BLOG

As 2011 slowly comes to an end we would like to take a moment to look back at some of the exciting milestones, accomplishments and hurtles we have reached and overcome this past year.

Excitingly, today we celebrated our graduation from the Accelerator Centre, a small business incubator located in the heart of Waterloo Ontario. The centre has helped our team reach beyond our goals and accomplish more than we ever thought possible. The ceremony was short and sweet and was filled with smiles, handshakes and a few cup cakes to boot! It was an exciting experience for us all and a significant milestone in our company history.

This week we also celebrate both the completion and transition into our new headquarters as well as the launch of Touch, our most recent addition to the Enflick product lineup. The new space will provide us with an exciting and dynamic environment in which have even more resources to produce exciting and innovative products, like Touch, for the world to enjoy.

Some other highlights include:

NextMedia’s Top Digital Company Award – The award is presented to 1 or more Canadian digital startups that have shown unrivaled success and accomplishments in the year 2011.

First Round Seed Investments – This successfully acquired capital was provided to us by some of the industries most experienced entrepreneurs – Both their expertise in addition to this round of funding will allow us to open new doors into ventures not ever thought possible.

Deloitte’s Fast 50 Award - Growing a business takes vision, perseverance and talent. And often a different perspective. Each year Deloitte identifies and celebrates those Canadian businesses that have achieved fast growth via the Deloitte Fast 50 index.

TextNow – This year TextNow has seen a complete transformation which included: a user interface redesign, the launch of Canadian numbers and area codes, free ad-supported phone calls, online account access for all users and a redeveloped server that provides an even faster and more reliable texting experience.

Touch - Touch is the most recent accomplishment to come out of Enflick. Released as an update to PingChat, Touch provides a most incredible sharing experience. Users are able to sign up for the service absolutely free and can access it on any Blackberry, Android or iOS device. Explained simply, the application allows you to stay closer with your friends and family with an unrivaled chat interface and a spectacular new and innovative way to share media.

This has been a year of accomplishments and firsts for the entire Enflick team and couldn’t have done it without the support of our users, friends and our families. We would like to invite you to help us continue these celebrations by nominating Enflick for “Best International Startup in the “2011 Crunchie Awards” – The Crunchies allow product users to nominate the companies, products and people you believe most deserve industry recognition for achievements completed in 2011 – Nominations are live from now through 11:59pm PST on December 13th, 2011.

If you believe that Enflick is the Best International Startup of 2011, please click the link below to vote:

Over the past 9 months, we at Enflick have been busy building the foundation for a platform that delivers an incredible experience. We took our time to understand how people actually interact with close friends and family in life, and used that understanding to design a simple user experience. Then, we redeveloped our technology from the ground-up to deliver that instant, reliable and personal experience.

The result?

Today we are introducing our new platform, Touch.

To learn more about Touch, visit touch.com.

Why did we create Touch? Today there are many communication tools and social networks available. Some are built to maintain relationships with acquaintances, some are built to maintain interest-based public relationships, and still others are for instant communication. However, none of these tools really support us as we maintain our most important relationships.

In real life, we don’t share our life experiences with everyone we’ve ever met – it’s important for us to control who is watching to really be ourselves. When we do this, we don’t stop and think about it; our groups naturally change as our context changes. To maintain our real social life while being apart, we need the same simple experience – the power to naturally stay in full control of our social connections.

In October 2009, we introduced PingChat! to the iTunes App Store as the first free mobile messenger for iPhones and iPods, and it became an instant hit. After introducing PingChat! for Android and BlackBerry to make it cross-platform, PingChat! has grown to over 13 million users worldwide. Our mission since day one has been to bring people around the world closer with their friends and family. By introducing Touch today, we’re taking another step towards delivering on that mission.

For many of us the first ten or fifteen minutes of our day is often spent sifting though our emails and going over our daily goals. Whether it’s trashing those cleverly, or perhaps not so cleverly crafted spam emails, delegating tasks for your team or just setting up a to-do list, its not every morning you open our inbox to find jaw dropping news. For our Enflick Team however, this morning was one of those mornings…

The smell of a freshly brewed coffee, a “good morning” full-body stretch and few swift mouse clicks led our eyes to hover over an email simply titled “Canada’s Top Digital Companies”. At first glance it was a seemingly simple message, but what he found inside sent waves of excitement throughout the entire office.

Today nextMEDIA, in association with Deloitte, announced Enflick, along side four other humbling Canadian nominees, to a candidate for the 2011 Digi Awards under the Top Canadian Digital Company category.

New this year, the Digi Awards will honor all five of Canada’s Top Digital Companies including Kobo, Hootsuite, Vision Critical, and Acuisio in this grand prize category. The awards ceremony will be held December the 6^th at the 2011 Gala. You can learn more about both the Digi Awards and the Digital Company category check out the Digi Award FAQ.

Beyond the honour of receiving such a prestigious award, Enflick will also be featured in THE LIST, Canada’s directory of the best and brightest projects, people, and companies in Canadas digital media landscape showcased to the entire world.  To check out THE LIST and find Enlfick’s listing, check out: www.thedigiawards.com/showcase.php.

According the the Digi Awards site, a place on The List means serious exposure, both here in Canada and around the world. The digital space is nothing if not noisy, and businesses in Canada and across the globe will turn to The List online, in trade supplements and in live presentations around the world to help them find the companies and projects that are truly making waves.

We’re all extremely excited to be moving up so quickly in our industry and at the same time humbled by the honours and awards we’ve received in the last few months celebrating our successes.

To keep up to date with Enflick, make sure to follow us on twitter (@Enflick) where we’re constantly sharing company news, product updates, mobile developments and fun stuff!

For More Exciting Press Check Out Our Press Page

~ @gjrevans

If you’re unfamiliar with terms like “mo-bro”, “mo-show” and even “more-mo” then likely, you are equally unfamiliar with Movember. Fear not, for it’s seem the season of Movember is one again upon us and you will soon be noticing a few more men in your lives sporting mustaches.

If you haven’t clued into the beautifully crafted pun yet, Movemeber gives men and women all over the world the opportunity raise both awareness and funds for causes ranging from prostate cancer to depression by simply growing a moustache for the month of November. Though an abstract concept, Movember has seen an incredible response since its conception in 1999 by a group of Australian men from Adelaide and has since help rais millions of dollars for medical research.

Seeing such excellent success, in 2004, the Movember Foundation Charity was established and began the promotion of Movemeber branded events throughout Australia and New Zealand. In 2007, the festivities were expanded and events were launched in Ireland, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel, South Africa, and the United States.

The rules for participants, as given on the official movember website, are as follows:

1. Once registered, each bro must begin the 1st Movember with a clean shaven face.
2. For the entire month of Movember each bro must grow and groom a moustache.
3. There is to be no joining of the mo to the sideburns (that is considered a beard).
4. There is to be no joining of the handlebars to your chin (that is considered a goatee).
5. Each bro must conduct himself like a true country gentleman.

The FAQ on the website clarifies that shaving a beard to provide a ready-made moustache is cheating and not in the spirit of movember. A small growth of hair under the bottom lip (aka a tickler) however, is permitted as long as it is not connected to any other region.

Continuing the promotion of the Movember spirt, our Enflick team has entered the Movember runnings and we are all extremely excited to see the final results; even Rebecca, our HR manager, has joined the ranks. For your enjoyment we begin the month with our presentation of  ”The Baby Face” (clean shaven).

Do your part to raise awareness this month and grow a moustache – Check out Movember online for more information or click here to support the Enflick Team.

~ @gjrevans

On Monday ‘Enflick Connect’ held its First Annual Halloween Haunt – A costume party and lunch get together for our awesome Enflick Team!

This year Bec got her very own Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Tayfun danced around the office with some happy feet, Mark dazzled us with his custom pocket protector, Ian solved a mystery or two and Tristan got his Hawaiian Luau on! Costume wearers not only gained adoring fans around the office, but were also rewarded with a $25.00 gift certificate to the location of their choosing! As usual, our Kokken Halloween inspired lunch was delicious and our spooky ghost cookies from Norris Bakery were phenomenal or perhaps I should say paranormal!

Thank you to everyone that came out, the first annual Enflick Halloween Haunt was a great success and we’re already looking forward to next year!

~ @gjrevans