The Interactive Media Awards has honored Blue Fountain Media with two “Outstanding Achievement” awards in its most recent competition.

Winning in the E-Commerce category was the 3D Laser Gifts website (http://www.3dlasergifts.com)
The judges gave the site extremely high marks for content (99 out of 100), feature functionality (99 out of 100), usability (97 out of 100) and design (96 out of 100).

Winning in the E-Zine/Newsletter category was the Blue Fountain Media Newsletter.

Earlier this year, Blue Fountain Media won for “Outstanding Achievement” for the Smarties candy website.
In the past year, Blue Fountain Media has also been honored by the American Design Awards (five awards) and Small Business Commerce Association (Best of Business).

“I am extremely proud of our team,” said Blue Fountain Media CEO Gabriel Shaoolian. “It is nice to be recognized for the work we do. Awards are great, but our greatest reward is delivering websites and marketing services that enhance our clients’ bottom lines.”

Blue Fountain Media CEO Gabriel Shaoolian was one of three experts called upon by The New York Times to offer advice in a case study on FreshDirect, the online grocer. Shaoolian was featured along with Harvard Business School professor John A. Deighton and Stew Leaonard, Jr., president and CEO of Stew Leonard’s.

In the article, published today, Shaoolian said:

“FreshDirect has a great chance to create what we call a stickiness factor, adding features that bring people to their site on a more frequent basis. They need to integrate social media marketing, give people the opportunity to tweet about certain items or post them to Facebook.”

In recent months, Shaoolian, along with several other Blue Fountain Media experts, have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Inc., Yahoo!, Crain’s New York Business, Fox Business, Women Entrepreneur, SmartMoney, YoungEntrepreneur.com and a number of other media outlets.

We are always happy to assist members of the media with our insights into web design, web development, online maketing, search engine optimization, online reputation management and other topics relating to conducting business online.

If you are a media outlet looking for help from the Blue Fountain Media team, give us a call at 212.260.1978 or send an e-mail to jon@bluefountainmedia.com.

Read Gabriel Shaoolian’s advice in the New York Times.

The marketing team at Blue Fountain Media couldn’t agree more with Mashable’s assessment. In fact, to illustrate the interesting ways people are using barcodes, Mashable included a picture of  the world’s biggest Stickybits barcode, which Blue Fountain Media installed in June. Blue Fountain Media even hosted the Stickbits team at an event dubbed “Giant Stickybits, Regular-Sized Beers.”

Read the full QR & barcode article at mashable.

Five American Web Designs Awards are just the latest accolades for Blue Fountain Media

Blue Fountain Media has been earning a host of honors in recent months, including this week’s announcement that the company had won five American Web Design Awards.

Since March, Blue Fountain Media has also been honored by the Interactive Media Awards and the Small Business Commerce Association’s Best of Business Awards.

The awards cover a wide range of categories, including overall excellence, consumer goods, financial websites, website and graphic design and newsletters and promotions.

“I am humbled by the recognition our company has received for the work we’ve done for our clients,” said Blue Fountain Media CEO Gabriel Shaoolian. “These are some of the most prestigious organizations in our industry and it means a great deal to me and my team at Blue Fountain Media that we are getting national and international attention.”

While he is thrilled with the awards, Shaoolian does not want the recognition to take away from the essence of what Blue Fountain Media is all about.

“Don’t get me wrong, awards are great,” he said. “But awards don’t mean anything if the award-winning websites aren’t sites that our clients’ businesses grow and prosper.

“Blue Fountain Media provides results-driven solutions. Beautifully designed websites are great, but  it’s more important that the websites produce the desired economic and branding results for our clients. We are far prouder of producing sites that deliver a great ROI to our clients than sites that deliver awards.”

Just this week, Blue Fountain Media was announced as the winner of five American Web Design Awards.

The American Web Design Awards went to sites created for Smarties candies (general excellence), La Grenouille restaurant (general excellence), Broadway Nails (general excellence), Liquid Trading (financial) and for Blue Fountain Media’s monthly newsletter (a winner in the newsletter and promotions category).

The awards are presented by Graphic Design USA, “The news magazine for creative professionals.” According to Graphic Design USA, “The American Web Design Awards —celebrates the power of a well-designed site to attract audiences, communicate information, generate engagement and response, and market products and services. The emphasis, in light of our expertise, is on visual design and aesthetics.”

“Obviously, I am extremely proud of the work performed by our design team on all of these projects,” Shaoolian said. “It is a great honor to have been recognized by a publication as prestigious as Graphic Design USA.”

Just one month earlier, Blue Fountain Media won the “Outstanding Website (Consumer Goods)” from the Interactive Media Awards for the Smarties website.  In March, Blue Fountain Media won the Small Business Commerce Association’s “Best of Business Award in Website and Graphic Design.”

Below, see our other four award winners:

Smarties | Smarties.com

Blue Fountain Media Newsletter

La Grenouille Restaurant | La-Grenouille.com

Liquid Trading International | LiquidTrading.co.uk

]]> http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/blue-fountain-media-wins-american-web-design-awards/feed/ 0 http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/7-reasons-to-love-our-webmodulite-cms/ http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/7-reasons-to-love-our-webmodulite-cms/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 14:29:50 +0000 Ryan Matzner http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/?p=3942

There are literally hundreds of Content Management Systems out there. Some are designed for blogging, others for maintaining e-commerce sites. We believe that our WebModulite Content Management System (CMS) is second to none. Here are the top five reasons:

WebModulite is Modular & Customized

When we integrate WebModulite into your website, we customize the system from the ground up. Rather than tweaking an off-the-shelf solution as many of our competitors do, our WebModulite CMS is tailored to your exact needs.

• A streamlined system designed specifically for your project
• “Fat-Free” – Since WebModulite is customized for your needs, you receive a streamlined system free of any parts you don’t need. This means a smoother experience since you don’t have to worry about extraneous, unnecessary systems and features.

WebModulite Does Not Have “Surprise” Global Updates

“One-size-fits-all” Content Management Systems commonly push out updates to everyone at the same time and often cut support for older installations. This means you might get blindsided by expensive site upgrades and quality assurance (QA) testing. In some cases, upgrades may even remove or change features that you rely on. Our WebModulite CMS will never force an upgrade. Instead, we upgrade our systems on your schedule and only when you need new features and capabilities.

• No costly “surprise” updates
• Updates ONLY when you need new features and capabilities

WebModulite is Fully Scalable & Customizable

Some Content Management Systems have trouble scaling to meet the needs of certain sites. For examples, a larger, more complex CMS might have trouble scaling down to handle a more simple site while others might not be able to scale up to work with larger, more ambitious sites. Scalability isn’t an issue with WebModulite. WebModulite CMS can be deployed in an application as simple as tracking user contact form entries all the way up to a full e-commerce platform.

WebModulite was designed from the ground up to be fully customizable. We can accommodate any feature you might need.

• Fully Scalable — Can work with any site, big or small
• Customizable — We can integrate any features you need

WebModulite’s Code is Fully Documented

Every aspect of WebModulite is meticulously documented and cataloged. Upgrades, feature changes, and any other modification you need to make can be executed without a hitch. You’ll never have to worry about obscure, byzantine code causing problems on the backend.

• Clear, well-documented code makes upgrades and other changes easier

WebModulite Plays Nice With Others

WebModulite was built from the ground up with integration in mind. The system can easily be integrated with virtually any third-party system, software, or website.

• WebModulite can be integrated with nearly any third-party system

WebModulite is Intuitive and Easy to Use

While some system require extensive training and practice to learn–and even more to master–WebModulite is intuitive and easy to use. If you’re familiar with Microsoft Word or can send an email, you can learn WebModulite in about 20 minutes.

• WebModulite is easy to use

WebModulite is NOT Licensed – You Own Your Site

Your WebModulite installation is developed and sold as part of a one-time fee. Other custom CMS solutions often require a licensing agreement. Such agreements often become extremely costly in the long run and limit your ability to upgrade and modify your systems. Blue Fountain Media doesn’t believe in such nonsense. When you buy an installation of WebModulite, you own the system outright. We never lock you into anything. That said, we do offer proactive maintenance for your website if you need support after launch.

• WebModulite is NOT licensed.

Does it take half an hour–or a call to your designer–to make simple changes to the copy on your site? Does your website go down when there’s too much traffic? Are you tired of paying a monthly licensing fee without getting anything in return? If you’re interested in learning more about WebModulite, call Blue Fountain Media on 212-260-1978 or request a quote online.

As Blue Fountain Media continues to win awards for making results-driven website designs, our CEO Gabriel Shaoolian has become in high demand as a public speaker. He’s offered his insight as a featured speaker at the Business Design Institute, lecturing at Paper NYC’s classes, and with the NY Entrepreneurs Business Network.  Most recently Gabe was invited to Madison Square Garden as a featured panelist during the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce’s annual Business Expo, where he spoke how social media can make an impact for both established brands and small businesses.

“If you’re not active in social media, and someone will Google your name, chances are whoever wrote something bad about you will come up (instead of you)”, Gabriel Shaoolian told attendees of the New York Business Expo. Their panel discussed variety of issues, especially online business strategy, goal setting and measuring the results of online marketing campaigns.

Participants in the event focused on the strategic opportunities and practical tactics created through social media, especially as they apply to businesses of across every market. In comparison to traditional advertising, Gabriel Shaoolian pointed out the contrast between entrepreneurs and established brands. “If you want to generate brand loyalty online, you’ve got to put content out there that’s useful to your visitors,” he pointed out, answering the audience’s questions about how to best use these new tools to grow their business.

Many business owners at the panel wanted to know what to say using these social media tools, so Gabriel offered his best advice: “Don’t talk about you all the time; it’s a big mistake and I see it happening.” Instead he suggested that attendees should, “Put content out there that your users would enjoy reading and find useful,” offering our own Business Learning Center as a good example of providing quality content. Other members of panel , which included representatives from Verizon, Postling, and Progressive Computing seemed to agree. Likewise David Lifson of Postling added that businesses can connect with customers when they offer help by “Giving them answers, not sale pitches.”

During their discussion Gabriel Shaoolian summarized how Social Media does three things for a business:

1. Raising awareness as to what you do – about Services and Products
2. Generating inbound links – for SEO value
3. Online Reputation Management – to build Brands and Customer Service

To learn more about how Blue Fountain Media uses social media marketing to generate targeted traffic and build businesses you can read case studies in our Business Learning Center.

A great website called Single Startups, features successful, passionate, single, and most of all cool CEOS and entrepreneurs across the country. When Single Startups asked Blue Fountain Media’s CEO, Gabriel Shaoolian to discuss his personal and professional philosophies- he was happy to oblige.

The Single Startups interview with Gabriel gives terrific insights into why he has been able to make Blue Fountain Media one of the fastest growing web design and online marketing companies in the country.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

Why my product/service is better than the competition:

Every website project we work on is based on the idea of improving our client’s business; getting them more business through the web, increasing their sales, clientele base, and building their brand online. We treat our client’s website business as our own, and produce tangible and measurable results for them. This is how we’ve maintained our client relationships and have grown with their success.

A typical day for me:

Insanity. Starts with two cups of coffee and ends with a shot (preferably vodka). From the moment I wake up until I finally leave my office: there are new ideas to hear, new clients to pitch, current clients to work with, articles to write and, on top of all of that, the duties involved in managing the finances and personnel of an 80+ person company. I’ll say one thing… it’s never boring.

What I love most about my business:

The satisfaction of seeing my clients succeed and the pride in seeing how far my employees have grown professionally. This we don’t joke about.

I’m cool because:

If you answer this question…  you aren’t!

While Gabriel had previously been featured as an expert source in Inc. Magazine, Crain’s New York Business and Young Entrepreneur (just to name a few) – he has gotten a real kick out of being named as a “Cool Single CEO” by Single Startups.

Blue Fountain Media is honored to have Shaoolian as our leader – his creativity, spontaneity, determination and passion never fades and that’s what makes him cool in our eyes.

If you would like to read the full Single Startups interview with Gabriel, click here.

TakeYourOwnPath.com

Blue Fountain Media CEO Gabriel Shaoolian has been identified by Dell as a Business Trailblazer on Dell’s TakeYourOwnPath.com website. Dell’s Business Trailblazers features “the stories of those rugged individuals that have made their way through the labyrinth of business and found their own path to success.”

Read Dells’ profile of Gabriel Shaoolian at TakeYourOwnPath.com

Blue Fountain Media is seeking professionals for their account management team. Account Managers work closely with a Senior Account Manager on projects that put them in direct contact with decision makers in the highest echelons of some of the biggest companies. You will be working directly under one of our strongest commandos, Brice Lucas, and will be a member of one of the fastest growing web development and online marketing firms in the country.

This position is not for everyone.  It requires a tenacious hunger to succeed on a grand scale.  If you are strong, then you will make a name for yourself in this company and if you are weak, you will be wasting your (as well as our) time.

Successful candidates will possess the following qualities (in order of importance):

• Masters Degree in Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, or equivalent experience (if you are a strong problem solver and do not have a degree, prove it).
• Passion for the Web, Including Websites and How to Market Them
• Expert Proficiency in Front-End Web Development (HTML/CSS)
• Expert Proficiency in Web and UI Design (Adobe)
• Expert Problem Solving Capabilities
• Expert Proficiency in Technical Writing
• Expert Proficiency in Reading Comprehension
• Excellent Inter-Personal Skills
• Excellent Communicator
• Strong Understanding of the Capabilities of Backend Technologies (PHP/.NET)
• Strong Business Sense with an Entrepreneurial Spirit and Drive
• Strong Understanding of Current Web Technologies (AJAX, W3C, JS, Flash, etc)
• Superior Organizational & Time Management Skills
• Comfortable in a Sales Environment
• Strong Attention to Detail & An Uncanny Ability to Follow Directions
• Ability to Juggle Multiple Projects Simultaneously Without Sacrificing the End Product.

Good examples of the type person we are looking for to fill this position:

• Project Managers
• Successful Freelancers
• Directors (Online Marketing, Web Production, Creative)

If you are looking for a meritocratic, non-bureaucratic environment, then show us what you’ve got and we will welcome you to the family.

DO NOT CONTACT US IF:

• You lack integrity
• You are not genuine
• You complain about problems without offering solutions
• You do not play well with others
• You are egocentric
• You cannot show us past results
• You cannot get a referral from past employers
• You cannot follow instructions
• You don’t have a sense of humor

Send your resume to amhire@bluefountainmedia.com. Please include links to recent work and a cover letter telling us why you think you fit the bill.  Please put “ATTN: BRICE LUCAS AM” in the subject line.

In the body of the email, please answer the following questions:

1. Describe SEO and SEM.  Include in your description a synopsis of how Google measures the value of sites for ranking in search results.
2. What project management, CMS, and CRM systems are you familiar with?
3. What is an example of what you consider to be a good website, and why?
4. How would you define yourself as a human being?