Promoting local businesses for the second year, Neighbourhood Toy Store Day will be celebrated across Canada this Saturday, November 10th. Over 50 independent toy stores from Charlottetown to Courtenay will open their doors for demos, games, crafts, giveaways and more along with a full day of shopping.

The following stores are in the Vancouver area will be participating:

Granville Island Toy Company
Location: 3298 Main St, Vancouver
Website, Facebook, Twitter

The Toy Jungle Enterprises Inc
Location: 2022 Park Royal South Ave, West Vancouver
Website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

The Village Toy Shop
Location: 262 Newport Drive, Port Moody
Website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Follow Neighbourhood Toy Stores of Canada (“A Canadian network of specialty toy retailers and their suppliers working together to provide a superior source of toys within our communities”) on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

Free outdoor movies are all the rage during the summer months, from Ceperley Meadow in Stanley Park to the Shops at Morgan Crossing. The City of Surrey continues to offer free movies this season at their library locations:

City Centre Library. Photo credit: colink. on Flickr

Guildford Library (15105 – 105th Ave)
Movie: “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief”
Time: Friday, November 9, 2012 at 2:00pm
Location: Meeting room
Notes: For pre-teens and teens.
Children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult.

Newton Library (13795 – 70th Ave)
Movie: “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Time: Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 3:00pm
Location: Meeting room
Notes: Drop in, bring your own snacks.
Movie rated PG for coarse language.
Children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult.

Newton Library (13795 – 70th Ave)
Movie: “The Artist”
Time: Thursday, November 22, 2012 at 3:00pm
Location: Meeting room
Notes: Drop in, bring your own snacks.
Movie rated PG-13 for mature themes.

Guildford Library (15105 – 105th Ave)
Movie: “Water for Elephants”
Time: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 10:00am
Location: Meeting room
Notes: For adults. Movie rated PG-13.

City Centre Library (10350 University Drive)
Movie: “500 Days of Summer”
Time: Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 6:30pm
Location: Dr. Ambedkar Room (418)
Notes: Rated PG-13.
Children under 13 must be accompanied by an adult.

Guildford Library (15105 – 105th Ave)
Movie: “The Polar Express”
Time: Saturday, December 8, 2012 at 2:00pm
Location: Meeting room
Notes: Children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult.

These movie days offer affordable entertainment for all ages in a safe environment — and you can even bring your own snacks. For more information check out the listings on the city’s website and follow @Surrey_Events and @SurreyLibrary on Twitter for updates.

Twitter chats and town hall meetings are becoming more popular with the inclusion of celebrities and local politicians who open themselves up to answer questions about specific topics online. If you’re a basic Twitter user, you may now know how to participate in these discussions so I thought that I would outline a few key steps:

Twitter uses hashtags like #Miss604ExplainsTwitterChats. A question I get asked often at speaking engagements is: How do I register a tag? There’s no fee, no process, and no secret to it really. Anyone can create and add a hashtag to their Twitter status simply by including whatever they would like it to be in their status update. Sometimes you’ll even get a facetious tag or one that is used to illustrate an inner monologue like: “I just ate 2 doughnuts #yummy #sofull.”

Using a Twitter tag
Tags are most common when following specific topics since Twitter makes them a hyperlink. You can click on the tags in someone’s Twitter status and see everyone else who is using that same tag.

My first encounter with tags was at conferences when people wanted to talk about speakers, arrange lunch, or share ideas and information. You can even go home later and read through all of the tagged updates on Twitter about #123Conference to see what you might have missed.

Tracking the tag with tools
While at a conference or while tracking a specific topic, I’ll create a new tab in my HootSuite dashboard. HootSuite is a social media manager that allows you to sort your Twitter views into tabs and columns. I can have one tab for Miss604 and columns for my main Twitter feed, another tab for the search term “Miss604”, and another tab for Direct Messages. You can add a tab in HootSuite specifically for topic-related tweets. Under the tab you can add columns such as one for the speakers and another for your @mentions. HootSuite has a free option, is browser-based (no need to download anything), and is developed right here in Vancouver.

Other applications like Echofon on the iPhone allow you to save searches (for keyword, topics, tags) as well. If you’re not into using another tool, you can simply use the “Search” function in Twitter. Type in the tag you want to follow and watch updates flow through right from Twitter on the web.

I prefer using HootSuite or Twitter’s search but you can also use another third party tool like TweetChat to monitor a tag/topic on Twitter. You just need to sync it up to your Twitter account to participate.

Saving tagged status updates
Once the live chatted has stopped you can archive updates using a tool like Storify that will call up all of the tweets that were posted using a certain tag. You can then build your own recap using the tweets it supplies. You can save your Storify profile for that event and even post it on your blog.

On WordPress (the blogging platform that I use) I can also copy and paste the URL of a Twitter status update into my blog post (as I do below).

Twitter chats around BC
You can now use your topic-tracking abilities to follow discussions like the weekly #BCWineChat on Wednesdays or the #VisionTownHall last night.

On November 13, 2012 from 1:30pm to 2:30pm you can follow Premier Christy Clark and the tag #ERASEBullying for a provincial summit on anti-bullying on Twitter.

Should you have any questions about this topic or other social media practices, please feel free to contact me. My book: Blogging to Drive Business: 2nd Edition is also in stores now.

You may notice a few new search result features on Google lately when looking up local businesses and restaurants. Google Street Views for Business now takes you inside the establishment to get a lay of the land and a Vancouver company is helping to make that possible.

Alex Duffield of InControl Solutions is one of many photographers around the world that is trusted by Google to capture these images for their listings. “They launched [Street Views for Business] officially in May of this year, with ‘certified photographers‘ after doing tests in selects cities in the US the year before,” Alex told me. “I heard about the program through a contact at Nodal Ninja, a company that makes the special camera rotators that are used.”

Alex applied for the program and was approved. So far he’s shot tours for over 120 attractions and was the second highest performing photographer for North America this past September. He also has a certified staff member in Whistler.

So just how does it work? How does a business get their virtual tour image to show up on Google? You can start by checking out the Google Business Photos information page and selecting a photographer. Alex says businesses then pay them directly and they make it happen.

“It is a one time fee to cover our time in shooting the location, uploading and moderating the tour on Googles servers and publishing. Moderating is basically making sure all faces and license plates are blurred, positioning the tour correctly on google maps, and making sure each point in our tour is linked correctly and at the right distance form each other so that when the user navigates the tour, the arrows point correctly and the tour flows well.”

Alex’s company provides clients with the final copies of the photos and they remain property of the business, allowing them to use the images as they like once the tour is published. The business licences the images to Google to use online as well as the photographer (Alex) to use in marketing efforts. They shoot fisheye shots and non-fisheye, stitched and non-stitched, 360 degree photos, and more. Photos without any effect are used on the business’ Google+ local page.

“As far as benefits to the business, apart from the obvious in giving user the ability to virtually come in and look around an establishment, there are several perks that help enhance the online presence and format on how the company will be seen in search results.” Alex says that having a tour provides a ‘look inside’ image to company listings in Google search results, Google Maps, and on local businesses pages.

To find a Google Trusted Photographer businesses can search Google’s directory for one in their area. There are currently six in Vancouver with Alex listed as one of three Top Performers. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

After publishing almost 100 posts with collections of photos from the Vancouver Archives and Vancouver Public Library, I have taken note of some important and prolific photographers from Vancouver’s earlier days. One name that comes up often is Artray Studio“>Artray Studios or Artray Limited. Today’s collection of photos from the Vancouver Library Archives features the work of Art Jones.

1948 – Art Jones & staff in gag photo. VPL Number: 80437.

Art Jones, together with fellow photojournalist Ray Munro, left the Vancouver Sun to incorporate artray limited early in 1948 and to produce all of the photographs that are now available through this website. Art and Ray were only in business for a very short time; Art bought Ray Munro out later that year. [Vancouver Public Library]

1948 – Overturned streetcar at 4th & Alma. VPL Number: 84841.

1940s – Vancouver Capilanos Baseball. VPL Number: 84038 & 84287.

1945 – CKMO Radio. VPL Number: 80452.

(Left) 1948 – Orpheum billboard on the sidewalk. VPL Number: 80502.
(Right) 1948 – Candy display at the Stanley theatre. VPL Number: 83121.

1948 – Orpheum Theatre & symphony. VPL Number: 83114.

Early in 1994, a collection of approximately 11,000 photographs from Artray Limited Photographers was donated to Vancouver Public Library. This collection comprises a treasure trove of images of Vancouver from the 1940s and 50s depicting: street scenes; vehicles; traffic accidents; local and visiting celebrities; theatres; parades; local architecture and industry; sports; people at work and play, as well as aerial views of the city. [Vancouver Public Library]

(Left) 1948 – Hockey fight. VPL Number: 84084.
(Right) 1948 – PCHL Canucks win Henderson Cup. VPL Number: 84099.

1948 – Red Cross flood relief operations. VPL Number: 83568.

1948 – Fraser Valley Flood. VPL Number: 83564.

(Left) 1948 – Looking north on Burrard from Dunsmuir. VPL Number: 80556. (Right) 1948 – West Broadway at Maple. VPL Number: 80522.

Related posts: Philip Timms, Leonard Frank, Walter Edwin Frost, Bailey Bros., Don Coltman, Fred Herzog.