| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet, Computer software |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters |
18 Mowat Ave 2nd Floor, Toronto, Ontario, 241 Centre Street, 6th Floor, Suite 7 New York, New York, USA |
| Key people | Chris Becker, CEO Steve Hulford, Founder Marc Milgrom Ron Watson, Founder |
| Website | filemobile.com |
Filemobile Inc. is a privately owned software development company that develops software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for rich media experiences online. Many major media companies in Canada (e.g CTV, CBC, Rogers Media, Transcontinental, MSN, and a variety of digital agencies, brands, educational institutions and enterprise clients use Filemobile's software.[1]
Contents |
Filemobile's platform is called Media Factory and it is a hosted solution that powers a suite of social media white label applications and API's. Media Factory is a rich media, user-generated content (UGC) and community platform. Additional applications include UGC contests, user communities, broadband video and citizen journalism.
Filemobile’s products are designed for use by advertising agencies, large brands, enterprise-level firms, content producers and media companies to facilitate interaction with various constituencies through a variety of mediums including video, social networks, mobile and the web.
The Media Factory platform allows for easy deployment of complex web applications. Filemobile works with clients in one of two ways: i) By offering white label applications, or ii) Through a REST or SOAP API.
Media Factory and other applications are built on a open source LAMP stack with public APIs to enable broad integration and configuration.
Below is an map of Filemobile Architecture and the various components that make up the Media Factory platform:
Filemobile's white label applications include:
Filemobile was incubated out of the offices of PoolExpert in the summer of 2005 as a ’bootstrapped’ research and development project to produce consumer websites that would allow users to upload digital files and share them with blogs and friends. In February 2006 the firm launched a beta user generated content community under the domain www.filemobile.com[2] . By the summer of 2006, the firm changed its strategic approach and began designing interactive online communities for business. In January, 2007, Filemobile launched the first version of its Media Factory online community management platform and in the fall, CEO Chris Becker and Chief Creative Officer Steve Hulford took on full-time roles in the company. They were joined the following year by President Marc Milgrom and Co-Founder Ron Watson, upon the completion of his successful sale of Poolexpert to Rogers Canada.
Filemobile has received some media attention since its inception in 2006. The company was ranked 8th on PROFIT Magazine’s HOT 50 list in 2008[3] and 21st on the HOT 50 list in 2009,[4] Backbone Magazine ranked Filemobile 6th on its annual list of ‘20 companies that are driving innovation and changing the way we use the Internet’.[5] Technology research firm IDC Canada named Filemobile one of the ‘10 Canadian New Media Companies To Watch.’.[6] Founder Steve Hulford was featured as "Digital Media People to Watch in Ontario in 2010" by technology publisher Techvibes.[7]
In June 2008 after the loss of the well-known The Hockey Theme to CTV, CBC proceeded with a nationwide contest powered by the Filemobile Media Factory platform[8] for a new theme in collaboration with music label Nettwerk.[9] The contest began June 10, 2008, and at the end of the submissions period on August 31, the network had received over 14,000 entries. These entries were reduced to five semi-finalists, whose themes were re-arranged by producer Bob Rock and presented for public voting. Taken from Finding a new theme: Canada's Hockey Anthem Challenge
Founders Ron Watson and Steve Hulford owned and operated PoolExpert.com from 2005–2008 prior to selling the business to Rogers Media.[10]
In August 2009 Filemobile was credited for helping Toronto based TV news station CP24 break a viewership record with over 1.2 million viewers.[11]