Amber MacArthur

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Amber Dawn MacArthur

Born	June 27, 1976 (1976-06-27) (age 31) Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada^[1]
Residence	Toronto, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Education	B.A. in English from Dalhousie University; Journalism at University of King's College
Title	Media Specialist
Known for	Call for Help on G4techTV Canada; CityNews International; net@nite; CommandN
Website http://www.ambermac.com

Amber Dawn MacArthur (born June 27, 1976(1976-06-27) in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island^[1]) is a Canadian television and podcasting personality. She is currently developing a social networking website with Tony Robbins.

Currently, she creates a video podcast called commandN and co-hosts one of the TWiT podcast Network's net@nite, successor to Inside the Net. She is well known for the series Call for Help, but has also hosted on Torrent and Gadgets and Gizmos for G4techTV Canada. She worked for more than a year for Citytv's CityNews and CP24.

1 Background
2 Career
3 References
4 External links
- 4.1 Interviews

[edit] Background

MacArthur is originally from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and currently lives in Toronto. She received an undergraduate degree in English from Dalhousie University, and studied Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She enjoys running, snowboarding, randomly browsing the internet, wrist watches, usability articles, and spontaneous road trips^[2]. Her brother is Jeff MacArthur.

[edit] Career

[edit] Technology

MacArthur worked for Microsoft for two years as a web strategist, as a web designer at Razorfish in San Francisco, and as a judge at the Webby Awards 2000. She was also Director of Web Marketing at HigherMarkets, "where she managed corporate branding initiatives, software usability and online course development."^[3] In 2007 she co-founded a media company MGImedia with her brother Jeff.^[4]

[edit] Television

Upon graduation, MacArthur worked in her hometown of Charlottetown at CBC-TV, as an associate reporter from April to July 1999,^[5] and the San Francisco radio station KQED.^[3] In July 2002, she co-hosted a Discovery Channel Canada special "Science on the Red Carpet", with Dave Foley at the Science & Technical Academy Awards.^[5] She appeared weekly in the summer of 2006, as a tech columnist for CBC Newsworld.^[5]

MacArthur later became a host on Call for Help, a technology series produced for G4techTV Canada, which still airs daily on G4techTV Canada in Canada and on HOW TO Channel in Australia. MacArthur is the subject of a song written in tribute to Call for Help 2.0. While working as a host on Call for Help, MacArthur joined the series Gadgets and Gizmos as a co-host, working with Marc Saltzman and Andy Walker until the show ended production in 2005.

From August 2004 to September 2006, MacArthur was host of the G4techTV Canada program, Torrent, which is still in production.^[5] She also hosted Gadgets & Gizmos for the Canadian channel.^[5]

On 28 August 2006, MacArthur announced on her blog^[6] that she was leaving her position at G4techTV and would no longer appear on Call For Help, Torrent, or Gadgets and Gizmos.

In mid-September, she joined Citytv, CP24 in Toronto with the title "New Media Specialist", to report on "new media and interactive trends" for CityNews International. She first appeared on the station's nightly newscast, CityNews at Six, commenting in another reporter's story on 9/11 conspiracy theories propagated through the Internet. Segments since have ranged from former sex trade workers blogging Robert Pickton trial, to a Toronto Transit Commission/Google Maps mashup.

In January 2007,^[5] she launched a weekly program on CP24, which became quite popular as a vodcast. Originally titled "Inside Popnology",^[7] the CHUM Television-produced program quickly became Webnation. She resigned in October to go for freelance projects, feeling she was being asked to target too old an audience, and wanted to pursue two projects in the United States. They convinced her to stick around for two more months, after Rogers Communications promised her show would be weekly on the Citytv network and on G4techTV Canada,^[8] reformatted, as of January 2008 as Webnation V2.^[9] (CTV's parent company; CTVglobemedia bought out CHUM Limited in June 2007, with the exception of the Citytv network, which was sold to Rogers.)

She was informed on January 4, 2008 that the budget wasn't there for the program. Just before the announcement, the program was named the "Top New Podcast Award for 2007" by iTunes.^[8] Citytv began airing The Lab with Leo Laporte around this time. CP24 has since made some reorganization to the anchors/reporters as a result of the change in ownership of CP24's former parent company; CHUM Limited.

Amber had been hosting Home Page after host David Onley was named Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and she was replaced by Jee-Yun Lee after her resignation.

Over the years, she has been a technology guest on CBC Newsworld, CBC Radio, Global TV, CTV Montreal, MTV Live, MuchMoreMusic, LifeNetwork, and CFRB Radio.^[5]

[edit] Podcasting

Amber Mac and Leo Laporte

In June 2005, MacArthur started the weekly video podcast commandN, which covers technology trends both online and offline. She continues to co-host this show. A commercial study found that CommandN was the fifth most-downloaded podcast among surveyed Canadians.^[10]

Through October 2006, she worked on a podcast with Call for Help co-host Leo Laporte called Inside the Net, which then morphed into net@nite, a Sunday evening live broadcast. The show is available as part of the This Week in Tech network.

[edit] Journalism

Since summer of 2006, she has written a monthly "Web Trends" column for The Calgary Sun Urbane Magazine. She has been quoted by major Canadian newspapers, when they need a tech expert. NOW Magazine declared her the "Best geek personality", 2006.^[11]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Mac, Amber (2007-04-12). Amber Mac's Facebook profile (English) 1. Retrieved on 04-12, 2007.
^ AmberMac.com: About
^ ^a ^b Personalities: Amber MacArthur (English). Citytv website. CHUM Limited (2006). Retrieved on 12-21, 2006.
^ MGImedia (English). MGImedia website. MGImedia (2007). Retrieved on 03-25, 2008.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Amber MacArthur's resume
^ To all the G4techTV fans: Thanks for two great years! My goodbye video
^ Leo LaPorte and Amber MacArthur. net@nite: Episode 6 This Week in Tech Podcast accessed on 2006-12-21
^ ^a ^b Amber MacArthur Gone from Citytv (2008-01-04). Retrieved on 2008-02-20.
^ Top 3 Webnation episodes - Goodbye Citytv (2008-01-06). Retrieved on 2008-01-11.
^ "Podcasting Taking a Hold in Canada", 2 August 2006.
^ Michael Hollett (ed.). "Best of Toronto : Tech", NOW Magazine, NOW Magazine, 26 October-1 November, 2006, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2006-12-21. (English) "...make Amber the unassuming and friendly face of tech news in Toronto and on the web. It's hard to find a Toronto tech event where MacArthur isn't busy taking notes or filming interviews."