Lindsey Lubkey, Todayville

Red Deer is the very first home to a brand new media platform that its owners are hoping will re-invigorate community engagement this city, and eventually in all areas which are underserved by conventional media but full of people who want to know what’s going on around them.

Founded by Lloyd Lewis, Al Lucas, Duane Rolheiser, Raoul Bhatt, Calvin Bellows and Peter Julien, Todayville combines local journalism, social media, community and business. Todayville.com is aiming to become an online main street, where local news meets digital storytelling, and where citizens, businesses and charities alike can speak directly to the people who live in their community.

Through it’s open publishing model, Todayville.com does away with the traditional ‘gatekeeper’ style of storytelling and instead encourages its users to publish what they care about and want to share.

As Canadian media veterans with over 100 years of collective experience, the owners of Todayville.com know they’ve set themselves a bold task in trying to re-imagine the way local information is delivered and consumed. But as conventional local media is faced with aging, shrinking audiences and hard to sustain legacy business models, layoffs and cutbacks have been rife across all traditional media sources. Todayville.com founders say the most concerning consequence of today’s challenged media landscape is countless uninformed and disengaged communities across the country.

Todayville is powered by a proprietary technology developed by Bhatt.ca Inc., an Alberta-based software company who has developed technologies with Twitter, Yahoo, Bosch, the Edmonton Oilers and Eskimos and the Canadian Department of Defense.

Todayville founders envision a plan for growth that includes building a network of licensees in communities that are currently underserved by traditional media sources.