Eric Squair’s blog

Created my first facebook ad today, for an event next week in Guelph. I am not that impressed with the functionality – or the fact it has taken more than four hours (and counting) for the ad to be approved.

Sure, it’s interesting that I can choose a specific age range and geographic location for the audience. But the innovations stop there. I don’t see a lot of other options to target ads at this point. The limited keywords you can associate with your ad are not that useful.

But the real kicker is that I don’t think facebook ads confer any real benefits to progressive campaigns that they don’t already get from the natural dynamics of facebook. Continue Reading »

Last week a mid-sized Canadian company that sold proprietary content management systems went bust. Someone I know had been working with them on a new website for the past six months, and it was set to launch next week.

“Oh, no problem” I thought. “You can just hire a few newly-unemployed coders who are familiar with the code to finish off the job for you.” Of course, that is not the case, as I quickly realized I was thinking in terms of open source projects. The code in this case proprietary, and belongs to the now-defunct company’s creditors. No one else can touch it. When you don’t use open source software and something bad happens to your vendor, you’re stuck. Continue Reading »

It’s been more than a week since the Social Tech Training ended, and I am just wrapping my head around it now. Sixty five people from the social change sector came together at the MaRs centre in Toronto for three intense days of workshops on how to communicate effectively online. Non-stop sessions led by some super people got me excited all over again about the world changing potential of this online communications work. Continue Reading »