There are too many nights where I want to go out and a bar down the street is having a great special but I never know if the people there are the kind of people I want to be around or even if it’s busy. Now, there’s Barspace (www.barspace.tv), a social networking site where you can receive promotional texts for specials or free covers and see a live webcam in each bar that subscribes to the service, so people can see what it’s like in the bar.
It’s a completely ingenious idea and a head above the rest of its competitors. After having the logo designed on crowdSPRING, Peter Viviani, founder of Barspace, designed his website and took it live. The response seems to be overwhelmingly positive and the concept of the website is so fun so check it out!
I had a chance to ask Peter a few questions are here are his words of wisdom so listen up!
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING?
We had an in house designer, who was good, but couldn’t compare to the virtual pool of talent that cS offers.
2. Why in the world did you decide to use crowdSPRING?!
After viewing the current projects on the site, and seeing how many designs they had to choose from, it seemed like it was worth taking a chance.
3. What’s the single best small biz resource that you’ve found (magazine, website, blog, etc.)?
crowdSPRING (and I’m not trying to kiss ass 
4. If your best friend told you they were going to start a business, what’s the ONE piece of advice you’d give them?
Come up with a catchy, sticky name and use crowdSPRING to create a killer logo. Making a first impression with a sticky logo can go a long way, even at the concept stage.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Seven deadly sins of Javascript – http://bit.ly/9JAJVf
30 Free Fonts Best for Business Logos – http://bit.ly/aVtGOl
How to Be Competitive Without Alienating Your Peers – http://bit.ly/aUJA5b
14 questions to ask your clients before and after a project – http://bit.ly/c7k07L
30 Examples Of CSS Text Shadows Out In The Wild – http://bit.ly/bYmrvA
15 Tips for Designing Terrific Tables – http://j.mp/8VxvSJ
50+ sets of Latest Photoshop color gradients – http://bit.ly/9JtbSm
Stone and Concrete Textures – http://bit.ly/95bm52
50 Beautiful and Stunning Beer Bottle and Can Designs – http://bit.ly/bYiXbD
Favicons Gallery – http://bit.ly/1K445U
Single Letter Logos – http://bit.ly/daVanm
40 Creative Navigation Menus – http://bit.ly/dc43kP
6 Things that Designers Can Learn from the Olympics – http://bit.ly/bq0QWI
45 Awesome Colorful Logo Designs and Tutorials For Your Inspiration – http://bit.ly/9kk8Jw
Examples of Sign-Up & Contact Forms Designed For High Conversions – http://bit.ly/cAR7Oa
A Showcase of Beautiful Typography in Web Design – http://bit.ly/9e6fac
Sleek & Sexy Faucet Designs – http://bit.ly/ayuBBO
Search engine optimization (SEO) can provide low cost opportunities for a startup to market its products and/or services. However, many startup founders don’t appreciate the difficulty of executing an effective SEO strategy when you have a new company and a new domain. There are SEO experts, of course, and some are outstanding (follow Danny Sullivan on Twitter or read his blog – SearchEngineLand.com – if you’d like to learn more about SEO). And of course there are many SEO “experts” who give the SEO industry a bad name (just as there are bad designers, lawyers, doctors, cops, etc.).
Startups – especially bootstrapped startups – typically don’t have funds to hire SEO experts and must find ways to execute SEO strategies on their own. That’s what we’ve had to do with crowdPSRING. We committed at the end of 2008 to learn as much as we can about SEO and to see what we could do on our own. After reading thousands of posts, making hundreds of mistakes, and tweaking our strategy nonstop throughout the past year, we managed to end 2009 with a respectable PR 7 on Google – as a 20 month old company.
In the following video, I share five tips to help you with your own SEO strategy. These tips reflect what we did at crowdSPRING in trying to execute an SEO strategy with no budget. In the video, I recommend a book about SEO – here’s a link if you’re interested – Search Engine Optimization for Dummies (by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza).
Do you have questions or other suggestions to help startups with search engine optimization? Please leave them in the comments?
I was disappointed by the advertising on the superbowl a few weeks ago. Most of the ads were terrible and several were incomprehensible.
Some of the more effective ads shared a common trait: they were simple and focused. Simple messages work. Simple is memorable and understandable. That’s one reason why Google’s search ad during the superbowl scored so high with viewers.
Some question whether it’s possible for simple messages to communicate complex ideas and subjects. For me, the following video communicates an important message and reinforces emotion and safety – all without a single spoken word or the violence that we often see in similar ads.
What do you think?
If any of you are as excited as I am about the FIFA World Cup being held for the very first time in an African country then you’ll be just as excited about this company that posted a project on crowdSPRING. CAfrica Sports (pronounced see-Africa-sports) was in need of a logo and stationery design for their company that will be the first private broadcaster to deliver content to over 40 countries in sub-Sahara Africa.
They already own the rights to broadcast NBA and many other programs. This is huge for any company wanting to target African countries because they can now advertise during NBA games and other popular programs. Not only that but this is the first time companies will be able to advertise to more than one country at the same time. Before CAfrica Sports, companies wanting to advertise in Africa had to pay on a country to country basis.
We got a chance to talk with Sarah Eder from Eder Communications, who posted this project, to find out a few things and here’s what she said…
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING?
Before crowdSPRING, we either designed our logos and websites ourselves (poorly) or we would use a designer recommended by someone in our network of contacts. Even then, the prices were usually beyond our budget or we would only be presented with a handful concepts.
2. Why in the world did you decide to use crowdSPRING?!
A friend in public relations told us about crowdSPRING; she had used the site for other clients and projects. We immediately loved the concept. We checked out the crowdSPRING website and were amazed by the creativity and quality of the submissions. And, we were impressed by the professional approach of the crowdSPRING team, and the rave reviews the site had received.
3. What’s the single best small biz resource that you’ve found (magazine, website, blog, etc.)?
It’s hard to pin down just one. For our industry, we love www.balancingact-africa.com because of the media and telecommunications information about Africa. We’re also fans of Timbuktu Chronicles at http://timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com because it captures the entrepreneurial and consumer essence of Africa. But, the best resource available is our personal and professional network. It’s sort of like the Kevin Bacon game; we are usually about six people or less from getting to the right person we need to get to.
4. If your best friend told you they were going to start a business, what’s the ONE piece of advice you’d give them?
Build your team to fit the business, not the other way around. Oh, and check out crowdSPRING!
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Measuring Up: Are You a Good Designer or a Great One? – http://bit.ly/amhKzb
Designing Great Information Graphics – http://bit.ly/beV7PF
25 amazing Hand based Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/cNmfVg
Illustrator & Type Tips Worth Knowing – http://bit.ly/9G623K
30 Beautiful & Inspiring Packages (package design) – http://bit.ly/bTL8lS
50 Beautiful Clean and Simple Web Designs – http://bit.ly/ce8eYK
22 Fantastic Animal Character Tutorials for Illustrator – http://bit.ly/bxohoy
50 Beautiful Clean and Simple Web Designs – http://j.mp/b17Ub6
35 Latest High-Quality Free Fonts for Professional Designers – http://bit.ly/9ImtLr
50 Inspiring Dark Web Designs – http://bit.ly/b87M4T
15 Tools for Cross-Browser Testing – http://bit.ly/d4Keo9
The Art of Crafting Beautiful Stylesheets – http://bit.ly/bzxlr
95+ Amazing and Colorful Floral Designs- Free EPS Files – http://bit.ly/8Y3Nml
The Most Common HTML and CSS Mistakes to Avoid – http://bit.ly/bZYGAx
Email Newsletter Design: Guidelines And Examples – http://bit.ly/9pbl9m
Super Easy Typographic Portrait in Photoshop – http://bit.ly/cDKV1r
Most Creative and Fantastic Error 404 Pages – http://bit.ly/bprKGS
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Janis Aydelette (crowdSPRING username: janisa) today. Janis lives and works in Douglasville, Georgia.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
Hi. My name is Janis, (aka Janisa on crowdSPRING). I laugh at my cS name Janisa, actually , it’s a combination of my first name and last initial. In my haste to set up a profile, it became my user name. Believe me, I’ve tried to change It, to no avail. Now, I’m just trying to embrace it.
My husband Jamie and I live just outside of Atlanta, with our daughter Katie (19) and 18 year old son Trey. We’ve had a rescue Corgi, Belle, for 11 years, and recently adopted our cat, King Louis, who was left on our front porch. And they are all the loves of my life.
I grew up in Swannanoa, NC, a beautiful small town just outside of Asheville, number 8 of 10 kids. My mother was wonderful, she had a song for everything, peeled a lot of potatoes and took care of all of us. What little spare time she had, she read, and did crossword puzzles. I remember her drawing these amazing faces in pen on the borders of the newspaper . I like to think I got my drawing skills from her.
My dad was a character, a southern renaissance man. He built our little 4 room house, could fix anything, and played the harmonica as well as I’ve ever heard anyone play. We grew up in a tiny house, on a tiny budget, that was full of love.
These were the things that helped define me, and my personality. I ‘m passionate about things I become involved in, and perhaps competitive to a fault. I remember a birthday party when I was about 10 years old, it had 3 separate contests: the swim under the weighted hula hoops contest, the craziest dance contest, and the funniest faces contest. Determined to win ALL of them, I did. It didn’t matter if I nearly drowned, or how contorted my face was, and the dance moves…well, I’m sure I left it all out there on the dance floor!
crowdSPRING is the world's #1 marketplace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, a new company name or other writing and design services. Over 115,000 designers and writers work on crowdSPRING. We are trusted by more than 29,000 happy clients around the world.
