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What Is New Media?

New Media is a catch-all phrase that refers broadly to the convergence of digital communications technologies. It is most often associated with the interactive entertainment industry, the internet, digital design, and other computer oriented multi-media pursuits. The potential of New Media, however, extends far beyond the realms of video games and animated shorts to include applications from medical diagnostics to 3D environmental modeling.

Since its inception in March 2000, the New Media Directory has been guided by the conviction that New Media is not so much an industry as a set of applications, software, skills and techniques that are adaptable to a variety of fields. Companies profiled in the New Media Directory employ common software, web applications, programming languages, compression technologies, communications protocols and standards that form a shared digital DNA of the information economy.

New Media combines art and technology, media and design, content and carrier. It touches the corporate boardroom, the virtual showroom, the college dorm, the family entertainment centre. Its core consists of codes, algorithms, light and fibre. It is increasingly mobile and wireless-enabled.

There are as many definitions of New Media as there are people surfing websites, mixing and burning CDs, creating virtual environments and digital effects, building B2B portals, rebranding companies and clamouring for more bandwidth. New Media is everywhere, and it is constantly evolving.

Vancouver boasts some of the best interactive gaming, animation, sound design and post-production companies in the world. Our software talent is best of breed. There is a prominent wireless communications industry, and a vibrant e-business and e-marketing community.

The Vancouver area includes top notch training facilities such as the Vancouver Film School, the Art Institutes of Vancouver and Burnaby, Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, as well as the many interactive and digital design programs at schools throughout the province. Associations such as New Media BC, Leading Edge BC, and the BC Innovation Council are all working to promote Vancouver as one of the world's key New Media clusters.

About the New Media Directory

The New Media Directory is an idea that would not go away. It began as a two page list of 42 multimedia/animation companies in June 1999. The first copies of the print edition went on sale in March 2000 during the heady days of the dot com craze. The most recent edition (26th) profiled 654 companies in 72 specialty areas.

The New Media Directory highlights companies operating in the Lower Mainland information technology, interactive entertainment, computer software, web and graphic design, digital post-production, e-business and e-marketing fields, just to name a few. The target audience is job seekers, career counsellors, libraries, schools, and organizations seeking prospecting lists. The Directory is published twice a year in the Science & Business Division of the Vancouver Public Library.

The New Media Directory strives to remain on top of the latest developments in technology and the information/entertainment economy, and to have specialty categories that are meaningful to both industry players and the general public. Traditional SIC and NAIC codes are particularly vague with respect to the new digital communications fields, relying on designations such as not elsewhere classified or not elsewhere specified. Instead, the New Media Directory employs natural language to pinpoint over 60 specialty areas such as Corporate Identity, Digital Content Management, Visual & Digital Effects, as well as the acronyms increasingly in use: B2B, CRM, ERP, VoIP, WAP, Wi-Fi.

View the complete specialty index.

The New Media Directory is specifically aimed at prospective employees. It focuses on the skills that companies seek, allowing readers to match their qualifications to potential employers in the following categories (where information is available):

• Programming languages
• Operating systems
• Computer software
• Database software
• Communications protocols

The New Media Directory is an integral component of the Business & Economics Division"s outreach to the local employment community.

Publishing History

The New Media Directory began in June of 1999 as a two-page list of 42 companies, and has since grown to include 675 companies.

Download this chart as a PDF file (4KB).

Company Locations

The Lower Mainland is the focus of the New Media Directory, but you"ll also find listings for other regions in BC, as well as Alberta and Washington.

Download this chart as a PDF file (4KB).

Gastown and Yaletown are the best known digital hubs in Vancouver and the movement of companies in and out of these neighbourhoods remains fluid. False Creek, which runs south of Granville Island through to the edge of Vancouver"s hip new SoMa district, encompasses post-production alley and is a thriving new media corridor.

Download this chart as a PDF file (4 KB).

What's in a Name?

The New Media Directory strives to use the language of the industry to describe company specialties (see the Specialty Index for more). But it"s also interesting to look at the terms that new media companies are using to describe themselves - fewer are using words like "digital" and "web", and more are using terms like "design" and "communications."

Download this chart as a PDF file (10KB).

Specialty Index

© 2010 Vancouver Public Library | JT June 9, 2009