Reinventing Internet Communication
and Entertainment

Chops here.

I can’t believe it was just a year ago. Time flies when you’re having fun.

I first met Chris Sealy, President of Statusfirm, in August 2006. We both flew into Las Vegas to meet a co-partner in RawVegas.tv, Brian Balsbaugh, and map out this concept we had for our new groundbreaking I-TV channel.

My head was spinning for a couple of weeks on the prospects of how to launch RawVegas.tv. I was in Vegas for the 2006 WSOP and the first person I bumped into at the Rio was Brian Balsbaugh. He said, “Dude, this is serendipity. I just got out of a meeting with this great guy who runs a technology firm in Canada and I’d like to get you involved.” I said, “When do you have some time to talk about it.” “Right now.”

So we went to sweat Erick Lindgren in the bleachers at the final table he was playing at (he eventually finished second to Jeff Madsen) and started the first real batch of creative discussions around what RawVegas.tv would be.

By the time I met Sealy in August, I knew exactly what I wanted the channel to be, where the brand should go, and how to build the business model.

Now I just needed to make sure I got the job.

Fortunately, Sealy, Brian and I saw eye-to-eye on everything. It wasn’t long before I was packing my bags, my wife, and my life and moving to Vegas.

One of the most incredible things about the experience of launching RawVegas.tv for me has been the speed to which things have progressed. I handed in my site map and information architecture on what the site needed to be in late October. At that point, we hadn’t filmed a minute of content, and really wouldn’t until December. But by January 19th, we had built the site, brand, and a vault of really unique, cutting-edge content.

Here we are just 9 months later, and without spending a cent on advertising have grown our audience to almost 20,000 visitors a day. We’ve had our content showcased on everything from NBC to tmz, ESPN to TSN. And the whole process and content just keeps getting better.

It’s launch day at Statusfirm.  This exciting, emerging broadband network company’s most ambitious project yet is about to hit the worldwide web.  Back from touring oil and gas trade shows, shooting stories like the one on a rig seven hours north of Edmonton and meeting with industry experts like Petro-Canada’s Vice President in charge of branding and junior CEO’s for advice along the way.  Statusfirm’s new headquarters are in Edmonton so Mayor Stephen Mandel, MP’s Rahim Jaffer, James Rajotte, MLA Gene Zwozdesky along with the Edmonton Sun, Gordon Jaremko from The Edmonton Journal and a host of other invited guests.  The reaction is universal; everyone is surprised and impressed by our 10,000 square foot production suites and studio.  We cut the ribbon and opened Alberta’s newest media outlet.  It’s hard to believe but TheEnergyNews.com is up and running