Canada'ss News, Chosen By You is the slogan of a new website that finally puts Canadians in the driver'ss seat. Zoomit Canada follows the proven social bookmarking formula of similar U.S. websites like Digg.com and Reddit.com where users post stories, vote for which should be popular and comment on them.
Canadians miss out on much of the fun, because Canadian stories don'st get voted 'spopular's on U.S. websites, explains David Leonhardt, Zoomit Canada founder. We have created a free
place where Canadians can have their say on Canadian stories about politics, sports, entertainment and other topics. If something happens in Toronto or Vancouver or Ottawa, it needn'st be
ignored just because it'ss in Canada
Leonhardt notes that the media (journalists and bloggers) still create the news, but Zoomers get to choose which will be the stories of the day in a four-step process:
1. They find a Canadian story of interest.
2. They submit it to http://www.zoomit.ca/submit .
3. They zoom or vote for stories they like or feel are important.
4. They comment on stories and discuss them with Canadians from across the country.
The major global social bookmarking websites draw very heavily on a technophile demographic. Under the banner, Canada'ss News - Chosen by You, Zoomit Canada hopes to reach a wider
audience. We see this as an opportunity for Canadians to live their citizenship and participate more in public discourse between elections, Leonhardt says. It is a fun way to share
opinions and debate issues on a wide range of topics from politics to sports, from health to technology, from business to food.
In addition to offering a Canadian experience for social bookmarking, Zoomit Canada is the first major Web 2.0 service in the world to offer local versions of its service, with a
subdomain for each province and territory (such as Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta).
Zoomit.ca will remain free to all members. The website will seek advertising and sponsorships to cover operating costs, but will not allow direct marketing. Leonhardt sees this as the
ideal venue for companies to strengthen the Canadian character of their brands and to be seen participating in the community, and to reach out in creative ways to Internet-savvy
Canadians.
The English service is now live at http://www.Zoomit.ca . Plans are underway to set up a French language edition at http://www.Zoomle.ca sometime in 2009. Zoomit Canada is operated by The Happy Guy Marketing Inc., a multilingual Canadian online marketing company based in
Chesterville, Ontario. Follow Zoomit Canada on Twitter: http://twitter.com/zoomit