The Local Life

Last week we released some very exciting new features, mostly around the ability for anyone to add a blog to their business, or to their user page, or just in general. We talk to a lot of businesses that would like to start a blog, but don’t know how or where to start. Well like everything else we do, we strive to make it easy for businesses to spread the word about their specials and features. Now we have made it easy for them to keep a blog, which they can then feature on their business page if they own a business, or simply share with the local world on the homepage.

Blogs are fun, they bring new things to light that you would never find otherwise. We are looking forward to seeing what the world comes up with, and sharing it all with you!

In the spirit of keeping an open line of communication with both our clients and our users, we’re going to start updating this blog alot more whenever we release new features. This week we released a few new features, with a bunch more soon to come.  The key releases we’ll focus on here are some updates to the way the event calendar works, and how events are displayed in “Whats Happening”

The Whats Happening section is a major feature for our upgraded businesses. When a business has an event at their location, our software automatically associates the event, with that business, carrying over the Google Map, the logo, and most importantly posts the event in the “Whats Happening” section on the homepage. The Whats Happening section has been programmed to only show events which are upcoming with in the next 7 days, and randomly shows 4 events drawn from the pool of our customers events.

In order to have your event show in Whats Happening, you must have an upgraded account, your event must be with in the next 7 days, and you must be logged in as the account owner. Of course, as always any event added to our calendar will continue to be free for everyone. We want to maintain the best possible calendar while still providing our upgraded clients an awareness advantage by placing their events in the Whats Happening section, with their business’s logo.

We will soon be adding new modules showing featured events, and upcoming events across different places on the site. As our calendar grows, and we add more events in more categories, we will constanly improving usability and functionality of the calendar.
Cheers,

- Jamie

“We hadn’t been to the Jazz Fest in almost 20 years”, Amy Gerling told us, “but after this weekend my husband said ‘This was so perfect. We have to do this every year.’”

Gerling, manager of East Greenbush Travel (East Green Bush Travel), heard about TheSaratogaLife Jazz Lover’s weekend giveaway on Twitter.

Her entry got in just under the wire.

Our lucky winner was presented with her prize package by Cathy French, Front office manager at the Holiday Inn Saratoga Springs.

Her bounty included 2 2-day passes to SPAC’s Freihofer Jazz Fest, dinner for 2 at Beverly’s, a picnic lunch provided by Hattie’s and a night’s stay at the Holiday Inn including breakfast.

Gerling and her husband, a union representative, were thrilled with the meals and the hospitality.

“The hotel was great. Everyone was so nice.”

But she reserved her highest praise for the musical artists. “George Benson I loved. Oh my God. It was so great. And Pat Metheny…everything. We could have sat there forever and just listened to the music. Just perfect. Perfect.”

Will we be seeing more of the Gerlings in Saratoga?

“My husband said ‘We have to do this every year.’ So this is going to become a tradition for us now. Thank you.”

Thank you, Amy Gerling. Keep coming back!

Scavenger Hunt Winner Kelly Meilstrup with George Ehinger

Real People do win! People Like you.

Kelly Meilstrup found herself with a free afternoon and decided she had nothing to lose. Armed with a print-out from TheSaratogaLife and a pen, she sought to answer some puzzling questions such as “Just what kind of beer bottle is pictured in the mens bathroom at the Grey Gelding?” and “How many swans swim in the pond behind The Mansion Inn?”

Meilstrup, a criminal defense attorney, recently moved to Saratoga Springs from San Diego when her husband was stationed here with the US Navy. She says she has quickly found TheSaratogaLife.com to be indispensible.

“I love the deals and seeing what’s going on in town.”

Lucky for us and lucky for Kelly! She was named the Grand Prize Winner of our Scavenger Hunt Contest. Managing Director George Ehinger recently met Kelly to present her prize package which included 1 Night Stay at The Mansion Inn, $100 SaratogaLife Bucks Gift Card (valid at any of our member businesses), $75 Gift Card at Grey Gelding, $50 Gift Card at Lucia Boutique and a pair of tickets for Opening Night of the New York City Ballet on July 7, 2009.

Kelly told us that in addition to being our big winner, she’s also become a customer!

“Being new in town, we never even knew the Spring Street Deli existed. We are now ordering pizza and sandwiches from them at least once a week. That was a great find.”

The Providence Life
Local Territory Manager

Job Description:

TheProvidenceLife.com, the premier online guide for people looking to shop, dine. stay or play in Providence, is looking for an outgoing, fun, results oriented, sales executive to join our team on a part time (2-3 days/week) basis as our Local Territory Manager. The ideal candidate loves living in Providence, embraces the power of the internet as a business and social networking tool, and either has or is eager to build relationships with the owners of Providence’s restaurants, shops, hotels, and businesses.

As our Local Territory Manager you will continue to make TheProvidenceLife.com an essential part of the community by 1) helping existing and new accounts use our advertising platform to tell their story to active buyers, 2) reaching out to community organizations, artists and musicians to help populate our events calendars, and 3) by working with our corporate marketing team to develop fun, community building contests, promotions and email campaigns.

Who would excel at this job? If you really love Providence and all it has to offer locals and visitors alike, you understand and embrace the internet as an advertising and community building platform, and you thrive on meeting people and building relationships with local business owners, then this job would be a good fit for you. In addition you have a natural insinct for marketing and communication, you can work indenpendtly and you are able to set your own priorities.

Preference given to applicants with the following qualifications:

• Strong ties to Providence via community involvement
• Restaurant or retail management experience
• Sales or teaching experience
• Ad sales experience-especially internet based
• Proven ability to work independtly
• Natural instinct for marketing and communication and good instincts for words, images and ideas that make people act.
• Most importantly you want to help locally owned businesses succeed and Providence thrive.

Compensation—position is heavily commission based but there is a strong revenue history and good account base. Details provided to qualified applicants.

Contact: Please email your resume and qualifications to george@thelocallife.com .

TheLocalLife family is growing and we are very pleased to announce a new addition!

Timur Tugberk is a native Washingtonian, born and raised, leaving  the city only to live abroad in both France and Italy.  After  graduating from the George Washington University he took on his  first job in high end design sales.  After more than two years of  using his creativity in design, he decided to expand upon this in  the world of advertising.

Timur is very excited to come aboard at  The Local Life as the Washington DC metro area’s territory manager,  and looks forward to helping you make your business even more  successful!

Contact: Timur@thelocallife.com

A warm welcome Timur!

It’s always exciting when you add new people to your team, especially at a time like this, when things are really moving! We have two new additions to TheLocalLife.com.

Kaylee Schatz is our new Territory Manager for Raleigh, NC. Kaylee has had  a successful career in Real Estate and managing her own interior design firm in Raleigh. A perfect match of knowing Raleigh’s city layout intimatly and working closely with clients and understanding their needs.

Mers Sumida is our Online Content Manager, ensuring all front end content on the site is effective and up to date as well the integrity of the presentation layer.  Mers is joining us from the Digital Media department at IMG Media in Manhattan. She has managed and published online content for Vogue.tv’s Model.Live, JeffGordon.com, and MariaSharpova.com.

Welcome aboard!

Today we launched TheAlexandriaLife.com featuring all the great things in Alexandria VA