| The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY) |
| GrubLink Publicity |
| Written by Guss Firestein |
| Wednesday, September 23 2009 19:43 |
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This is an article from the Schenectady "Daily Gazette" written by Ameerah Cetawayo on September 20, 2009. Click above to read the article
Entrepreneurs' Web sites are clearinghouses on area night life Author: Ameerah CetawaySeptember 20, 2009 The burning desire to consolidate the places people could hang out led Fever Pitch Marketing President and CEO Anthony DiMoro, 27, to begin putting together a directory of the area's bars and restaurants last August, when he launched 518fever.com. "If I was going out to a place, I would Google it," said DiMoro, a Mohonasen high school graduate of the class of 2000. "That just seemed long and drawn out." DiMoro eventually left his full-time job and began putting all of his effort into visiting local places, taking pictures and making notes of details like the cover charge, the type of music bands would play and what activities were offered, like karaoke or pool. Twenty-five bars turned into 50; now they have more than 120 bars listed. Then the site started listing restaurants, and quickly more than! 75 locales were documented. In January, the site started promoting local events, beginning with Bayou Cafe and Bangkok Bistro. Now, 518fever.com has its own promotional models, partnering up with local places to offer special promotions like drink specials. They even help raise money for charity. On Saturday in Rotterdam, 518fever.com was to hold a fundraiser at Schenectady's DeAngelo's Play by Play for Doug Horton, a resident battling cancer. The site operates with advertising revenue and event promotions with local businesses, from mom-and-pop businesses to established entities like Jillian's in Albany. The site offers Web site design and consulting services for startups as well. DiMoro said social networking has caught on to the point that introducing a new site isn't as hard. What puts 518fever.com at a competitive edge is its hyperlocal approach, which DiMoro said beats sites like Facebook and MySpace. "You don't see Facebook or! MySpace at your bar," DiMoro said. "If you're a band, it's gr! eat to h ave people in Alaska listening to you, but you want to build a local fan base." Growing resource Since the launch a year ago in August, the site has seen tremendous growth in unique visitors, from 10 in the first month to an average of 4,000, 93 percent of which are located in the 518 area code. The other 7 percent come from search engine robots and people from elsewhere in New York state or New Jersey. The site also has a viral marketing campaign called "Worming Around," which features a stocky 6-foot bald guy who does "the worm," a break-dancing move, at popular, well-known places in the Capital Region, including General Electric, Jay Street, Glen Sanders Mansion, The Egg, Proctors and several other places. "We generated close to 200 views in a week when we first launched our videos," DiMoro said. DiMoro even took the time to write the history of every town and city in the Capital Region and shoots his own original images f! or the Web site. "At least they can use it for a reference, or if they're just visiting here, they can see where they're going," DiMoro. "I want it to be when you go to 518fever.com, it's like virtually walking around the 518. Eventually we want to brand everything and venture out to other area codes, but for now, home is the best for us." DiMoro uses his seven years of expertise as a search engine optimization specialist to build up the site's social networking features, like games and polls. "People use our site to start groups," DiMoro said. "They can build a following among people who are already coming into their bar. You can build a relationship with those people and you can do it for free through our site." The site hasn't generated a profit yet, which DiMoro says comes from his decision not to have too many ads on the site or spam its users. "Our return on our investment is seeing people at our events and groups on o! ur site," DiMoro said. But the site continues to gai! n buzz a s its online footprint evolves. The site won Albany.com's 2009 Best of the Capital Region for "Best Blog" and Metroland's 2009 Readers' Choice Awards for third-best site for arts and best site for music. The staff for 518fever.com includes Promotional Manager Robert Robles, Booking Manager Anthony Rossi and Maria Oeser, a 27-year-old Schenectady native who handles marketing and public relations for the site. One-stop shopping For Union College junior Guss Firestein, 20, places where students could find food and music in the Schenectady area needed a home online. With business partner Brett Sussman, GrubLink.com was born. The site was launched in late May. "I was just looking for something to keep me busy, and I wanted to start something now," said Firestein, who lives downstate in Westchester County when he's not at school. "There are all these food places, but there was no one source or database to access them -- I! had to know the names and Google it, find the address and phone numbers and call them. I didn't have access to their menu." To find out about music events, he would have to go to other sites for a similar process. "It was very labor intensive," Firestein said. "You could put it all together. I figured what do college students like -- they like food and music. Put it all together, you can't fail." The average visitor spends eight minutes on the site, according to the Web site's statistics. Convincing local businesses to join his client roll wasn't as easy. "It took a long time for me to convince them that this would be beneficial," Firestein said. Firestein said he convinced Water's Edge owner Pat Popolizio, who is a former executive of Price Chopper, that becoming a client would be beneficial because of competition. "If all of your competitors are on this Web site and these students don't necessarily kno! w who you are, and their parents are coming up for different t! hings, t hey're going to go to what's easiest. They're going to go to the place that has their menu up [on a Web site], and they're going to go there over you," Firestein said his pitch was. But Firestein and Sussman wanted more than a Web site and eventually made the company into a marketing enterprise the duo hope to diversify. The marketing company has booked 30 clients so far but has hundreds of places listed on the site. The profits from marketing food locales go toward holding concert events, like the large launch party that was to be held Saturday at Union College's Psi Upsilon fraternity. The company offers GrubStub cards, which give customers local discounts, events and information. GrubLink has also been passing out 700 shirts, which are also part of its marketing. GrubLink is mobilizing volunteers for "GrubLink teams" for promotional and marketing events. An organizational team of a handful of people help manage the marketi! ng company's operations. "I don't ever see myself in a cubicle," Firestein said. "I just have too many ideas." Schenectady scene The site promotes homegrown places that may be missed by Union College students who aren't familiar with Schenectady. Schenectady restaurants lose some residents to Saratoga Springs' allure during the summer, Firestein said, as college students flock to the tourism destination for the city's walkable downtown. "You don't have to know anything about Saratoga; you can just show up there," Firestein said. "You'll find a bar, you'll find a restaurant, they're all right there. Here, they're all spread out. They're all over the place." Using social entrepreneurism, Firestein hopes he can build more awareness of the up-and-coming Schenectady scene and get people more connected so they have a compelling reason for people to come the city. "I feel there's so much possibility for Schenectady," Firestein said. Firestein was able to negotiat! e up-fro nt startup costs for the site, which gave him an edge, along with seeking out the wisdom of Internet gurus with profitable Web sites. Firestein hopes to expand the site to other schools in the Capital Region, like Siena and Skidmore. Firestein, Sussman and DiMoro reflect growing entrepreneurism among young people. According to the Small Business Administration, there has been a 33 percent increase in the number of entrepreneurs aged 34 and younger. Out of the 15,861,099 small businesses in 2007, about 12 percent were owned by people between the age of 25 to 34. Nearly half a million, or 3 percent of entrepreneurs, were below the age of 25." Reach Gazette reporter Ameerah Cetawayo at 395-3040 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Copyright (c) 2009 The Daily Gazette Co. All Rights Reserved. Record Number: 12AD795F9CD80C68 |
