We have decided that after 2 terrific years of serving our clients we are each going to transition on to new challenges. As a result, Refresh will no longer be accepting new clients.  Toronto has a marvelous community of alternative suppliers, and we know that you will be in fine hands.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support over the years, and for the many opportunities you’ve given us to serve you.

Thank you and see you soon!

Roy & Colin
Refresh Partners, Inc.

Facebook announced changes to make the Facebook Pages similar to Facebook profiles. The new design will feature a Wall tab very similar to the new user profiles and let pages send status updates similar to users.  This creates a more dynamic page experience but also puts the emphasis on regular interaction with the brand.  The new Facebook Pages also adds the ability for Pages to add Tabs, including Facebook Application Tabs.

Facebook has also announced changes to the homepage and the newsfeed.  The homepage will be getting a new publisher component similar to the Facebook Profile page.  This will let users publish content quickly from the home and lets publisher components work on the home page and not just the profile page.

Facebook is also changing the voice of the newsfeeds from third-person to active person.  This will make that the newsfeed copy will probably need to be updated slightly to work with the new active person format.

We think the new design should make the homepage more engaging for users but we’re a little concerned about the distruption to the user experience. Facebook users have traditionally been very resistant.

FacebookCamp Toronto 5 is tomorrow night and we have a great line up of focusing on Facebook Connect. The Agenda for the evening is as follows:

6:00 - Social/Mingling/Registration
6:30 - Intro - update from last FBCT (Roy/Colin, Refresh Partners)
6:35 - Facebook Canada Intro - Elmer Sotto (Facebook Canada)
6:40 - Facebook Connect - Matt Wyndowe, (Facebook)
7:35 - The Power of Facebook Connect - Daniel Berkal (The Palmerston Group)
7:40 - Facebook Connect Case Study - Zipalong.com (Dimi Paun)
7:50 - Whopper Sacrifice Case Study - Roy Pereira (Refresh Partners)
8:05 - WeddingBook & fbFund - Kevin Lister (Wedsnap)
8:20 - Wrap Up, Socialize and Network…
8:30 - Pogue Mahones - More Socializing, this time with a drink…

We’re expecting a full house with over 600 people registered a room capacity of 380 people.  We hope to see you there.

We’re very proud to be part of the Whopper Sacrifice campaign that launched today with Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Its a great campaign and its getting alot of discussion, including Adweek, National Post, Huffington Post.

Refresh Partners is featured on ByteClub.tv this week. We’re in good company with other Toronto Startups. Watch the video here:

Other tech videos on Toronto Tech Startups are available on ByteClub.tv

InsideFacebook.com posted their interview with Roy and Colin today. The discussion goes from branded applications for agencies, managing large Facebook applications such as Dogbook, and also Refresh Analytics.

Roy and Colin will be at StartupEmpire in Toronto on Nov 13, 2008. Please contact us if you want to setup a meeting or demo on some of the new products we’re developing.

We’re going to be presenting at the Mixx Conference in Toronto next week. Unfortunately Roy can’t make it but Colin will be part of a panel Innovation Upstarts: Made In Canada! with:

Brendan Kenalty, Vice President, Business Development, Hippopost.com
Wendy Robertson, Founder, Kneebone Inc
Sebastien Provencher, VP Product Management/Co-founder of Praized Media

It looks like a great panel and event is now sold out with over 600 attendees in Toronto.

We’ve posted the slides from our presentation. It was a fairly interactive night so the slights might not do it justice, feel free to email us any questions.

How to Build a Facebook Application Presentation

Rannie Turingan was there and posted some good pictures of the event too.  He really captured the lighting in the room well with the red brick.

Thanks again to Justin from Refresh Events ( which is a separate company from refresh partners ). Refresh Events are planning to have monthly events on a variety of topics.

We’ve been asked to present at the first Refresh Event on “How to Build a Facebook Application”. Judging from the Facebook event it looks like its going to be a good crowd and we’re excited to be presenting.  The presentation will be at:

When: September 15th, 2008, 7pm to 10pm
Where: Gladstone Hotel, Art Bar
Map: 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto

And the Facebook event is here.