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Local Web site founder sees big gains in 2009
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| Wade Hinkle | |
TRENDSETTERS in online business
Josiah Roe, 30
* Occupation: President and chief strategist at Medium.
* Claim to fame: Founded Chattablog.com, a free Chattanooga-centric blog site. He has been working with social-media applications, including the production of an Apple-approved iPhone application.
* He said: "The Web has shifted. Now it's about Facebook and Twitter and social media. We've been all over that for a couple of years. We were writing Facebook applications two years ago, and we're all over social media. Right now, our big focus is the mobile side of things."
Chuck Crowder, 42
* Occupation: Co-founder of thenoog.com.
* Claim to fame: Along with David Smotherman, 40, and Mark Song, 43, co-owns a Web-based company whose quirky, Chattanooga-centric products have been seen all over the world, from Mumbai to Tokyo.
* He said: "Most of the online business we do is with people who live here or have some association with Chattanooga who want some bit of Chattanooga with them, so they order from us online. We have a lot of people who buy here and use them as gifts to people who are visiting. A lot of people who are going on trips, we cut them a deal on a shirt so they can get their picture made in some foreign locale."
Strat Parrot, 25
* Occupation: Small-business owner for alternative marketing with social media and event planning.
* Claim to fame: Working on findme intown.com, a site that focuses on making social networking interactions have more connections to real-life events.
* He said: "Demand for online entrepreneurs seems to depend on what sector you've jumped into. What I'm doing with social media and marketing seems to be in high demand because it's a less expensive way to advertise and to reach an audience. You can reach target audiences very quickly and get direct feedback and responses as to whether or not people love or hate something. The consulting side of my business is very much in demand."
Wade Hinkle loves video games, but when he looked at the major gaming Web sites three years ago, he noticed a distinct lack of focus.
"The biggest issue I had was that they had half-naked women," Mr. Hinkle, 38, said. "As a father, I have issues with my children going to those sites. A 12-year-old who loves video games doesn't necessarily need to see that."
Instead of forbidding his children from going online for their gaming fix, Mr. Hinkle, who moved to Chattanooga from Silicon Valley seven years ago, started his own Web site, Gamers Daily News.
The site's focus is squarely on silicon, not skin, and there are a number of controls in place to prevent underage viewers from accessing inappropriate content, Mr. Hinkle said.
Mr. Hinkle said he clocks a lot of hours splitting his time as publisher and CEO of an international staff of reviewers and editors from as far away as the Czech Republic with his duties as a chef at Baylor School.
All the hard work is paying off, however, as site traffic has increased almost 600 percent in the last six months. Participation in the site's forums, an indicator of its popularity, is also up, Mr. Hinkle said.
In addition to covering games being developed domestically, Gamers Daily News offers coverage of the Australian and U.K. markets and is working to expand coverage to Asia as well, Mr. Hinkle said.
Eventually, he hopes to make the site a full-time job, but until then, there's a surprising amount of overlap between food service and running a Web site, Mr. Hinkle said.
"The readers are my customers," he said. "If I write a review for a game that I give a nine, and they go buy the game and think the game (is bad), I've lost a viewer. That's not going to do me any good.
"I don't cater to the publishers; I cater to the readers."
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