Twitter, Flickr and more - Learn about online communities!

Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Tribe, Linkd in, LiveJournal, Classmates, Reunion, Bebo and and and...

What are these?
And how can you use it to market your company or organization?

"A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as newsletters, telephone, email, online social networks or instant messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. If the mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chatrooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks." (thanks wikipedia)

What this means for you? Think of these virtual communities as a café or lounge of like-minded individuals all interested in what you have to say.

Get going then!
Join or create a new community today to help spread the word about YOU!

Give us a call if you would like to discuss how social networking can help your marketing plan - 773-665-2552

Your Plan B Company going lights out on March 28th for Earth Hour 2009

On March 28, at 8:30 pm local time, one billion people will go dark for Earth Hour. World Wildlife Fund is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world to turn off their lights to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions.

Already hundreds of icons and landmarks around the world have signed up to turn their lights off for Earth Hour 2009 including - the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sydney Opera House, Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens and The London Eye, among many others.

To to be part of the global lights out visit http://www.earthhour.org/

Your Plan B Company will be joining in! And as a countdown to Earth Day will be posting some other Clean and Green themed information and tips.

NEW SITE for OTRASSN.ORG

Incorporated as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in December 1974, the Over the Rainbow Association was originated by parents and concerned community leaders. DavidB and I began volunteering with OTR in 1995 building their first simple site to the new 3.0 CMS version of today!

Be sure to pencil in the upcoming CELEBRATION event in your calendars! You can read last year's event wrap up in their recent newsletter. And check out their other upcoming events too - get involved if you can!

For many years Your Plan B Company were the website editors, but now with open source options like Joomla! we were able to create a new version of the site where their team and residents can be the editors. Like the community that exists in their brick and mortar buildings, we will be maintaining the site as an online community with different levels of access based on task. And the Board Members can be more actively involved too with their special section. Be on the look-out for all sorts of new videos, blogs and photos from OTR!

If you would like to remodel your site into a Content Management Solution (CMS) or want to know more about CMS, feel free to give us a call at 773-665-2552

Cooking 4 kids online!

New website for Spatulatta, Evanston, IL
spatulatta.com

Cooking 4 kids online! After receiving multiple awards and many more active fans, it was time for the site to go from basic HTML/Quicktime to a database with Flash videos. This upgrade gave us a chance to do a little server housekeeping, making content updates faster and user searching easier through the 200+ video recipes.

Spatulatta.com's intent is to present a fun and compelling website that will help foster a whole new generation of young cooks, not only by introducing cooking skills, but also through modeling behavior for using healthy, fresh, basic ingredients with a minimum of pre-processing. And we think this version helps meet those goals far into the future. Keep your eyes on the home page for a bunch of cool new things like contests, more outtakes and some great remote reporter reports.

If you have a site that is experiencing growing pains, give us a call to see what we can do to help! Maybe a new hosting server, stronger back-end or a new look or content organization? Call 773-665-2552

Search Engine Friendly Site: wielgus.com

NEW version for Wielgus, Chicago, IL
wielgus.com

We love models. Not supermodels (well maybe a couple of them). But model makers.

Wielgus makes those great trade show items you know you love getting your photo by like a tube of giant toothpaste! Wielgus has helped turn the inspirations of industrial design and development professionals into some of the most exciting innovations the world has ever seen. And now Your Plan B Company is proud to be part of their online marketing team by converting their website to a better and smarter site.

While their original site was cool and all Flash, the search engines and newer browsers were having a hard time finding the site. So we rebuilt it to play nice with searches, make it easier for phones to surf and much faster to update.

We have a bunch of ideas on ways to make your website search engine friendly, phone browser friendly or just more friendly all around - give us a call today to brainstorm! Call 773-665-2552

Hey there swingers and hipsters!

Check out the NEW website for Holiday Club, Chicago, IL.
holidayclubchicago.com

Holiday Club is one of our favorite places to eat, brainstorm, hang out with friends or dance on Fridays. So when they asked us to help update their site and make it easy for them to keep current we said HECK YES! With a new layout and design supported by a CMS back-end (Joomla!), the Holiday crew can log in anytime and make updates to the site using their browser based editor. A few sparkling gold animations, some classic photo booth shots and daily updates keep their customers in the know and at the bar. And check out the site on your phone - I bet you can find your way over and check the specials or hours even faster now!

So now you know our secret, if we aren't in the office, we are at the Holiday Club where they've been serving comfort food and snazzy cocktails for over 15 years! Why not make like Sinatra and sip an ice-cold martini while you swing to the eclectic jukebox, snap a picture in the retro black and white photo booth, chill on the sidewalk patio (when it's warm out!), or enjoy some interactive nightly entertainment in the late night lounge! And if you see us there, feel free to come over say hi!

Give us a call about how we can help you keep your site fresh!
Call 773-665-2552 or visit yourplanb.com

YPBCo MEMBER PROFILE: Catherine Larson, Lead Designer

Cat is not only our superfantasticwonderful web designer here in our office, but an established artist outside of the office! She was awarded the Community Arts Assistance Program grant (offered through the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs) in 2008. And she studies woodworking as well. From tables to frames to boxes to birdfeeders, she can wield a saw. This weekend she is off to study chip carving at the Chicago School of Woodworking.

"Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. (thanks wikipedia)"

And Cat does just that! Check out this cool table she made (on the left).

Your Plan B Company is proud of our team, our artists. Each one of our team members exercises their creativity not only in the office but outside of it as well. We believe it is essential to problem solving, design and development. You can see more of Cat's creativity through the YPBCo client portfolio, as well as on her artist site at catherinelarson.com