EVENT: New York Tech Meetup
DATE: August 2010
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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.

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Blue Fountain Media’s Gabriel Shaoolian recently gave a seminar on Online Reputation Management . Today Blue Fountain Media has released the full Powerpoint presentation, which can be viewed below:

Tomorrow, 4/16, marks what is sure to become an annual celebration of social media: Foursquare Day.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is an app (available for most modern smart phones) that encourages users to “check in” when they’re out and about. Bars and restaurants are the most common places–anywhere that you might hang out for a while. Checking in sends a ping to your friends so they know where you are. The app also allows users to share tips and compete to earn virtual badges of honor for completing certain tasks (e.g. “School Night” for checking in somewhere after 4am Monday-Friday). The most frequent visitor to each venue is crowned the “mayor” of the venue. While it was released at Austin’s SXSW festival in 2009, Foursquare has gained tracking in recent months, having added nearly 1 million users since the start of 2010. (more…)

NYC Pillow Fight 2010 will take place in Union Square

Blue Fountain Media’s office overlooks Union Square, the site of the 2010 NYC Pillow Fight.  Thousands of people are expected to descend on Union Square for NYC’s 5th annual urban pillow fight. The event is FREE and open to all ages. Funky pillows and costumes are encouraged. The event takes place Saturday, April 3rd, at 3pm. Read more at PillowFightDay.com

The tradition has grown over the years, from 500 people at the first pillow fight back in 2006, to over 5000 people at last year’s event. With the beautiful weather expected tomorrow, this year’s event is expected to be even bigger!

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Founder of NY Entrepreneurs Business Network (NYEBN), Andrew Wong, was looking for an expert entrepreneur that can speak about the value of online marketing – once he met Blue Fountain Media’s CEO Gabriel Shaoolian, the search was over.

On Thursday, April 1, 2010 Gabriel Shaoolian will be the keynote speaker for the NYEBN Spring seminar. He will be covering “How to Get The Most out of Online Marketing” in front of eager small business owners and entrepreneurs in New York City.

Thursday’s event will focus on how to build your online business and how to market it efficiently and wisely. Gabriel’s seminar is very beneficial for businesses of all sizes because he gives key advice on their online business strategies – the rights and wrongs and how to build a better online reputation.

If you would like to learn more about this event and want to RSVP, Click Here

Last week, Blue Fountain Media was a featured sponsor, as well as guest speakers at the Social Reputation Management event hosted by the Business Development Institute at the CUNY Graduate Center. Both Gabriel Shaoolian and Director of Marketing, Alhan Keser, gave wonderful insights about online reputation and the science of SEO. Other featured guests were GM, MasterCard, Pitney Bowes and Tyson Foods.

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.