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Posted 7/2/2009 by PeterV, VP, Marketing
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We're one of the top Web development companies out there. And day in and day out, we hammer the competition on price. How do we keep our overhead so low? I think this video should explain it.
Our office isn't on Madison Avenue, so we aren't paying a Madison Avenue price. It's not in Brooklyn, or even in Jersey. It's in Florida, but not on South Beach, in a Tampa high-rise, or even in Jacksonville. It's not in Gainesville, but outside Gainesville (yes, suburbs have suburbs). It's past the interstate, near the Tractor Supply store.
Apparently our neighbors on the other side of the woods are pig farmers. And apparently, they recently diversified to...chickens.
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Posted 7/2/2009 by PeterV, VP, Marketing
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If you own a blog, there's little doubt you've been the victim of comment spam. For the uninitiated, this is the practice of commenting on blog posts with keywords related to your business for the sole purpose of including a link back to your Web site. In theory this will increase your link popularity, your search engine rankings, and will make you hated by bloggers in your industry. That last one isn't theory.
So every few days I'll see some comment spam in our blog. It doesn't really bother me because, while we do let people post a link, we've included Google's "No Follow" code on our site (See the article on no-follow on wikipedia, but basically it's a snippet of codes so the search engines know not to follow certain links). Most of the time, someone will take the time to write a nice comment, so I don't care if they get put a link in it. Good for them.
Then there are the real spammers. Take a look at the comment I got this morning:
informative stuff
By Quality Web Design
http://www.web4half.com
informative stuff... thank you very much.
Really? That's the best you could do? Not only is it obvious to me that this is spam, but it's obvious to anyone that reads our blog. As I said before, you get no benefit in the search engines from the link thanks to the no follow code, but in this case you also will likely get no love from any readers clicking on your link.
So what's my point? Don't comment spam blogs. But if you do, take a second and offer something of value. You have to give something to get something. It's the circle of life or something.
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Posted 6/29/2009 by PeterV, VP, Marketing
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I'm sure that, like me, you were all impressed with our CEO Geoff's blog post about Using Facebook to Market a Business. Big deal...so your audience was big enough that you needed a microphone. You must get mobbed with paparrazzi just walking from your office to the coffee machine!
Well, not to be outdone, here's a clip from my recent speech on Web 2.0 to the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce. Sure, the crowd wasn't large enouhg for me to need a mic, and sure, I only spoke to the Chamber's West Council, but I had those people hanging on my every word.
Just watch the guy in the blue dress shirt nod as I drive home my point about using your blog's content to promote your company's Web site. That man is inspired!
I mean, there wasn't an empty seat in the house, except for those few you can see in the video. Those people were just getting seconds on the buffet (which was quite tasty, by the way. Did Geoff's speech have food?). Trust me...besides that it was standing room only.
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Posted 6/29/2009 by Geoff, Pres/CEO
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Here are some interesting articles that our interactive media team came across this past week:
“Inspiring Examples of Minimalism in Web Design” >> Read Article
“FTC plans to monitor blogs for claims, payments” >> Read Article
“Google Announces Update to Flash Indexing” >> Read Article
Enjoy!
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Posted 6/26/2009 by TomB, Acct Mgr
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I am proud and pleased to announce the launch of CruiseNow.com. Working with John Keen and his staff was such a pleasure and we look forward in working with him again in the future.
In this video, we take a quick look at CrusieNow.com, a site we just launched where users can search and book cruises. The site is unique in the amount of quality video describing everything from the destinations to the cruise ships themselves, as well as weekly webisodes.
CruiseNow.com is the next generation in online cruise travel companies. We pride ourselves on our ability to combine the latest in technology with good old fashioned customer service. It’s important to us that our customers realize that while we utilize the most modern online systems like CruiseText, CruiseReviews and Edutainment Videos we are still a business dedicated to that person to person contact and customer service. We encourage our customers to call our reservation center and work with our Personal Cruise Guides. They really are the best cruise agents in the country!
As you can see in the image above the company was founded by two industry veterans, John Keen and Jeff Nickerson. Both men work every day in the business and are intimately involved in its ongoing success. John Keen is a pioneer in the online cruise industry, having cofounded Cruise Outlet which was one of the very first national cruise companies to start doing business on the internet in the mid 1990’s. He later founded CruiseDeals.com which quickly became one of the fastest growing travel businesses on the internet. He sold that business to the Carlson Company, which is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. Some of their brands include Friday’s restaurants, Regent hotels and Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Jeff Nickerson is also an industry veteran having worked as a sales manager with Royal Caribbean and also with CruisesOnly in the development of their travel technology. He later joined CruiseDeals.com and was the driving force behind its meteoric growth. They took their knowledge and experience and started a new breed of online cruise companies, CruiseNow.com!
CruiseNow.com is founded on many of the same guiding principles as the past, but this time they improved on them! Those principals are as follows:
Incredible staff - CruiseNow.com only hires the best of the best. Our Personal Cruise Guides and Care Guides are focused on you. We make sure that you are satisfied from pre booking until you return home from your vacation. We treat our staff like family members and expect them to treat our customers the same.
Amazing Cruise Values - Because of our size and reputation, CruiseNow.com has access to the absolute best cruise values in the industry. We make sure our customers get the best deal on their vacation. The bottom line is nobody gets a better deal than we do.
Faith – Both cofounders are men of faith and it’s important to us to make sure we operate our business in an ethical manner that honors God. We also try and follow that golden rule. Do unto others……
Customer Focused – We understand that no business is successful without taking care of their customers. We are knowledgeable about the industry and provide our clients the best advice and best price. In addition we are here for you – before, during and after your cruise.
Innovative – The team here at CruiseNow.com is committed to stay ahead of the technology curve. We are constantly improving our website and internal processes to make your experience more enjoyable and productive. We understand that using technology to educate and inform our customers will only make their experience with us more rewarding.
Have Fun – We sell cruises! What’s not to love about this job? Our goal here at CruiseNow.com is to make sure our employees have fun working here AND customers enjoy working with us. We take what we do very seriously, but always want to make sure everyone (including you) is having a good time! Life’s too short. ;-)
Thanks for taking the time to learn a little more about us here at CruiseNow.com. We always promise to treat you like family!
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Posted 6/25/2009 by Geoff, Pres/CEO
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I recently gave a speech at the Jacksonville IT Expo on marketing a business by using Web 2.0 and Social Media. Here is a clip from my speech in which I give some tips about using Facebook to promote a business.
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Posted 6/22/2009 by Geoff, Pres/CEO
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Here are some interesting articles that our interactive media team came across this past week:
“The Battlefield of Design: Designers vs. Clients” >> Read Article
“Watching Your Web Language” >> Read Article
“Microsoft’s Removal of IE from Windows 7 Will Have no effect” >> Read Article
Enjoy!
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Posted 6/15/2009 by Geoff, Pres/CEO
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Here are some interesting articles that our interactive media team came across this past week:
“Dell makes $3 Million from Twitter-Related Sales” >> Read Article
“16 Design Tools for Prototyping and Wireframing” >> Read Article
‘Hunch’ Web site will make decisions for you” >> Read Article
Enjoy!
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Posted 6/11/2009 by PeterV, VP, Marketing
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We've done a field day at 352 Media Group for the past three years now (think company picnic mixed with elementary school field day), and yesterday was this year's event. We kept some of the old favorites like the egg on a spoon relay and water balloon toss, dropped the painful events like tug-o-war, and added a couple of great games.
My favorite was a "spin" on the dizzy bat race where contestants had to run to the middle, spin on the bat, find their shoes in a pile and put them on, then spin again before running back to tag the next person. Instant classic!
For those of you who can't wait for individual videos from the events, here's a greatest hits compilation I threw together. Enjoy!
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Posted 5/31/2009 by PeterV, VP, Marketing
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We had a tremendous turnout for our Webinar last week about search engine friendly design. However I do know that there were some who weren't able to attend. We've uploaded a video of the session for you to watch on your own.
Last time we used google video, however that service is no longer available to upload large files (the webinar is about an hour long). However we've found a service that should work. If you do encounter any problems, please let us know and we'll do our best to remedy the situation.
Here is the link to download the wmv file to watch on your own computer:
Download webinar 2.wmv from FileFactory.com
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