The Brainerd Real Estate Blog

Found this post thought I would share it thanks to Patrick O’grady Phoenix Business Journal

Zog Media Inc. is offering a new place for Web surfers to start their journeys: The company launched a public test version of ZooLoo.com on Wednesday morning.

The site is an all-encompassing Internet home page that allows users to set up their own aggregate page feeds for news, weather, video and connections to other social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. It also offers a public side that allows users to control which of their friends can have access to any number of features, including blogs, photo and video postings and news feeds.

The project has been in development for more than 13 months at the company’s Scottsdale office. CEO Jeff Herzog, who also founded Internet marketing firm iCrossing, set out to develop a site and service that could be used by anyone wanting to explore the Internet.

“With ZooLoo, I want the consumer to be able to control their domain,” he said.

Registration is free, much like other social media sites. It also offers a premium package for $29.99 a year. That includes a domain registry the company is launching, which will allow users to personalize their names as Web pages.

“We want to be known as the low-cost, high-value site on the Web,” Herzog said.

The site has been in alpha testing with about 500 people for the past few months, and the launch will open it up to an undetermined number of users. Herzog said the company will cap the number of users to continue development of the site. Although no number has been set, the company has looked at getting up to 100,000 users by the end of the year.

The company is pitching the site as a public and private way to experience the Internet. On the private side of each user’s site are the feeds each person selects from a couple hundred “widgets” that represent information aggregated from the Web. It includes everything from news to shopping, and will continue to grow depending on what users want to see, Herzog said.

The site also features the capability to upload photos and get on-demand entertainment; organizational tools such as a calendar and contact management; and a social platform akin to those offered by other social media sites.

On the public side, ZooLoo gives the user the control to make items public and private. The company has a patent pending for its privacy system, which allows each user to designate who among their contacts and the public can view what portion of the site, Herzog said.

“It’s like your personal fortress on the Web,” he said.

Lon Safko, author of “The Social Media Bible,” said ZooLoo represents the next step in the development of social media platforms.

“Google has done the same thing with Google Wave, (which) included e-mail, photo and video share, and collaboration software,” he said. “Any time a company can take the best features available and put it into one easy-to-use product, you generally have a ‘next generation’ solution.”

The key to any social medium’s adoption is its user friendliness. It must be easy to use and intuitive, or it’s not going to fly, Safko said.

The challenge is that many other social networking sites have a huge head start. Facebook has more than 200 million users, and Twitter gets close to 20 million unique visits a day. That kind of membership continues to drive more, said Francine Hardaway, co-founder of Stealthmode Partners in Phoenix.

“What I want is to go where the people are,” she said.

Although it will lag behind the others, ZooLoo represents the latest trend among social media platforms: trying to become a one-stop shop for what people want to see on the Web. Having domain registration also is a good start, Hardaway said.

“I do think domain real estate is important, and I think what may make ZooLoo work is its domain names,” she said.

Zog Media plans to continue to grow the ZooLoo and domain brands and introduce a marketing component in the future. Herzog said he intends to keep the company’s headquarters in the Valley and likely will add staff as the site grows.

Our end of the month client financial reviews were hopeful for the first time this year.  June seems like it turned out to be the best month of the year for brokers, and sales are ahead of cancellations for most of our technology clients.  Hip Hip Hooray!

Nevertheless, this coming winter may be tougher than last winter, so build reserves.  We advise keeping these six covenents in mind as you plan the balance of your year. 

Hold Cash – Be sure to have enough cash on hand to cover cash flow shortfalls between November 2009 to March 2010.

Continue to be Creative and Innovate – shortfalls in cash have stimulated new online marketing tactics which have been effective.  Keep up the good work.

Stay focused on the Customer – All customers spending money today expect you to appreciate their business more in a recession.  Make sure you are meeting your commitment to them.  The customer is buying on price first, and product second.  Be very competitive.

Stay on top of your brand mentions – Information about you and your company is moving around the internet at lightning speed.  Be sure that you stay on top of your online reputation.

Don’t Bet on Government Stimulus – Stay hopeful, but do not assume that the government stimulus will work.  Many economists are speculating that real estate will not see quick results.  Be prepared to fight a long battle, and be mindful that as the stimulus wears off, many of the systemic business problems will still be around to fight.

Focus, Focus, Focus – Don’t try to do too many things – focus on doing the core things well – retain your current customers and fight hard to get every new source of revenue you can.