Amber Dawn MacArthur (born 27 June 1976) is a Canadiantelevision and netcasting personality, bestselling author of two books, and keynote speaker. MacArthur (aka Amber Mac) is the former co-host of BNN's App Central and Bloomberg Brink, G4TechTV'sCall for Help, and TWiT'sThe Social Hour (successor to net@night/Inside the Net). She was the most followed Canadian television personality on Twitter in 2008.[2] In 2018, she was named DMZ's 30 inspirational women making a difference in tech.[3]
She is now the co-host of the 2018 AI podcast series, The AI Effect[4] where she interviews notable guests such as Prime Minister Trudeau and Mayor John Tory. Amber is President of a digital media company called AmberMac Media, Inc.
MacArthur used to produce and co-host her own video podcast, commandN, and has also hosted on Torrent and Gadgets and Gizmos for G4techTV Canada. MacArthur worked for over a year for Citytv's CityNews and CP24, and she had returned to the now CTV-owned CP24 as New Media Specialist and was the host of Webnation. She previously hosted and produced a show for Xbox called "Girls Go Geek" alongside her brother Jeff MacArthur and Christopher Dick that features women in technology.[5]
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."[7] In 2007, she co-founded a media company MGImedia Communications Inc. with her brother Jeff.[8]
In 2004, MacArthur became a host on Call for Help, a technology series produced for G4techTV Canada, which still airs daily on G4 Canada and 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.
Amber Mac interviewing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau & Shopify CEO, Toronto, 2018
From August 2004 to September 2006, MacArthur was host of the G4techTV Canada program Torrent, which is still in production.[9] She also hosted Gadgets and Gizmos for the Canadian channel.[9]
On 28 August 2006, MacArthur announced on her blog[10] 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 the Robert Pickton trial, to a Toronto Transit Commission/Google Maps mashup.
In January 2007,[9] she launched a weekly program on CP24, which became quite popular as a vodcast. Originally titled "Inside Popnology",[11] 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,[12] reformatted, as of January 2008 as Webnation V2.[13] (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 4 January 2008 that the budget was not there for the program. Just before the announcement, the program was named the "Top New Podcast Award for 2007" by iTunes.[12] 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. For a time, after David Onley was named Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, MacArthur hosted Home Page; Jee-Yun Lee replaced her when MacArthur resigned. MacArthur's Webnation replaced HomePage on the CP24 schedule 14 October 2009.
In June 2005, MacArthur started the weekly video podcastcommandN, which covered technology trends both online and offline. The podcast has not released an episode since June 2013, however. A commercial study found that commandN was the fifth most-downloaded podcast among surveyed Canadians.[14]
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@night, and then The Social Hour with Sarah Lane, a Friday lunch time live broadcast. The show was available as part of the TWIT.tv network before it was retired from the Twit network in October 2014.[15]
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.[16]
^Leo LaPorte and Amber MacArthur (11 December 2006). "net@nite: Episode 6". This Week in Tech (Podcast). Archived from the original on 23 December 2006. Retrieved 21 December 2006.
^Michael Hollett, ed. (26 October – 1 November 2006). "Best of Toronto : Tech". Now Magazine. Now Magazine. p. 1. Archived from the original on 4 January 2007. Retrieved 21 December 2006. ...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.
