Filemobile helps bring Life Is Good’s Good Vibes to the masses

May 15th, 2012, Toronto. That was the idea when Boston, MA-based Life Is Good, one of the fastest-growing fashion and lifestyle brands in the U.S., launched its Good Vibes project inviting its many fans to share their experiences while living active lifestyles. Why? The brand’s mission is to spread the power of optimism and help kids in need through its products and non-profit efforts, so it made sense to ask its highly-engaged devotees to share photos and stories of how Life Is Good has changed their lives, or simply fun stories of good times had while wearing the company’s clothes.

Within this “Hub of Optimism,” visitors worldwide can share inspiration by uploading pictures, videos, quotes and stories, adding to an overall anthology of all things optimistic.

Their stories range from the hilarious to the heartwarming. Take that of the couple (former best friends who eventually became a couple and got married) who embraced Life Is Good’s message years ago and have spent their time together being active and simply enjoying life—all while nurturing a healthy addiction to the brand’s shirts, pyjama pants, bags and car magnets. Then there’s the story of the businessmen travelling in first class on a recent overseas flight. After realizing they were both wearing Life Is Good t-shirts, the pair struck up a conversation and wound up doing business together, not to mention becoming friends.

The, um, good vibes for Good Vibes have been so strong that the page has been virtually inundated with stories every day since the initiative launched.

To breathe life into the project, Life Is Good turned to Filemobile and its Media Factory social media suite to provide a flexible and reliable platform to accept those uplifting user-generated photos and stories.

“This is a great example of how a brand can effectively engage its many fans and create interesting content,” said Filemobile chief financial officer Ron Watson. “Good Vibes’ momentum has been steadily increasing, so we’re excited to see how many more people upload content to the website and share their stories.”

What’s clear is that Life Is Good’s fans not only boast a lust for life, they’re eager to share their passion—all with an emphasis on the simplicity, humour and humility that’s made the brand so popular—with millions of people the world over.

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Filemobile helps President’s Choice fire up Canada’s hottest BBQ contest

May 7th, 2012, Toronto - Think your community has what it takes to win Canada’s most delicious backyard barbecue?

If the answer is yes, then it’s time to enter the President’s Choice BBQTown Grand Prize Event. The concept behind the interactive online contest is simple: residents nominate their communities at www.foodnetwork.ca/pc, then work to earn the grand prize. How? The winning community will be the one that shows the most enthusiasm, creativity, home-town pride and community spirit by uploading photos and videos to the website, all showcasing the many reasons why theirs is deserving of PC’s legendary barbecue prize.

A panel of judges from Loblaw will select the top 20 communities who showed the most enthusiasm, at which time the voting will open up to Canadians from coast-to-coast to vote on who they think should take the topBBQ honours. The grand prize and runner-up winners will be announced at www.foodnetwork.ca/pc on June 14th, 2012.

So, what exactly are those mouth-watering prizes? The big one is a barbecue event for up to 5,000 people featuring a host of President’s Choice products, family entertainment, the opportunity to set a world record for most hamburgers assembled in one hour and performances throughout the day by chart-topping Canadian rockers Hedley. An additional $25,000 will be donated to the President’s Choice Children’s Charity to support a nutrition program in the winning community. To top it all off, the barbecue will be hosted by President's Choice Chef Tom and Food Network celebrity culinary wizard Bob Blumer.

Of course, the runner-up prize is also sure to cook up plenty of interest. The second place-finishing community will earn a visit on PC’s BBQTown tour and a barbecue for up to 2,000 people.

Filemobile is providing the online contest software to Shaw Media's Food Network who is in turn providing President's Choice with a sponsorship vehicle for this program. The Media Factory platform has already accepted hundreds of submissions from hungry towns across Canada.

Remember that voting closes May 20th, 2012, so act fast—and start shooting photos and videos—to ensure your community wins the barbecue of a lifetime!

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Media Factory Photo / Video Contest for Facebook

April 12th, 2012, Toronto - The Filemobile team is pleased to announce the release of our new Photo / Video Contest for Facebook! This product has all the features of our famous UGC Photo / Video Contest microsite, but with deep social network integration.

This product was built to be both a standalone contest in Facebook or a companion website to the original UGC contest. Most of the CSS presentation code is shared across both applications and styles and graphics from one can be applied to the other.

What does this mean for you?

It means two, fully-branded contest experiences on your website and Facebook at a fraction of the cost of custom builds. Include the transcoding power and advanced moderation workflows of Media Factory, and you have the complete user-generated content contesting package.

Here are the features of the new Facebook Photo / Video Contest at a glance:

• Designed for the latest version of Facebook
• Includes a “fan gate” to encourage users to Like your page
• Apply CSS from the Photo / Video Contest Microsite to create a Facebook version
• Facebook users install app and grant permissions to post to their timeline
• Low-barrier user experience for voting and commenting
• Customizable additional information entry form
• Optionally place entering or voting behind a fan gate
• Support for just about every upload file format known to man
• Entry, vote and comment actions published to user timeline
• Full support for secure HTTPS browsing

The Developer Documentation Portal contains everything you need to know to configure and customize your application. For more details on how the Photo / Video Contest for Facebook looks and works, continue reading below!

Launch from your Facebook Timeline Brand Page

Filemobile's Photo / Video Contest for Facebook was designed with Facebook's Timeline in mind. Once installed in your brand page, it can be accessed via the applications block. The icon is also customizable to match your brand and contest theme.

Increase Page Likes with a Fan Gate

When users click on the contest icon from your brand timeline, they are presented with a large image that suggests they Like your page. You can choose to make this image clickable through to the contest, or have it disabled until the Like button is clicked. Once the user likes your page, the image is automatically refreshed to the second image, which links to the full contest application within Facebook.

Both of these images are completely customizable with your creative, and can contain HTML, video or anything else you wish.

The Photo / Video Contest Canvas Application

The core contest experience happens within a fully integrated Facebook canvas application. This means that every page of the contest has a unique URL – perfect for sharing. It also means that users will experience the familiar process of authenticating the application before they are able to interact.

The look and styles of each page are customizable via CSS and sprites. For example, the text color, fonts and background color are easily modified in the provided CSS stylesheets. The boxes and tab styles can be modified by editing a single sprite image that is downloadable from the contest documentation portal.

Every contest entry has a dedicated page with many sharing options that include StumbleUpon, Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and of course, Facebook! In addition, users can send the page with a message via email.

There are two commenting options available. Media Factory multimedia comments are fully integrated into the contest moderation workflow. Facebook comments are a familiar interface proven to drive engagement.

Each entry page has a large, clear vote button begging to be clicked. Rules are configured to limit voting to once per hour, once per day or once ever per entry. Each vote can be published to the Facebook newsfeed!

The enter and upload pages are used to collect additional information about users, and accept a file upload. All form field labels can be edited, and any number of additional fields can be added. These can include text or check boxes. All information is stored on Filemobile’s secure servers.

When an entry is moderated from within Media Factory, an email is automatically sent to the entrant. Approval emails contain a thumbnail of the entry, a call-to-action and a link to the entry page. Denial emails contain the reasons for denial that can include copyright infringement or offensive content. All email templates support multiple languages and can be completely customized with graphics and HTML.

Don't forget to take the demo application for a test drive!

Like what you see? Contact us and get your Facebook photo or video contest up and running today!

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Media Factory 3.1.3 Release

March 16th, 2012 - Toronto. With this release of Media Factory, we're introducing a new feature that will make your content producer and moderator life easier.

One of the more frustrating occurrences is when one of your end users cancels their upload before it is complete. This tends to happen if users are attempting to upload very large files, or if there is no indication of activity via a progress bar. These cancelled files would have been reported as a failed file, indistinguishable from a file that is incompatible or in need of your attention.

We've done two things to address this problem. First, we've create a new status of "cancelled" and gave it a shiny new icon. Second, we've added the ability to auto-trash these files.

You should already see the new status and icon. If you wish to auto-trash these files, check the box under Project Settings in Media Factory.

Check out the full release notes at the Media Factory developer portal for a list of all changes in this release.

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