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Can’t find what you’re looking for? Drag the pin on the map if you know the exact location of your video.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Drag the pin on the map if you know the exact location of your video.
For a limited time only, create a Call to Action right beside this video for only $100.00 for a year!
Please note that you cannot sponsor a location which you do not own. This is in direct violation of our Terms of Service and you will not be refunded. For more information, please visit our Help Section or contact us at friend@mycitylives.com.
Our special $100 introductory offer for a full year of Premium goodness is only available for the first 100 businesses that sign up.
Please note that you cannot sponsor a location which you do not own. This is in direct violation of our Terms of Service and you will not be refunded. For more information, please visit our Help Section or contact us at friend@mycitylives.com.
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Thank you for sponsoring a location with My City Lives. Your payment is processing and your link will be displayed once successfully completed by Paypal. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us here.
For more information about sponsoring a location, please check our Premium Services section.
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My City Lives is an online platform that allows you to share your experiences with your city’s public spaces, organizations and fellow citizens using only video. These web stories live on an interactive map showcasing the locations where they were filmed so you can learn about your city based on the stories of others.
Collectively, these stories are what define a city, but they are rarely connected with the sterile grids of modern cartography or even lively user generated review sites. Through the advents of modern media, My City Lives bring you an authentic view of your city that is powerful because it is personal—we animate the missing link between locations and the people. A city is not a collection of inanimate roads, expressways, trolley-tracks or buildings; that is infrastructure. A city is the combination of these objects with the people who build and live amongst them. At My City Lives, we combine the topographical precision of new-age mapping technology with the vibrancy and style of an independent film.
Ordinary maps are lifeless—we present a view of our city by the people who make Toronto breathe.
The idea for My City Lives was born of the common problems we all shared at Creativity Killed the Recession. These include, but are not limited to: Toronto’s need for economic stimulus; supporting arts and culture in the region; connecting communities, and stimulating civil pride in our city and its institutions. We believe that by addressing these issues, we would be doing our part to help Toronto elevate itself out of the recession and push towards a level of prosperity that is possible on local, national, and even global levels. My City Lives will therefore have its roots in Toronto, but as time has shown and history will attest, its success here can have an even greater impact beyond our ever-changing boundaries.
Special Launch Offer: The first 100 businesses to sign up for our Premium services will receive 1 full year for only $100.00 (+ taxes). Call 416-333-3056 or email friend@mycitylives.com for more details.
A video is the most compelling form of advertising for your business and on My City Lives, you get to share your video for free.
Like all great marketing, however, you want a Call to Action to compliment that video. You need to tell your potential high value customer where to go next or what to do. If you’re interested in this, then you’ll like our Premium services:
If you’d like to make a video about your business but would rather entrust the filming to professionals, My City Lives has a team of skilled filmmakers with diverse experience in small-business marketing.
To request more information about this service, email friend@mycitylives.com and check out some of our work: House of Poutine and DEW.
If you are a Not for Profit please contact us at friend@mycitylives.com to inquire as to how you can obtain our premium services at no cost.
Want to report a bug or an issue? support@mycitylives.com
For everything else friend@mycitylives.com
Twitter: @mycitylives & @thenettale
My City Lives is an online platform that allows you to share your experiences with your city’s public spaces, organizations and fellow citizens using only video. These web stories live on an interactive map showcasing the locations where they were filmed so you can learn about your city based on the stories of others.
To share a story; to give a review; to market your business; to gush about an experience; to show off your talent; to become a local celebrity. To unleash your creativity.
Of course
It is free to upload your video and watch others. We do, however, offer some premium services for businesses. For more information, please see our Premium Services section.
Not for Profits and public spaces are vital and yet typically underfunded pillars to our cities. Accordingly, My City Lives has removed any barriers that may inhibit or affect their desire to use My City Lives, which includes the payment for premium features. Please inquire at friend@mycitylives.com for more information.
To improve the chances of your video being seen and featured on our main page, here’s a winning recipe:
Tell a story or simply talk about what makes your location great or not so great. This is not a high-pressure forum, so above all else, just introduce the left side of your brain to the right, and press record.
Just about anything. You have free creative reign (other than the stuff we mention in the next point).
The usual and obvious stuff: no illicit substances, no hate, no swearing, no unnecessary malice, and no unrelated content. You can certainly discuss something you are upset about (i.e. if there was a major pothole in your area), but do so in a manner that is respectful, like a good Canadian, eh.
We highly recommend that your video be under two minutes in length. Research shows that people’s attention starts to significantly wane as early as 10 seconds into a clip!
No. Doing that would counter everything we’re trying to do and make this a poor service for other people so please refrain from doing so. As indicated in our Terms of Service, we will remove videos matched and mapped incorrectly. Repeat offending may get you blacklisted. Please connect with us at friend@mycitylives.com if you have any questions.
Good question – why not make a separate video for each and turn it into a series? This is a great approach to encourage people to see more than just one of your web stories.
Yes. We don’t own your video, you do and we’re thankful that you decided to share it with us.
We’re still ironing out the wrinkles! We apologize in advance if you experience any problems with uploading your videos. As a general rule, keep your videos under 100 MB, remove any symbols (!, _, @) in your video’s file name and try uploading again in a different browser. If none of this works please contact us and we’d be happy to resolve this issue (support@mycitylives.com).
Thanks for your patience while we’re in beta!
Good news – you’re video is uploading! Do not close or go away from that upload page, open a new tab or window and open your “my video” page (it drops down when you hover over your name) and see if your video appears in that list. If it does your video is uploaded, if not, please give it a little more time. If the video does appear, then your video has been successfully uploaded.
Depending on the size of your video and connection speed, it can take up to an hour to upload one video. However if you’re using our suggestion to keep the videos under two minutes, this will seriously reduce the upload time. We are finding videos around 10MB uploaded within 10 minutes.
Currently you can upload up to 100MB. There are many ways to compress your video if it’s larger than 100 MB (please see 'What file types do you support?').
We support: .AVI, .MOV, .MP4, .FLV and .WMV. If you have a video file that is not one of these 5, try to convert the video format using free software. While we do not officially endorse it, we use Any Video Convertor. Note, converting your files can also help compress them.
That means that a video has not been uploaded to it yet. You better get filming.
The thumbnail is generated from the very first image of your video so if that image is black, your thumbnail will be black. Try avoiding fade ins or others techniques that start with a non-descript shot as we’ve found our users value a thumbnail image when deciding to watch a video.
Yes, you can delete your video by clicking on “edit” beside your video’s description when watching a video. Be careful though – there’s no undo!
You can still sign up for the premium services and enjoy the benefits of providing your phone number and being a featured video. We’ve also found some businesses have uses URLs of rating and review sites where they are featured in the absence of their own URL.
In theory, yes. In practice, not so much. Our learned behaviour online is to select the link (the “call to action”) that promises more information. By not including that link right beside the video, you are leaving the majority of your new potential customers with nowhere to go once they’ve decided they want to know more after watching a video. Some may search for your website in a new tab or window but the reality is that most won’t despite how lazy that may seem.
The first video is the most relevant video uploaded about your business. So if someone searches for something specific (say chicken wings) that is only found in 1 of your videos, that video (about chicken wings) will show up first. With all else being equal though, videos are displayed in reverse chronological order.
Only the creator of a video can delete it from My City Lives. This ensures that we remain authentic and fully accountable to our community. Should you have any concerns or questions regarding this, please write to friend@mycitylives.com. Also, should someone say something bad about your business, we strongly recommend that you take the opportunity to fix the situation. If you are sincere, you will convert a critic and make fans out of others for addressing a problem.
Of course you can. Upload a video, tell your story and let your passion prevail.
Because you have not made it yet! Seriously, we’d appreciate you covering this mysterious location that’s eluded us thus far.
One city at at a time. We believe that Toronto is one of the greatest cities in the world and a great starting point for My City Lives. We would like to expand to other locations and are working hard to make this happen. In the meantime, we are focusing on Toronto.
Good question. We believe video is the strongest medium by which we can communicate with one another and so not surprisingly, the only way you can comment is via video. Video allows others to get to know you, it puts a face to your opinion/story and really what’s an opinion worth without a face to go along with it? Would you believe a guy with a paper bag on his head yelling at you from across the street to visit a restaurant?
If this is the case, please contact us (support@mycitylives.com) and we will blur it out. We apologize for any discomfort or inconvenience this may have caused.
You can find it right here.
Like most websites we may collect non-identifying information about you, the user. Behind the scenes we collect your ip address, time and date of visit and what links on our site you click on. This information helps us streamline our website and allows us to give our sponsors anonymous details about traffic going to their site from MCL. We will never give up any personal information without your direct consent.
In addition to the information we collect from visitors, we also collect the following information from our members.
We only collect personal information that you give to us upon signing up. We do not distribute this information unless you give us permission to in order to receive promotions from our sponsors or because the law requires us to.
We collect the same information from you as we do from our visitors and regular members. However because there is money being exchanged we also require things like a phone number and billing address. However, because we use PayPal for our payment system we never are in possession of any vital payment information. As for other personal identifying information that we’ve mentioned above, it is either made public or kept private based on what you want to share. Information that you decide to keep private will not be shared with anyone unless the law requires us to.
We may use things like cookies to help personalize your experience on My City Lives. Cookies record information on your computer about how you use My City Lives and what you visit most often. When you visit MCL these cookies and your browser combined with My City Lives help personalize your experience on the site.
We may also collect information about how and what you use on My City Lives. This information allows us to see what features work well and what features do not.
For users who do not wish to have cookies stored on their computer, cookies can be disabled in your personal web browser via your browser’s settings. However be warned that disabling cookies may disrupt some things on My City Lives.
We send you a confirmation email when you signup. We will not share your email with any third party.
Once you leave MCL our advertisers may use cookies and other means to collect information about you, but again, this will not include your user login information unless you have consented to this.
As we are a new company, this policy may change over time. If it does, we will notify the community that changes have occurred, but we will do so in a manner that is not intrusive to your inbox. Your continued use means that you accept these changes but we encourage you to contact us should you have any questions or concerns.
Please read the following Terms of Service CAREFULLY before using mycitylives.com and/or any of its related services.
By using/visiting/submitting content to MyCityLives.com you signify that you have read and agree to these Terms of Service (TOS) found here and our Privacy Policy.
You agree that My City Lives Inc can and will change these Terms of Service without prior notice to our users. Once these Terms of Service have been changed you agree that it is your responsibility to read the new Terms of Service and if you do not object, you will be deemed to agree to the new Terms of Service.
Users of MyCityLives.com expect to see the most accurate representation of the location that you are submitting content about. You agree to provide other users with your truthful representation of that which it seeks to represent. Tags, descriptions and titles are very powerful searching tools that you agree to use accurately. Tags should represent the location and the content of your video. Please feel free to create a tag to allow users to follow your journey around a city or see a series of locations that you have visited. Just keep it simple and sweet. Tags are very important, so treat them as such. Re-phrase such as: you agree not to mislead with incorrect tags, use tags that correctly represent the location and content of your vide, etc.
Some parts of MyCityLives.com contain links to third party websites that are not affiliated with MyCityLives.com. You agree that these links do not imply that we at My City Lives Inc endorse these third party links. When visiting these third party websites you must abide by their Terms of Service, so read them carefully.
We at My City Lives Inc have no control over the content of these third party websites and therefore by using MyCityLives.com you acknowledge and agree that My City Lives Inc is not responsible for any liability arising from the use of any of these third party websites.
My City Lives Inc grants you permission to use our website, provided that (1) you do not copy, distribute or modify any part of our website without our written permission with the exception of using the embed feature on our website in order to share content from our website (2) you do not transmit any content that contains any malicious material,(ie. content that is intended to collect information from our system or other users, or content that is intended to disable or circumvent security measures of any kind, or content that may/will cause any system to not operate per expectation ie viruses, Trojans, worms, malware, spyware, adware, etc) harmful computer code, files or programs. This includes but is not limited to material that will disrupt servers or our website (3) you agree to not interfere with or circumvent any security related features of our website (4) you agree and comply with these Terms of Service. (5) By using MyCityLives.com you hereby agree with these Terms of Service and if you do not agree with any part of these Terms of Service My City Lives Inc does not grant you permission to use MyCityLives.com.
By using MyCityLives.com you understand that you will be exposed to many submission from a vast expanse of sources and topics and My City Lives Inc is not responsible for monitoring the accuracy (a lot of the content found on MyCityLives.com is users opinions), intellectual property rights or offensiveness of any content from user submissions and therefore you waive any legal or monetary rights or remedies you may have against My City Lives Inc or any of our owners, affiliates, employees, sponsors and agents/licensors.
My City Lives Inc reserves the right to terminate anyone’s access to our website without notice or cause. We also reserve the right to remove any submission(s) for any reason from our website. Furthermore, by using MyCityLives.com you agree the My City Lives Inc shall not be liable to you or anyone for the termination of your access to our website or the removal of any submissions.
Except for user submissions and Google Maps, the material found on our website, which includes but is not limited to text, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, software, interactive features, logos, and trademarks, are owned by My City Lives Inc. Content on MyCityLives.com is for the benefit of our community and cities.
We at My City Lives Inc respect the property of others and ask our users to do the same. My City Lives Inc reserves the right to terminate your usage if you infringe on the intellectual property rights of others. This infringing material will also be removed.
Without written consent from My City Lives Inc, prohibited commercial use of the MyCityLives.com (including the embed function) includes (1) the use of My City Lives website (including using the embed player to embed content on an external site) for the primary purpose of gaining subscription or advertising revenue (2) using MyCityLives.com content to compete with MyCityLives.com (3) using MyCityLives.com content as a supplementary news sources to gain subscription or advertising revenue.
You are not prohibited to use MyCityLives.com and its content for commercial reasons if (1) you have written authorization to use said content (2) you use the embed player to share content on your website that has adds on it, provided that My City Lives Inc agrees that the primary purpose of embedding the videos is not for commercial gain (3) you are using My City Lives to share your story or experience about a location or event.
My City Lives Inc retains the right to remove for any reason including failure, in the opinion of My City Lives Inc, to abide by the above listed conditions.
You acknowledge that My City Lives Inc will not review all submissions posted by user on our website. You agree that you will use MyCityLives.com at your own risk and that My City Lives Inc, its owners, officers, directors, employees, agents and sponsors disclaim all guarantees expressed or implied in connection with My City Lives Inc. By using MyCityLives.com you also agree that My City Lives Inc also has a Limitation of Liability as expressed below.
Due to the nature of user generated content some users may find some of the submissions on MyCityLives.com offensive and indecent. Under no circumstances is My City Lives Inc to be held liable in any way for any content whatsoever found on MyCityLives.com.
My City Lives Inc is not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of any submissions and you acknowledge and agree that My City Lives Inc and its affiliates, successors, assigns, directors, officers, employees and owners assumes no responsibility or liability for any harm coming to you or others including but not limited to (1) any mistakes, inaccuracies found in user submission (2) personal injury, property, emotional or monetary damages resulting from posting material on MyCityLives.com (3) any direct, indirect consequential or special loss of profits, goodwill, data or any other tangible or intangible losses resulting from the use or user submission to MyCityLives.com (4) any unauthorized/unlawful access to our servers or personal and/or financial information store therein (5) consequences arising from users that use MyCityLives.com for malicious purposes (such as but not limited to deception, transmitting of viruses/Trojans/worms/other harmful software, misleading other users, etc.) (6) interruptions in our website (7) any viruses or other harmful pieces of software transmitted through or to our website by any third party (8) any offensive submission or other material found on MyCityLives.com (9) any damages resulting from any error or omission of any content submitted and posted on MyCityLives.com (10) any transaction that results between any user and any third party/sponsor found through using MyCityLives.com (11) any unauthorized access, alteration or deletion of any submission (12) any submission stored on any device owned, operated or controlled by My City Lives Inc.
By agreeing to these Terms of Service you agree that My City Lives Inc is not liable for user submissions or any offensive or illegal conduct of any third party and that any risk or damages from using MyCityLives.com rests entirely with you the user.
This section only applies to Premium Service users.
IN NO EVENT SHALL My City Lives Inc BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, LOSSES, AND CAUSES OF ACTION EXCEEDING THE AMOUNT PAID BY YOU, IF ANY, FOR ACCESSING/USING THE MyCityLives.com SITE.
While we plan on being accessible 100% of the time, we cannot guarantee it. By signing up for My City Lives’ Premium Services, you agree and are satisfied with MyCityLives.com being accessible 95% of the time during your Premium Service period. If for whatever reason we are not accessible for more than 95% of a pay period where you are a Premium Service user, then you agree that it is sufficient for My City Lives Inc to give you, the Premium Service account holder, a discount on your next Premium Service period in the amount equal to the cost incurred by you in paying for our Premium Service for the time period that MyCityLives.com was not accessible (so if MyCityLives.com is down for 10% of one of your Premium Service period, you will be entitled to a discount of whatever 10% of the period cost on your next pay period).
Changes in fees or charges will occur but will not be automatically charged to you, the Premium Service account holder. You will only experience changes in fees during your next billing period. So if you register for a year of services then you will not experience a fee increase until that initial year is over, regardless of what others are paying.
Security of your credit card and banking information is very important to us. This is why we currently use PayPal. We do not store or have access to any of your credit card or banking information and it is all processed through PayPal which specializes in security. However you must understand that even as secure as PayPal is, the internet is inherently not 100% secure; there are many factors at play that are simply beyond our control (for example internet service providers, hosting providers, etc). By using My City Lives’ Premium Services you acknowledge and accept these risk and agree that we are not liable for any malicious 3rd party using your personal information.
AS A PREMIUM ACCOUNT HOLDER, YOU WILL ONLY BE ALLOWED TO SPONSOR A LOCATION THAT YOU (1) OWN (2) OPERATE OUT OF, OR (3) ARE ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE OWNER. IF YOU SPONSOR A LOCATION THAT YOU DO NOT OWN, OR HAVE THE APPROPRIATE PERMISSION TO SPONSOR, YOUR SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION WILL NOT BE PROVIDED ON MyCityLives.com AND YOU WILL FORFEIT YOUR SPONSORSHIP FEE.
Before becoming a Premium Service account holder, you must agree to our Privacy Policy and these Terms of Service.
For more information about getting Premium Services for your organization, please visit our Premium Services page.
By using MyCityLives.com you agree to, indemnify and hold harmless My City Lives Inc, its affiliates, subsidiaries, parents, and their respective officers, directors, employees and agents, from and against any and all claims, losses, costs (including by not limited to legal fees), damages, obligations and liabilities resulting from using MyCityLives.com and any of its services, through your violation of these Terms of Service, by your use/violation of any intellectual property or any third party rights, your infringement on another users submission(s) and any claim that a submission has caused damage to another party (yourself included).
My City Lives Inc’s Privacy Policy is part of our Terms of Service and you must read and agree to this Privacy Policy before you can agree to the Terms of Service.
You agree to not tamper (try to determine another users password or circumvent security in any way) with any account that is not your own on MyCityLives.com. You also agree to not circumvent security on MyCityLives.com at all for any reason.
In order to accept these terms of service you must be of the age of majority. If you are not, please possess consent from your legal guardian to enter MyCityLives.com by agreeing to these Terms of Service.
These Terms of Service and Privacy Policy shall be governed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario. You agree that MyCityLives.com (and all its functions and services) is deemed a passive website that does not give rise to personal jurisdiction over My City Lives Inc or its respective affiliates, subsidiaries, parents, and their respective officers, directors, employees and agents, either specific or general, in any jurisdiction other than the Province of Ontario.
These Terms of Service and Privacy Policy constitute the entire understanding between My City Lives Inc and users of MyCityLives.com and the services provided herein. These agreements may not be changed unless done so by My City Lives Inc. These Terms of Service supersedes all prior understandings and agreements, whether written or verbal with respect to the subject matter in these agreements. If any part of these Terms of Service contradicts, or is invalid under the laws of the particular jurisdiction, such contradiction or invalidity will not invalidate the entire agreement, instead these Terms of Service and Privacy Policy will be construed as if not containing the particular provision or provisions held invalid, and the rights and obligations of the parties will be construed and enforced accordingly.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Terms of Services do not modify, alter or amend any other specific agreement you have entered or will enter into with My City Lives Inc. This applies to the extent that any provision of the Terms of Service, or any supplemental agreement offered as any part of any registration for additional services on MyCityLives.com or within our services, conflicts with any provision of your other agreements with My City Lives Inc, the terms and conditions of such other agreement shall, take precedence over the conflicting term(s) and conditions of this Terms of Service, unless otherwise expressly provided in such other agreement.
No failure or delay by My City Lives Inc in exercising any right or privilege under these Terms of Service will operate as a waiver thereof, nor will any single or partial exercise of any right or privilege preclude any other or further exercise thereof or the exercise of any other right or privilege under these Terms of Service.
These Terms of Service are binding upon and shall vest to the benefit of both parties and their respective successors, heirs, executor, administrators, personal representatives and permitted assigns. Users may not assign their rights or obligations hereunder without My City Lives Inc's prior written consent.