking about great partnerships and moving brands forward through AOL's Branded Experiences.
On AOL's last day in Cannes, we hosted a panel on the hottest topics and biggest stories emerging from this year's Cannes Lions. Led by David Shing and Jonathan Haber, Chief Innovation Officer of Omnicom's OMD, our closing event provided an excellent summary of all that was seen, celebrated and debated during the week.Check out more highlights from our trip to Cannes by reading our Storify recap below.
Montserrat Domínguez, most recently director and host of "A vivir que son dos días," the leading weekend radio show at Cadena SER, is editorial director. Read her blog post today about the new site. During her long journalism career, Montserrat has also worked for Efe News Agency, Canal +, Antena 3, and Tele 5, served as a political contributor to La Vanguardia and is VP of the Spanish section of the European Journalists Association.
Read about the rest of the team in Arianna Huffington's blog post in English or in Spanish. Huffington also shares the launch day lineup of bloggers and talks about the economic climate in Spain, saying that "Spain is at a crucial moment in its history, engulfed in crisis and facing steep challenges." Take a behind the scenes look at the launch by viewing these pictures and a video.
After mentoring a group of eager sixth graders for the past 10 weeks, several Boston AOLers got the chance last week to see our students shine.Through the Citizen Schools program, which partners with middle schools in low-income communities to extend the learning day and provide students with new learning opportunities and experiences, we've worked with the kids to teach them all about business networking.
At last week's "6 Degrees of Boston WOW!" event, we saw our young apprentices test their skills shaking hands, making small talk, asking career-related questions and politely transitioning between conversations. Other Boston AOLers joined us at the event to staff an AOL booth, trade-show-style. Our team exchanged business cards and career information with the students and socialized with future engineers, doctors, pianists, and basketball players.
The event culminated the second consecutive semester the Boston office has participated in the Citizen Schools program, with which AOL has partnered for the past three years. Our colleagues in New York have also mentored groups of kids twice yearly, culminating in "WOW" events hosted in the New York office. In addition, Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington taught a Citizen Schools class about local journalism last year.
Learn more about AOL's community initiatives here.
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