I headed over to the Sun Microsystems office at 101 Park Ave last night to take part in an exciting event for entrepreneurs, the Ultra Light Startups Entrepreneurs Forum, where startups come to pitch their innovative ideas and have a chance to network and find service providers.

What I found really invigorating about the event was the format:

Each entrepreneur has 1 minute to pitch their startup in front of the room of 100+ entrepreneurs, with their website projected on the wall behind them. They say what their startup is all about, what their business model is, and take 2-3 questions from the audience. Service providers (such as myself) were present to give suggestions and offer help.

Here are the startups who presented last night. If any entrepreneur who is listed here would like to add something, please feel free to comment on this post – and feel free to link here as well

Yipit

http://yipit.com | @yipit

(founder: Vinicius Vacanti – twitter: @vacantif | facebook.com/vacanti)

An aggregate of all online deals – like Kayak in way – including Groupons.

Sourcepad

http://sourcepad.com/beta

(founded by Joe Chin – LinkedIn )

Need to outsource design or development work? SourcePad makes that easy by providing you with top-notch talent and the ability to communicate with those you hire overseas via video.

Cityryde

http://www.cityryde.com | @cityryde

(founded by Timothy Ericson – twitter: @tjericson | mtjericson@cityryde.com)

You may know about bike-sharing in Paris (Velib’) and other European cities. Well here it come to U.S. shores. Cityride, out of Phili, are hoping to take the concept and make it happen right here. You can even earn karma credit for riding your bike around town. According to CEO, Timothy J. Ericson, there is a multi-billion karma market out there.
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It seems like everyone is talking about “real time” these days. But how is that affecting search? Our friends over at SEMPO New York seek to explore the answer to that question at an event they’re hosting as part of Social Media Week NY 2010.

Sounds like a great event and we look forward to attending.

From the event’s MeetUp page:

Please join us as we kick of 2010 in conjunction with Social Media Week.

This month we are joined by Trendrr, StockTwits, Sawhorse Media and Invoke Media/Hootsuite to address the concept of “real time,” from real time publishing, to real time analytics to real time decision-making. And of course, we will discuss the role search plays in the real time world we now live in.

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As the Founder of Blue Fountain Media, I want to wish our clients, our staff and our good friends a very Happy New Year.

2009 was a watershed year for Blue Fountain Media.  This past year saw us double in size, expand offices twice, and bring in many new areas of expertise.

The year saw us work with a wonderful group of clients- both old and new- on a variety of interesting and challenging projects.

Some of the highlights of 2009 include:

• Blue Fountain Media was awarded  a 5-Star Dun and Bradstreet Rating
• We won awards for design, marketing and e-commerce
• We earned recognition by the Web 2.0 Expo as the embodiment of “The Power of Less”
• We were singled out by About.com’s Google expert for our SEO expertise
• We successfully delivered sophisticated projects for clients like the NFL, OppenheimerFunds, Granite Transformations and the United Nations.

We are looking forward to ever greater success in 2010.

Again, wishing you all a very happy and healthy new year!!

Gabriel Shaoolian
Creative Director

Blue Fountain Media reached across state lines to participate in the North Jersey Innovates conference.

The conference, presented by njentrepreneur.com, brought together nearly 200 executives from companies across the tri-state area and was covered by MSNBC’s J.J. Ramberg, who also spoke at the conference.

Jon Gelberg, Blue Fountain Media’s Director of Communications, moderated the panel “Social Media Strategies,” and was joined on the panel by Audrey Wu, President of GlobalWu Communications and Stephanie Noble, Owner of Paden Noble Consulting.

The three provided advice to businesses on the use of a variety of social media tools, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The discussion was a lively one, with many in the audience sharing war stories about their company’s successes and failures in strategizing and implementing social media marketing plans. The panelists offered some step-by-step practical solutions, but warned the attendees that any social media marketing program requires time, resources and expertise to execute well.

Along with the conference, NJInnovates featured an Exposition Hall where, many companies, including Blue Fountain Media, were represented. Representing Blue Fountain Media at the Expo were Asya Alshansky, a member of the Business Development team, and Kevin Horton, a member of the Account Management team. They answered questions throughout the day and discussed solutions to a variety of companies’ website design, developing and online marketing needs.

Jon Gelberg is just one of several Blue Fountain Media experts available for speaking engagements. CEO Gabriel Shaoolian has spoken on a variety of subjects relating to website content, design, development and marketing. If your company or organization is looking for a speaker, please contact us at 212.260.1978.

Thousands of Internet Industry leaders and social media experts descended on New York City’s Javits Center last week for the Web 2.0 Expo. With the theme of the Expo being “The Power of Less,” Blue Fountain Media was the one company singled out as the embodiment of the theme.

Here’s how Web 2.0 Expo defined “The Power of Less”:

The theme for this year’s Web 2.0 Expo New York is the Power of Less. The Power of Less doesn’t just mean making do with fewer staff and a smaller budget. It means that constraints drive creativity, whether in business models, design paradigms, or platforms. It means the power of the small screen, the thin client, the streamlined interface. It might mean the power of small teams, or even going solo.

In the official Web 2.0 Expo Blog, Blue Fountain Media Founder and Creative Director Gabriel Shaoolian participated in an extended Q & A.
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There were a few great take-aways from this afternoon’s SMX East session entitled, “Pumping Up YouTube“, which are key to being successful on YouTube, the Internet’s 2nd largest search engine:

1. Know what “success” means.

What are you trying to achieve?

• Video views – Do you just want a lot of people to see your video?
• Conversions – Do you need people to click to another website and take an action?
• Deeper engagement with your brand – Do you need to use video give your potential customers more interaction with your brand?

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Three members from the Blue Fountain Media marketing team, Alhan Keser, Zack Sinkler, and Byrne Hobart attended the first day of the annual Search Engine Marketing Expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City on Monday.
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After going on a jog at 5:30 AM with the man himself, Peter Shankman, Alhan Keser attended his keynote on the 3rd and final day of Affiliate Summit East 2009 on behalf of Blue Fountain Media.

A visionary in the world of Social Media and PR, Shankman is the founder of HARO the largest free source repository for journalists anywhere in the world. During his keynote, he made some great points on the importance of listening and connectivity for brands, individuals, and corporations–in real-life or on the internet.

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I attended the session entitled “7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page of Design” presented by Tim Ash, President & CEO, SiteTuners.com (Twitter @tim_ash). Here the seven deadly sins of landing page design, outlined by Ash in a very humorous fashion:

1. Unclear call to action.

Focus your visitors on one thing. What it is that you want people to do on each of your pages? 1-800 Flowers is one of the big companies that was messing this up (on their product detail page).

Use Attention Wizard heatmap to find where people are looking on your page.

2. Too many options – steps.

Reduce the friction between the user and the product they are seeking. Show main categories that are most popular on your page – not every subcategory and product on each page.
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President of New Marketing Labs, Chris Brogan, delivered the keynote speech at Affiliate Summit East 2009, focusing on his new book, Trust Agents. As Brogan put it very well, the importance of social media is not about how to Tweet, or how to use Facebook. The real question is, “How do you connect with people online where you don’t have personal interaction?”

More and more Fortune 500 companies are having trouble connecting to their target audience. What it comes down to, as Brogan said, is an attention war against “everything in the world” – spam emails, real world events, and their friends. Companies are in constant competition against other attention grabbers. The way to reach them is ultimately by building trust.
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