The initial response to this is “We already do that. Our website has comment spaces and community blogs.  We post on twitter and Facebook.  We’re all over social media.”

But that’s not quite what I am talking about.  Moderated comments, repeat postings via multiple channels, and event calendar submissions via email work to a degree.  They get some people involved or make some content more accessible.

Instead, what we’re talking about here is providing a platform for collecting and distributing all information essential to a community. A platform populated by anyone with useful content and tapping the diverse mediums being used to share hyper-local information: tweets, blogs, wall postings, location-based data, etc. The future can not be defined by simply defending proprietary information and copyrights.  Nor can it be about excluding valuable voices that want to be included.  The future will be about making all the information people need more accessible and easier to consume.

Finding, including and delivering hyper-local content will create an online future that can derive revenue from current investments through increased pageviews while also creating new advertising opportunities.  The first company in a community to establish this type of platform will have a distinct advantage.

It doesn’t just have to be the newspaper.  A TV or radio station, a community service organization, or even a city government could also lead this charge – newspapers just make sense because of their history as the nexus of community information in the age of print media.  The first company in a community to do this, and to do it right, will have a huge lead on the competition.  In fact, once it is effectively established, the competition will likely be asking to get involved. By providing a common place for local voices, organizations and even local government can be tapped to add their information too. You not only own the platform where all of the information is posted, but attract additional audience members with each entity that adds information.

This is the concept we have been working on at Balaya, and are delivering via our desktop tool, tick-it®.  If you haven’t seen tick-it yet, check it out here.

We’ve recently added a new feature to tick-it that allows a community to aggregate and promote hyper-local information, making engaging blog, twitter, and other content easier to find and enjoy.  We’re piloting this community hub concept with the Savannah Morning News via their tick-it and are already seeing positive results.

If you work for a media company and are interested in exploring the concept for your publication, let us know here. Become the online nexus for your community with tick-it.

If you are in the Savannah area and would like to swing by, please do so. The event will take place at Blowin’ Smoke, 514 MLK, Jr. Blvd. in Savannah. The event starts at 4, and we would love to see you there!

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported along he way. It’s been challenging at times, but your belief and support helped us power through and get where we are today. Here’s to the first of many major launches!

The sales team is headed to Canada to meet with a number of customers currently testing tick-it as an enterprize solution–getting some great feedback. The launch customers for the consumer-facing version of tick-it are pulling together their marketing plans.

We have signed with 4 new advertisers; their ads are currently running on tick-it. A big welcome to Illy Coffee (my personal favorite, out of Trieste, Italy); Adagio Teas (great blends!), Angies’s List (the go-to source for hiring that must have help), and Kodak Gallery (an awesome online source for printing and sending photos).  

Be sure to check out tick-it in the coming days. Visit www.tick-it.balaya.com to get yours!

Everyone on the team is in full combat mode and focused on the various tasks and tactics needed to enter the market—PR, Marketing, Operations, Sales. We will be rolling out a new website as well (www.balaya.com); a huge task in its own right (thanks Ian, Seth, Gretch & Michelle!).

We’ll keep you in the loop in the weeks ahead. Expect more entries from members of the team as we tell you about our efforts and successes (and foibles!) in bringing tick-it and our small business to life. Thanks for listening. Bob and Team

Bob and I are in Atlanta today for the ATDC showcase – hope to make some great contacts and show off the product.

Speaking of which, the beta of our latest version of tick-it is now available! Go to http://tickit.balaya.com, login or create an account, and click “install Air Version” and give it a whirl. If you have any feedback, feel free to use the comments section here.

Our product is currently being used in an emergency exercise up in Alaska, and so far response has been great. A definite business case there.

Also, you can still vote vote until 10 a.m. in the TAG/GRA business launch video competition. We would appreciate your support! http://tinyurl.com/vote-for-number-16

Thanks!

First off, Balaya won the Information Technology and Software as a  Service category at the Five Ventures business competition held April 9, 2009 at the University of North Carolina Charlotte.  It was indeed a very big and exciting win for us, and has gotten us a bit of media exposure!  You can check out the details of our win from the press release about it on the Balaya website.

Next, we are in another competition – this one is called TAG Business Launch. Part of that competition is a viewer’s choice video contest where you, the viewer, gets to pick the winner. The contest opened on Friday April 10 and runs until the 29th.  We would love it if you would take a few minutes, check out the Balaya video (number 16) and cast your vote for us.  The video can be accessed here. If you like the video and would be willing to pass it on to some friends or colleagues, that would be fantastic.  Feel free to leave some thoughts on the video in the comments section of this blog.

Finally, we are getting closer and closer to product launch.  Our good friends over at Smack Dab Studios continue to finalize the coding on the tick-it product we will be taking to market, and that date draws closer and closer.

It’s very exciting in the Balaya world!

In the very near future, we will have the new version of tick-it avilable for you ti use, RSS feeds and all!  Here goes nothing!

Professor Trapani graciously offered the service of his students to create and execute some print ad concepts for tick-it.  The results that we saw were absolutely outstanding!  But rather than read me blather on pages about the work, I want to share some of the efforts with you and let them speak for themselves. Unfortunately, I haven’t received final versions from all of the students yet, but I will share them here if and when I get them.

This first ad was one of the winners of the in-class competition.  Jordan Stevens created it as part of a campaign to offer a version of tick-it to government agencies called “Govticker”

Another ad we were quite fond of was this piece by Alex Schaeffer

This great ad was by Camille Poche

Rachel Saddler did a wonderful job on this execution

And last but certainly not least, we really enjoyed this piece by Caitlin McNeill

We would again like to thank Professor Trapani and all of his talented students for working with us and providing such creative and thought-provoking work.

If you are reading this, it is likely that:

a)      You know someone who works for Balaya

b)      I have done an exceptional job getting key words into this post and Google brought you here

c)       It is 6 months in the future, Balaya is a huge success and everyone is trying to figure out just where we came from, and part of that is going through all of the old posts on our blog

If a, thanks for stopping by, we appreciate the support you have given us.

If b, awesome, I’m glad to know I’m doing something right

If c, we are a social media application company based in Savannah, Ga, that is in the process of taking our first product, tick-it, to market.  If you need more information, check our story on our website www.balaya.com.

This really isn’t a shameless plug for attention, but rather an excellent workaround for me. If and when we do make it big, I don’t want to deal with all of the questions that will undoubtedly choke my email inbox.  This post might save me from 20 or 30 emails alone…

But in seriousness, this blog will be many things over the next few months.  It’s going to be a running diary of important company activities that take place in anticipation of launching our product this year.  It’s going to be a place to discuss important trends in the social media arena as they happen. And, it’s going to be a place where you can let us know what you think about everything – feedback and comments will be open as long as they are kept clean, relevant and respectful.  Thanks for stopping by, and we look forward to hearing from you.