aroundacity.com
Marco Island's Ron Oister's new tourist, travel information Web site
http://aroundacity.com/cities/florida/Naples/naples.htm
http://aroundacity.com/cities/florida/Marco%20Island/marco%20island.htm
and the main site: http://aroundacity.com
First their video:
Article printed in the marconews.com http://marconews.com/news/2008/jul/20/marco-island-entrepreneur-unveils-new-tourist-trav/?printer=1/
Marco Island entrepreneur unveils new tourist, travel information Web site
By LAURA LAYDEN
Sunday, July 20, 2008
On the southernmost tip of Marco Island, Ron Oister is reaching out to the world.
He’s the creative force behind aroundacity.com — a tourist and travel information Web site that covers 450 U.S. cities and all international countries.
From his home office on the 21st floor of a luxury tower on Cape Marco, he’s overseen the development of more than 26,000 individual pages for cities, which include links to maps and information on transportation, hospitals, media, museums, theater, pro sports, convention centers, hotels, colleges, tourist sites and weather.
“It’s 90 miles south to Key West,” he said, pointing out of one of the windows in his waterfront condo on a recent weekday.
From another window, he sees 3 1/2 miles of the city’s white sand beaches. He motions to the blue umbrellas that dot the sand beneath him nearly every morning. At 65, he could be one of those retirees roasting in the sun, but he’s got a lot more he wants to do in life.
After a heart attack and four surgeries nearly a decade ago, he doesn’t take much for granted.
“Just trying to keep it going,” he said. “What do I have to look forward to? Everything.”
Aroundacity.com isn’t his first leap into the virtual world. He co-founded yellowpages.com, now owned by AT&T. It sold for the “high eight figures” in 2004, he said.
Oister, a graduate of Penn State’s college of business, got the brainstorm for yellowpages.com during a visit to a library in Philadelphia when he noticed stacks of phone books everywhere. He remembers the day. It was April 3, 1996.
“I had no computer at the time,” he said with a laugh. “I had an IBM PS/1, a glorified typewriter, if you remember those.”
Eventually, stress and bad health forced him out of the business. He sold his share before the company was acquired by the “regional bells,” which later became AT&T.
He describes his latest Web site as a one-stop shop for visitor information. It includes links to the official tourism Web sites in all 50 states and in English-speaking countries, such as Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.
He came up with the idea for the site after traveling so much himself as a sales and marketing agent for Fortune 500 companies. He flew all over the U.S. and abroad, working for such clients as Penske Corp. and the NCAA.
“This goes back to my own travels, going into a community and knowing nothing about it,” he said.
Aroundacity.com went live more than two years ago, but now Oister is taking the next big step toward profitability. He’s opening it up to local and national advertisers.
Businesses will be able to advertise on the site for as little as $85 a year under the menu headings on a city’s Web page. Those headings include everything from lodging, where hotels are found, to health care, where there’s information on local hospitals, to education, where schools are listed.
For a link to their own Web site or a video, businesses will pay $15 a year.
“The advertiser is seen 24-7-365,” Oister said. “The link to the video can be seen 24-7-365 by any user of the database.”
There are bigger dreams for the site. He will continue adding information to the database and forging more partnerships.
One day, users may be able to use aroundacity.com to book vacations and buy tickets to attractions and events. There are also plans for a marketing campaign to draw more visitors. Oister is talking with others who are interested in joining his company.
He said he’s open to mergers or acquisitions, too.
So far, Oister has been the only investor. But he’s had a network of helpers in Naples, New York and Michigan.
Marinelli & Co., a strategic and creative marketing company in New York, has helped with design and editing. Jim Rowbotham, the company’s director of business development, said soon city pages will include information on local events that will scroll across the page. Other interactive changes are in the works.
“What we are in the process of setting up is features that will change,” Rowbotham said. “You can’t have something that’s static. Otherwise people would say, ‘Why do I want to go back to that site because it’s the same stuff?’”
Tammy Surratt, president of Legacy Wealth Group in Naples, is one of Oister’s business advisers.
“He is clearly a very insightful entrepreneur,” she said. “He sees a need and is willing to do what it takes to create a solution for that need.”
She uses aroundacity.com herself.
“It’s a wonderful place,” she said. “It’s a wonderful composite of helpful information.”
© Marco News
55and the main site: http://aroundacity.com
First their video:
Article printed in the marconews.com http://marconews.com/news/2008/jul/20/marco-island-entrepreneur-unveils-new-tourist-trav/?printer=1/
Marco Island entrepreneur unveils new tourist, travel information Web site
By LAURA LAYDEN
Sunday, July 20, 2008
On the southernmost tip of Marco Island, Ron Oister is reaching out to the world.
He’s the creative force behind aroundacity.com — a tourist and travel information Web site that covers 450 U.S. cities and all international countries.
From his home office on the 21st floor of a luxury tower on Cape Marco, he’s overseen the development of more than 26,000 individual pages for cities, which include links to maps and information on transportation, hospitals, media, museums, theater, pro sports, convention centers, hotels, colleges, tourist sites and weather.
“It’s 90 miles south to Key West,” he said, pointing out of one of the windows in his waterfront condo on a recent weekday.
From another window, he sees 3 1/2 miles of the city’s white sand beaches. He motions to the blue umbrellas that dot the sand beneath him nearly every morning. At 65, he could be one of those retirees roasting in the sun, but he’s got a lot more he wants to do in life.
After a heart attack and four surgeries nearly a decade ago, he doesn’t take much for granted.
“Just trying to keep it going,” he said. “What do I have to look forward to? Everything.”
Aroundacity.com isn’t his first leap into the virtual world. He co-founded yellowpages.com, now owned by AT&T. It sold for the “high eight figures” in 2004, he said.
Oister, a graduate of Penn State’s college of business, got the brainstorm for yellowpages.com during a visit to a library in Philadelphia when he noticed stacks of phone books everywhere. He remembers the day. It was April 3, 1996.
“I had no computer at the time,” he said with a laugh. “I had an IBM PS/1, a glorified typewriter, if you remember those.”
Eventually, stress and bad health forced him out of the business. He sold his share before the company was acquired by the “regional bells,” which later became AT&T.
He describes his latest Web site as a one-stop shop for visitor information. It includes links to the official tourism Web sites in all 50 states and in English-speaking countries, such as Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.
He came up with the idea for the site after traveling so much himself as a sales and marketing agent for Fortune 500 companies. He flew all over the U.S. and abroad, working for such clients as Penske Corp. and the NCAA.
“This goes back to my own travels, going into a community and knowing nothing about it,” he said.
Aroundacity.com went live more than two years ago, but now Oister is taking the next big step toward profitability. He’s opening it up to local and national advertisers.
Businesses will be able to advertise on the site for as little as $85 a year under the menu headings on a city’s Web page. Those headings include everything from lodging, where hotels are found, to health care, where there’s information on local hospitals, to education, where schools are listed.
For a link to their own Web site or a video, businesses will pay $15 a year.
“The advertiser is seen 24-7-365,” Oister said. “The link to the video can be seen 24-7-365 by any user of the database.”
There are bigger dreams for the site. He will continue adding information to the database and forging more partnerships.
One day, users may be able to use aroundacity.com to book vacations and buy tickets to attractions and events. There are also plans for a marketing campaign to draw more visitors. Oister is talking with others who are interested in joining his company.
He said he’s open to mergers or acquisitions, too.
So far, Oister has been the only investor. But he’s had a network of helpers in Naples, New York and Michigan.
Marinelli & Co., a strategic and creative marketing company in New York, has helped with design and editing. Jim Rowbotham, the company’s director of business development, said soon city pages will include information on local events that will scroll across the page. Other interactive changes are in the works.
“What we are in the process of setting up is features that will change,” Rowbotham said. “You can’t have something that’s static. Otherwise people would say, ‘Why do I want to go back to that site because it’s the same stuff?’”
Tammy Surratt, president of Legacy Wealth Group in Naples, is one of Oister’s business advisers.
“He is clearly a very insightful entrepreneur,” she said. “He sees a need and is willing to do what it takes to create a solution for that need.”
She uses aroundacity.com herself.
“It’s a wonderful place,” she said. “It’s a wonderful composite of helpful information.”
© Marco News
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