Marketwire, a leading newswire service offering press release distribution, media contact management, multimedia, media monitoring services and other workflow solutions for public relations, investor relations, journalists and other communications professionals, helps companies navigate the social media waters. Companies can easily issue multimedia-enhanced press releases with embedded photos and video thanks to Marketwire’s flexible platform. Marketwire also offers webcasting services with 90-day archives and vanity URL.

Companies interesting in monitoring their online reputation can now access Sysomos through Marketwire. Sysomos’ two platforms, Heartbeat and MAP, provide automated sentiment, key influencer tracking, geo-demographic information, and access to real-time and historical social media conversations.

You can check Marketwire’s Sysomos Hearbeat out here:

Be sure to say hello to Chantal Jura, Media relations coordinator at Marketwire who will be attending PodCamp Montreal 2010.

And thanks, Marketwire. By financially supporting PodCamp Montreal as a Bronze sponsor, you’re making a solid investment in Montreal’s social media community.

Luckily for us, in our third year we had some generous donors come to us before we had time to reach out to them, and Rogers Communications was one of those companies who decided to reach out to us to offer Montreal’s podcasting and social media community some much appreciated support. In fact, Rogers has supported PodCamp Montreal for the last two years, which tells us that maybe we’re doing something right!

Make sure you take time to meet two representatives from Rogers who will be spending PodCamp weekend with us : Miranda Macdonald is a Social Media Specialist, while Elise Ondet is Bilingual Specialist, Monitoring & Engagement – Social Media at Rogers Communications Inc.

Between you and me …. I’d be particularly friendly with Miranda and Elise if I were you, ’cause they’re going to be bringing some pretty sweet Rogers swag with them to PodCamp. The following Rogers items will be featured in a series of special draws that will happen sometime over the course of the PodCamp Montreal weekend :

1. Rocket Mobile hotspot valued at $249.99
2. Acer Liquid E smartphone valued at $424.99
3. Two BlackBerry prize packs filled with lots of goodies

Rogers is one of many companies who have been successfully using social media to improve the customer experience. Here are some of the ways they’re doing that :

• RedBoard – launched in March 2010, this is Rogers’ official corporate blog, and a place to discuss news and ideas as well as industry issues and trends.
• Community Forums – launched at the beginning of August, these forums aim to help customers find answers to their technical questions
• You’ll find Rogers on Twitter too : @RogersBuzz is the Rogers channel for news, contests, and promotions. @RogersHelps is a Rogers customer service channel on Twitter. Some Rogers employees also have their own Twitter accounts so they can engage individually with Twitter users. You can find them @RogersElise, @RogersMiranda, @RogersMary, @RogersKeith (hi Keith!) @RogersRob (thanks for the sponsorship Rob!), among others.

So thanks Rogers! We appreciate the support.

I’m going to sign off with Rogers’ take on the famous Social Media Revolution video, with some local flavour added to the mix – You’ll find some pretty cool social media stats here, so check it out :

UPDATE: Oops! I uploaded the Social Media Revolution video instead of the Rogers Next is Now video. While you’re visiting the RogersCommInc YouTube Channel, check out this most recent video featuring the BlackBerry Torch 9800 with the engaging Miranda Macdonald.

From the John & Yoko suite of the Queen Elisabeth hôtel, he talks about the cool stuff that may happen at PodCamp this year.

Julien Smith introduce you to one of Quebec’s finest delicacies : Poutine! But before, he’ll show you the facility where PodCamp Montreal 2008 will be held at, and the bar for our Friday night party…

Internally, as a podcamp organising committee, we sat down to discuss the possibility of following this set of “rules” in order to present PodCamp Montréal as a “next generation” event. So hat tip to Solaris, here are the 5 signs an event is 1.0 and how PodCamp Montreal intends to address each one.

You know your event is 1.0 when…

1. You have a web page but not a blog

This one is self explanatory. You are reading this from our blog now, aren’t you?

What makes a blog much more interesting than a static webpage? It’s interactive! You can react to pretty much everything by using the comment form below. And this isn’t a one way street : we’ll respond to your comment as soon as possible, as we already have done with other blogposts.

Expect to see more content, like conferences descriptions and related stuff about the event starting this week…

2. You don’t have a Twitter account for the event

Not only are we on Twitter, but we are on Identica as well, a open-source alternative to Twitter, which, incidentally, is much faster. Follow us @podcampmontreal to get the latest details about the event (we’ll obviously chat more on the actual weekend of the event). You can also know what others are think of PodCamp Montreal by tracking the #pcmtl tag. This tag, suggested by one of our participants, helps stream the conversation on both platforms.

For those of you who don’t know what microblogging is about, here’s a cool video : Twitter in Plain English.

3. You are not webcasting

Laurent Maisonnave and his colleague Christian Aubry will be streaming some of PodCamp Montreal’s sessions online. Unfortunately, we can’t webcast every session, but we’ll do what we can to ensure that people who couldn’t make it to Montreal this year get as much out of PodCamp Montreal as possible, without actually being there.

4. You did not create a community beforehand

Fortunately, the PodCamp movement helps us a big way! PodCamps have been happening all over the world for the past few years. The result is a strong community that believes in its formula.

PodCamp Montreal’s volunteer organizing committee includes people well connected with the blogging and podcasting community in Canada, and internationally as well.

5. You are having an impact on the environment

Our idea was to minimize the paper usage by not producing flyers to promote the event; we’ll probably think of something for the schedule as well, make it smaller, or to encourage people to go straight on our blog with their iPhones, iPod or Blackberry.

In conclusion, as you come to Montreal to share knowledge, you are what will make PodCamp Montreal a Web 2.0 event. The quality of the information you exchange with one another and with us will be the 2.0 reward you will offer to the PodCamp Montreal organising committee.