Do you know the performance of your download network?  It’s important for application publishers to understand how their delivery network is helping or hurting their download completion rates.  Often end users’ internet speed is thought to be the only factor in the speed of downloads to the user’s desktop.  However, the network outside of users’ internet service providers can also greatly affect performance.  Generally the greater the distance between your downloads and end users, the greater chance for high levels of latency which translate to slower download speeds and lower completion rates.

According to a 2009 study completed by Gomez Inc. a slowdown in web response time from 2 to 10 seconds caused abandonment to increase by 38%.  This effect is similar to customers walking into a restaurant only to find the wait time is too long which prompts them to take their business elsewhere.  On the internet this effect is amplified further by the fact that users have so many other engagement points readily available.   For application publishers losing customers to lack of speed is simply not acceptable.

So how can you ensure a fast download experience and high completion rates? Make sure your download network utilizes CDN (content delivery network) technology.  CDN providers place your content in geographically distributed locations decreasing the distance between downloads and users.  By distributing the content, customer download requests have less distance to travel, which reduces latency, increases download speeds and completion rates.

Publishers who utilize W3i’s IntstallIQ platform by default, experience the benefits of CDN technology through W3i’s partnership with Limelight Networks.  Limelight’s advanced global computing platform distributes W3i’s publisher’s files among 900 access points worldwide ensuring users have the fastest route possible to their content.  In addition to providing the fast downloads, the distributed network also provides layers of redundancy should a particular data center or network become unavailable.  Best of all, W3i provides the use of its CDN to all its publishers at no additional cost.  Publishers not only enjoy InstallIQ’s monetization capabilities but also rest assured that their content is being delivered via one of the most advanced content download networks available today for optimized download completion rates.

Jeff Bollinger, VP of Information Systems, W3i, LLC
Jeff is W3i’s Information Systems’ leader with over 7 years of IT experience.  He is a firm believer in Agile and Lean development principles.

Twitter works.  Read on to find out how we used Twitter to successfully launch our new app business, Apperang; along with other ideas, from a tech journalist, on how to use Twitter for app promotions.

I read Twitter Means Business by Julio Ojeda-Zapata on vacation in Mexico. Julio is a nationally recognized tech journalist (for example, see his post about his recent appearance on TWiT) who covers tech news for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

A quick tangent on my Mexico trip before I continue…

I knew Nokia was #1 in global market share for mobile phones, but I haven’t traveled outside of the U.S. much over the past year so this hadn’t really sunk in. I was amazed at how many low-end Nokia feature phones there were in Mexico. For example, I sat on a ferry ride next to a young guy who worked for mobile game company Gtech.  In my extremely choppy Spanish and his choppy English, we discussed the difference in iOS versus Android, and games built for feature phones.  Pretty funny discussion on who’s the target market for various phones.

I was late to adopt Twitter… Why?

I was down on social media after watching Facebook transition from its initial early adopters to its current position of mass consumer penetration. Through the transition to the mainstream, Facebook ended up becoming a pretty worthless professional tool for me. I’ve always been a LinkedIn fan, but I find LinkedIn tends to be where relations go to die versus to develop.

What caused me to finally pay attention to Twitter?

I was urged by friend and fellow Minnesota tech entrepreneur, Philip Hotchkiss, to adopt Twitter for professional purposes about a year ago.

How did I get started?

I started following individuals I came across during my general professional life.

Eventually, the number of relationships I followed became hard to manage so I started building Twitter lists on key conversations I like to participate in, such as app marketers, app developers, tech media, and Minnesota tech.

What did I miss during the Twitter early days?

By being a late adopter to Twitter, I missed out on some of the early business success stories. Julio’s book did a great job of retelling these early stories.  Here are a few excerpts that specifically apply to app developers:

Evernote’s stellar customer service, for Windows apps and other OS apps, fix problems before most users even notice them. “Twitter has proven invaluable for identifying problems with its software, if a bug crops up, Evernote will hear about it, almost instantly,” comments Andrew Sinkov, Evernote Marketing Director (page 58). Evernote built a strong following due to its popularity with the web-tech set.  Tweets help identify bugs, as well as capture usage ideas, as a vehicle for new product/feature communication, and a polling medium to get user feedback. 

Graeme Thickens and DoApp: “He (Graeme Thickens) used his @DoApp identity as a sort of news feed to keep followers apprised of developments in iPhone application development, which was a superhot subject in the consumer-technology universe” (page 57).  Thickins searched for mentions of DoApp on Twitter and asked for permission to post some of the more creative tweets.  Users were finding all kinds of interesting uses for the myLite program, which is a combination strobe, emergency flasher, and rock-concert lighter.  Nearly two dozen uses were identified including: a radiologist setting it to red for use in the x-ray room; and a WVA medic using the emergency flasher at night festival “so other members of rescue and fire could find me in a dark sea of people.”

Amy Worley, Director of Digital Marketing, H&R Block, used Twitter to increase awareness of their desktop software (page 41). Worley was on a crusade to publicize the company’s digital offerings, including its TaxCut options, for doing taxes online. She used Twitter to broadcast tax tips like tax deductions commonly missed or W-4 tips.  She also used Twitter to answer tax questions, creating a two-way conversation with users.   Twitter evolved to become an integral part of their marketing efforts showing that H&R Block is a true advocate for the taxpayer.  

My own personal Twitter business success story

While on vacation in Mexico, I joined my fellow colleagues at W3i in launching Apperang, a service which pays consumers to try iPhone and iPad apps. 

A couple of weeks prior to the launch, I used Twitter to reach two app developers, which resulted in their participation in the public launch of our iOS app promotion service before we were even live. I found that many app developers are hard to reach, and Twitter is a very useful tool for engaging in conversations with them.

Perhaps even more telling of the business value in using Twitter, as a part of our launch, was how an unsolicited tweet was able to connect me to a writer at TechCrunch named, Gagan Biyani, which ultimately landed us a story in Mobile Crunch. This was no small feat for a company headquartered in central Minnesota, far from Sillicon Valley. Later on, several other tech blogs followed on the TechCrunch coverage and they wrote their own stories. The post Biyani wrote ended up being among the most popular in Mobile Crunch for the entire week – during a week that was competing for coverage against the iPhone 4 launch. Not only was it good industry buzz that resulted in several leads from additional new app developers who wanted to participate in our app promotion service; but it helped provide a big organic boost in early adopters on the consumer side of our service as well, which has provided great feedback while we are in our public beta phase.

I would highly recommend Julio’s book for anyone involved with using Twitter for business purposes.  I am also looking forward to reading Julio’s new book when it is published on how businesses are using the iPad.

If you are an app developer interested in tips around the business of apps, I would recommend following @W3i, or if you are interested in following me personally, @robertjweber.  Please comment if you have any interesting stories on how you used Twitter to grow your app business. 

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

MinneBar 2010, an (un)conference aimed at getting Minnesota tech and design communities together, was held on May 22^nd at Best Buy Headquarters.  Here’s a short recap of the event and what’s new on the Minnesota tech scene:

Opening remarks were by MinneBar co-founders Luke Francl and Ben Edwards. They thanked sponsors, including W3i.

The first session I attended at MinneBar 2010 was “Legal Implications of Limewire on File-Sharing Business Models” by Ryan Miest of Robius Kaplan Miller Ciresi, which described how most of the copyright concerns involving file-sharing networks go back to the Sony BetaMax VCR law suit from 1984. No one thought Napster had a leg to stand on. Others like Grokster andLimewire were able to continue after learning not to be centralized like Napster. The Limewire decision is likely to be appealed with respect to the courts findings of personal liability of their CEO. I didn’t think they sufficiently covered veil piercing.

Graeme Thickins briefly introduced me to Rick Mahn founder of Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis and Myke Roventine. I joined about 75 others to hear Myke’s MinneBar session, “Social Web Design: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”. Myke pointed out what he felt were flawed design strategies by the market leading social media players like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo. Does everyone need to put their Twitter feeds on their blog? The Twitter feeds miss the context of the conversation, and aren’t making the web better when being on others’ blogs. He also commented that Facebook has changed functionality multiple times unnecessarily, such as moving the search box several times over the past couple of years. These unnecessary changes caused confusion for users. He also commented how Twitter’s “infinite scrolling” for tweets could be improved by adopting additional UI controls such as those found on BlipFM. He said the big guys are trying the changes instead of user testing. Phil Wilson remarked during the session how this was “try fast, fail fast.”  Also during the session Steve Borsch announced that he just deleted his Facebook account due to privacy concerns.

Next I went to “Bowling for Market Share- How to Grow Your Startup by Narrowing its Focus” by Curt Prins. Curt provided very good start-up marketing advice. Curt laid out his very pragmatic approach to B2B marketing for tech start-ups, and the developers in the audience definitely seem to embrace his methods.

Over lunch, Robert Stephens who was so gracious to advocate for Best Buy to allow Minnesota techies to use their space, briefly remarked on Best Buy’s strategy around digital televisions, and his recent trip to Google IO.

Next at MinneBar, I caught Aaron Kardell’s iPhone app marketing session entitled, “Getting started with iPhone & iPad Development.” Aaron is the founder of Performant Design and developer of the popular iGarageSale app.  Aaron shared his lessons learned in iPhone app marketing, such as the importance of getting on the top 100 lists, requesting app store reviews within your app, ideally after the user has been using it for about a week, some ideas on how to get noticed by Apple (such as taking out ads in Cupertino on Facebook), using roadblock ad campaigns at popular Apple/Mac blogs, using incentive app downloads to burst your downloads, and using vendors like Tapjoy and Flurry App Circle.  After the business discussion, Aaron coded an Italian food finder iPhone app using Yelp’s API and Mapkit.

The next MinneBar 2010 session I attended was “How to Measure P&L When Your Price is Free” by W3i’s Product Manager, Kristin Oberhaus. With users wanting free apps on the Internet, you need to balance the demand gained for free app versus paid app promotion.  Kristin pointed out various models to drive revenue for free applications, including cross-subsidy, three-party, freemium, and nonmonetary.  When free is your model, your P&L must be based on the value driven by your free app and not the price.   

Next I spoke on a panel of Minnesota tech thought leaders, and discussed “How Can Minnesota be Better”. Thank you to Jeff Pesek and Mike Bollinger for inviting me to participate. The session was largely centered on the culture of risk aversion in Minnesota, how Minnesota tech start-ups need to focus on home runs and not just niche singles and doubles, and funding. Jon Dahl, co-founder of YCombinator-backed, Zencoder said that if Minnesota was going to try an incubator concept like YCombinator or TechStars the incubator would need a lot more cash, given the lack of local angel funding and VC activity, and a mentorship program– both essential elements of YCombinator.

MinneBar 2010 proved to be a great place to network with top Minnesota tech experts. I spent a couple of hours after the sessions ended schmoozing with several new faces, including Derrick Shields & Dylan Petersson & of WebproLeads, Matt Bauer of Pedal Brain, and Thomas Grabowski, co-founder of LogLogic. I also listened in as the first ever Minnespark award winners were announced. 

Further, it was refreshing to hear a lot of buzz about Minnesota tech jobs. I gathered that W3i is not the only company hiring right now. It seemed to be a common theme that Minnesota tech jobs are in abundance as many of the companies present indicated they have positions available.  Minnesota Recruiters survey indicates that there is optimism for job growth in 2010 and an increase in personal job security. Minnesota’s tech scene has a large, highly skilled, and growing workforce demonstrated by the energy and attendance at MinneBar and the tech job buzz being generated there.

Thanks to the organizers and attendees, along with Best Buy for allowing us to use their campus (which is absolutely cool) to promote Minnesota tech and design.  As evidenced by the increase in attendance over the 2009 event, MinneBar rocks.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

So, you know you need to have a mobile app for your next campaign, but you don’t know where you should start. I asked Aleksey Cherfas, our top mobile app developer, to tell me what he thinks digital marketers need to know about app development, and he distilled his guidance around how to choose a platform, how to choose what type of technology to use, how do you determine what features to include in your mobile app, and how to drive continuous engagement.

One of the most important decisions in preparation for mobile app development is to decide which platforms you will target. Do you go for the iPhone OS, because everybody seems to be so hyped about the iPhone and iPad; Android, because you heard it is a promising open source platform; or the BlackBerry, just because this is what your boss uses? Regardless of whether you decide to cover multiple platforms right away or focus on just one from the beginning, you should start with analyzing your prospective users and the marketplace. Determine if you plan your app to have a global reach or focus on local markets and seek out device usage in those markets before committing to any particular device. A safe bet would be to single out one device to start with and then gradually expand to others, focusing on those that are more relevant to your domain.

Once you decide on the platform, you have at least three choices in terms of the type of applications you can develop. You can go for developing a native app, which takes advantage of platform specific functionality and design, arguably making it easier to operate for your users, though condemning your development effort to be very complex and technologically involved.

On the other end of the difficulty spectrum in the world of mobile app development are Web apps. These applications are Web pages that are rendered inside a mobile browser and capitalize on the browser’s multitouch technology for navigational interaction. Some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is usually sufficient to build a simple and effective application. There are even frameworks that allow you to harness the power of JavaScript in mobile browsers without much effort. JQTouch, a jQuery plug-in for mobile app development, is one such framework.

Your third option is a combination; kind of a half-native, half-Web app where you would create a native app that uses a browser engine for rendering your content as Web pages but requires you to develop your own navigation instead of using built-in mobile browser navigation controls. This option is a little more technologically involved than a simple Web app. Because you are using a browser engine for displaying your content, the effort is not quite as involved as with the native app.

At this point, it should be mentioned that there are several services that try to solve the multiplatform conundrum and complexity of native development, making your entrance to mobile app development a lot easier. These services will allow you to write your code once, in many cases using JavaScript and HTML, and they will take care of compiling applications into the native code for different devices. Some of the more prominent of them are Rhomobile, PhoneGap, and Titanium. If you plan to develop an app by yourself, do give high consideration to these services.

As you think about the design of your mobile apps, consider these options. You can either make your design very specific to the standards and conventions of each platform, or use your design from other domains (website, desktop software) and transplant it onto the mobile app. Even with the array of platforms out there, it’s possible to use blueprints that will nicely fit into different platforms without violating too many conventions for each platform. There’s no right answer when it comes to design. If you deviate from the standards, you should still stay within familiar metaphors so that the users don’t have to work too hard to learn how to use your mobile app.

The main difference of mobile apps from your other domains is limited display area, so keep it very simple and to the point. Don’t try to incorporate every single feature into the first version of your app. Start with a simple feature of essential functionality and let the user feedback drive your future functionality and application design. One way to keep functionality to the minimum is a product requirements document (PRD). In its simplest form, PRD is a list of application requirements (features) with a brief explanation and some weights attached to each feature. The commonly used weights are “must have,” “good to have,” and “may have.” Keeping these weights in mind makes it easier to set development priorities and move unessential application features into the next releases. Again, keep it simple – think in terms of “must have” requirements for the first release.

Even after users install your app, you are still only one of many that occupy their home screen and will constantly need to compete for their attention. Updating your app often is one approach to keep users engaged and interested. Many successful apps release updates at least once a month. With each update they address bugs and performance issues, but most importantly they try to come up with a small new feature that will keep users interested and prompt them to re-download and open your app.

With so many options to choose from when developing for mobile platforms, your decision should be based on your requirements and resources. If you are to remember one takeaway from above, it’s: keep it simple.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

Ad:Tech San Francisco; a lively conference for online marketers looking to connect, share insights and do business.  I attended this year’s Ad:Tech as a first timer.  Throughout all the hustle and bustle, networking and meetings, I took the opportunity to take a breather and attend one of the expo’s floor presentations, App Exchange.  For me, this happened to be the most compelling hour of the show.  App Exchange gave app developers a platform to promote their mobile applications, showcasing innovation in app development.  While there were quite a few apps showcased, a few were doing some innovative stuff that caught my attention.

CauseWorld

CauseWorld (available for iPhone and Android) is an application that bridges the mobile and physical store worlds.  Users who download the app and participate gain karma points when they check into retail stores.  On top of that, they can use the app to locate and scan product barcodes within the store to gain additional karma.  Accrued karma points are donated to the cause of their choice, such as the LiveStrong Foundation or American Red Cross.  Incentivizing shopping with altruistic effects is nothing new, but the way CauseWorld does it certainly is.  Additionally, CauseWorld rewards users with achievements that can be shared with Facebook friends, creating stickiness to the service much like FourSquare and Gowalla do with their achievement systems.  With CauseWorld, everyone wins: users, causes, and businesses.

Wikitude

Augmented Reality (AR) is another innovation taking shape on mobile devices and Wikitude is leading the way.  Wikitude (available for iPhone, Android and Symbian) overlays reference information through the camera of the phone, allowing users to see points of interest in their surrounding area.  As quoted on the Wikitude site, Augmented Reality is identified as one of the top ten most disruptive new technologies for 2008-2012 by Gartner Research.  In March of this year, Wikitude laid the foundation for further innovation by releasing their iPhone API, allowing developers to build their own AR apps.

textPlus

While sending texts is a staple in nearly every mobile user’s diet, textPlus innovates by improving this experience, providing free, unlimited group texting across iPhone/iPod, iPad, Android, and Blackberry platforms.  This is what innovation is all about: taking an existing service and making it better.  textPlus has the numbers to back up their claims of success — over 6 million app downloads (they state the average app in the iTunes App Store has less than 100,000 downloads) with users averaging one hour of in-app use per day.  These are numbers not to be taken lightly.

Where do you see innovation in the mobile app landscape?  Are you an app developer that’s created something innovative and want to share your story?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Eric Montag, Product Manager, W3i, LLC
Eric is a Pragmatic Marketing Certified Product Manager and uses his experience in internet marketing to lead the charge in product research, planning, and execution from both a consumer and business standpoint.  

With the launch of the Apple iPad, W3i surveyed its consumers to see where in the product life cycle consumers were with eBooks.  Interestingly, 70% of respondents have never viewed an eBook; and 37% indicated that they did not even know what an eBook was while 32% said that they were just not interested.

Currently consumers say that they are more likely to view an eBook on their desktop or laptop (67%) with smartphone/iTouch coming in second (49%).  Only 15% indicate that they have an interest in an eReader. 

Of those that have read an eBook, 57% say that they currently use an eBook Reader (Kindle, Nook, etc.), and 37% say they might buy an eReader in the next year.

The library still tops the chart at 47% on where consumers currently discover new books followed by popular book sites (like Amazon, Barnes and Noble) at 27%, best seller lists at 27%, and family and friends at 27%.  Half of the respondents indicated an interest in a desktop application that stored their preferences, recommended books, and allowed them to order directly from their favorite web site.

In a recent Chicago Sun-Times article, a reviewer stated in reference to the iPad that “…it’s just such a bloody good book reader that some folks will never wander far from its eBook functions. And why not?  From one perspective, it’s hands-down the best book reader you can buy.”

An enthusiastic W3i employee/product manager who purchased his iPad this weekend stated, “The iPad is well worth its minimum $500 price tag.  It provides an effortless way to consume content that will likely revolutionize how we interact with computing devices for years to come.  The vivid, high-definition screen is a real attention-getter, providing additional real estate to interact with applications in new ways.  No regrets on this purchase here — I’m throwing out my laptop and replacing it with my iPad.”

If this is any indication, the iPad will change the world; but only time will tell.  As an avid reader, anything that makes it cool and easy to read again gets my thumbs up.

W3i surveyed 306 consumers from 3/1/2010 to 4/4/2010 – 54% female, 39% male with 7% declining to answer. 

Deborah Manthei, Director of Marketing Communications, W3i, LLC, evangelizing the use of consumer application marketing to engage brands’ essential users.

Minneapolis, MN – On February 6th, several hundred high tech entrepreneurs connected at an event called MinneDemo. The conference provided a chance for high tech start-ups from the Twin Cities and the broader state of Minnesota to network and to show off their cool new technology.  Great job to everyone involved in organizing and sponsoring this event!

Click here to listen to Rob Weber’s podcast interview by Graeme Thickins at MinneDemo(http://minnov8.com/2009/02/07/m8-gang-episode-24/, featured at 11:00 mins)

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over nine, profitable years building proven business models that increase revenue and distribution for downloads.

Clearly Google’s recent entrance into the browser wars demonstrates the importance of the browser to the future of application development and the interactive media industry. But just who is going to be most impacted by Google’s recent Chrome browser launch?

If you look at the August 2008 market share data as reported by Net Applications (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0), Microsoft enjoys 72% market share with Internet Explorer, followed by Mozilla’s Firefox open source browser with 20%, and finally Apple’s Safari browser at 6%. I believe that Microsoft will continue to maintain the majority of the browser market over the next couple years, and that Google threatens Mozilla more than any other browser player.

Why? Chrome was built for speed, especially with complex web pages loaded up with JavaScript and other advanced web technologies. Although speed is nice for the average web surfer, it is only a must- have for the more enterprise users that spend lots of time running complex web applications. Up until now, Firefox was the only viable browser solution for these enterprise users.

Chrome may change that, especially given’s Google’s brand. After the initial buzz wore off, Google market share reportedly dropped, presumably because early users quickly uninstalled after testing Chrome.  Time will tell, but if Google does start getting some traction, Microsoft will surely respond with a strong counter attack.

Visit the W3i blog next week for Part Two: “Google Chrome to Support Browser Add-Ons.”

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i Holdings, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over eight, profitable years evolving W3i (owner of Freeze.com) in the Integrated Interactive Media industry. 

Have you asked yourself why the iPhone deserves so much attention?  I’m not talking about whether or not the phone is fashionable. Plenty of phones are fashionable and are very successful, but the iPhone is more than just a fashion statement.

I will present a few reasons why the iPhone deserves your attention.  

1. Multiple Increase in Mobile Internet Usage – The iPhone breaks down the two largest barriers for mobile internet usage:  a great mobile internet user experience and the fact that all iPhone service plans have unlimited data usage.  It’s not an incremental improvement in mobile internet usage, the impact is much greater with frequent recognized gains by a factor of 2x to 10x+.  The improvement is documented whether you are considering advertising click through rates, accessing websites, searching the internet, etc.
   • In an interview with AdMob’s CEO, he mentioned that they are seeing a 300% improvement in CTR and eCPM with their mobile ad inventory served over the iPhone.
      
2. iPhone continues to Increase Market Share –  The iPhone is in a position to continue gaining market share as they have recently dropped the price of the phone to $99 and continue to innovate.
     
3. iPhone Represents Next Generation Devices – The iPhone doesn’t need a meaningful share of the market to have a much grander influence.  The leading device manufacturers are all looking to clone the iPhone’s capabilities and so these new devices will accelerate the adoption of devices that take advantage of the increase in mobile internet usage.

    

4.  AOL Thinks It’s The Right Move – Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President of Products and Marketing, recently announced that AOL would sunset their MyMobile product in favor of concentrating development on key devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry.   

I hope you have a new appreciate the next time you see an iPhone story; I certainly do. 

Ryan Weber, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Co-Founder, W3i Holding, LLC

Ryan is an internet marketing pioneer with over eight profitable years evolving W3i (owner of Freeze.com) in the Integrated Interactive Media industry.

When Scott Warzecha and Matt Riley looked for a site for their high-tech firm, they quickly narrowed their search to a five-block stretch in downtown St. Cloud.The St. Cloud businessmen wanted to be as close as possible to a communication switch center on Sixth Avenue, built decades ago by Bell South, to ensure their company has the fastest and most reliable network service.Netgain Technology Inc. is among almost 20 tech companies that have clustered around what is now Qwest’s central office.“It’s almost a high-tech industrial park,” said Tom Moore, president of the St. Cloud Area Economic Development Partnership.This tech cluster — or tech village, as some call it — recently grabbed the attention of local economic development and business leaders. They want to learn more about why these high-tech firms locate in downtown St. Cloud, but more importantly, what they can do to leverage this cluster to foster more development downtown.“We have a competitive edge, and we’d be pretty remiss if we didn’t take advantage of that,” said Pegg A.K. Gustafson, executive director of the Downtown Council.Leaders plan to meet with representatives from Qwest, Xcel and local tech firms to evaluate the services and develop a recruitment plan that they hope will help drive the resurgence of retail downtown.“It’s building more on what’s already been started,” Gustafson said. “It’s getting that vitality back into downtown.”

A series of empty storefronts several years ago led community leaders to try to define a vision for downtown. St. Cloud businessman Chuck Rau remembers being involved in one of those community groups working to drive the regeneration.

“That vision right now is being created for us,” he said, sitting in the Federal Building that now houses primarily tech businesses, including Netgain and its software company, IntelliSoft.

Rau is the general manager of IntelliSoft and chief executive of 401k Loans LLC, also located in the Federal Building.

Creating a cluster
Tom Grones, co-founder of GeoComm Inc., said the loss of retail downtown created a vacuum that led to affordable lease rates. Those rates initially led him to locate his 911 mapping business downtown in 1995. The business has expanded to create customized software for mapping wireless and wired emergency calls.

Access to high-speed bandwidth is becoming more critical to GeoComm as it explores marketing its services to a worldwide audience.

The cost-effectiveness of locating close to Qwest drives most tech companies downtown. Each block they locate away from that central office costs them an additional $100,000 to connect fiber-optic cables from Qwest to their companies.

Gustafson expects the future extension of the main pipeline to the new library and law enforcement center to further fuel growth.

A demand for reliable and continuous service leads firms to locate in the downtown district known as Grid 1 — the first part of the city to receive electrical service after an outage because of the public sector presence.

W3i, the parent company of Freeze.com, moved to a larger facility in Sartell last summer but kept its data center of 120 servers downtown to remain close to the central office and have the most reliable power for its worldwide customers, said Kyle Ohme, director of information technology for W3i.

The Internet marketing company is working with Xcel and the Downtown Council to expand gas lines and provide the infrastructure the company needs to run its generators, Ohme said.

Tech culture
The look and feel of a former opera house, situated next to the Metro Transit Station, led Brain Magnet and its parent company, Cloud Cartographics Inc., to move into the three-story building downtown.

“It’s hard to build this atmosphere,” said Aaron Brossoit, vice president of Brain Magnet.

The culture created by the arts, entertainment and restaurant scene and several tech companies help drive these firms downtown.

Tech businesses have become more specialized as the technology industry has matured. It started in larger metropolitan areas like Minneapolis-St. Paul and now is spreading to smaller communities.

“(Before,) you had to do a little of everything to get some critical mass,” said Warzecha, chief executive of Netgain.

As tech companies find their niche, they recognize that other tech firms offer services that complement theirs and could help their clients.

Syvantis Technologies LLC, a provider of Great Plains accounting software and Microsoft CRM based in Brainerd, opened an office in the Federal Building this month because of the other tech companies located there, Syvantis President Janelle Riley said.

“We can leverage off of one another’s skill sets very well,” she said.

A large publicly traded information technology company based in Minneapolis has shown interest in opening a sales office in the Federal Building because of its proximity to tech companies — specifically Netgain, said Scott Privatsky, sales and leasing agent for INH Property Management in St. Cloud.

“They can bounce business off each other,” Privatsky said.

Marketing efforts
Economic development leaders once attracted companies by highlighting the road system, airport, and water and sewer, but the Internet’s stronghold on business has shifted emphasis to fiber-optic cables and other technology-related infrastructure, Moore said.

Companies such as ING Direct, an Internet-based bank headquartered in Delaware, would not have located and expanded in downtown St. Cloud without that infrastructure, he said.

By marketing the cluster, leaders expect to attract more businesses that rely on technology as well as more restaurants and retailers that cater to the growing IT staff.

The Federal Building’s history and proximity to Netgain led Rau to move 401k Loans into an office on the first floor. Netgain is the service provider for 401k Loans, which supports the lending process for retirement plans.

Teresa Bohnen and other leaders of the Science Initiative of Central Minnesota have begun to market access to the fiber-optic cable trunk and speed of delivery to science-based businesses.

“It makes the community easier to sell to companies that want to come in,” said Bohnen, president of the St. Cloud Area Chamber or Commerce.

But leaders agree that more needs to be done to capitalize on this opportunity and bring more high-paying technology jobs to the area. Computer specialists earn about $27 an hour — almost twice the area’s average wage of $14 an hour, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

John Kaliszewski, vice president of economic development for the Initiative Foundation, called on the expertise of Brain Magnet to create an interactive map that identifies technology-based businesses in downtown St. Cloud and help explain the advantages of locating there.

The Little Falls-based foundation plans to finalize an agreement with Brain Magnet this week to create a map that local leaders will use to set a strategic marketing direction.

St. Cloud leaders already have begun to create a list of prospects, primarily located in the Twin Cities.

Leaders also plan to create specs that outline the area’s pipeline and fiber-optic cables to show to prospects, said Stan Weinberger, chairman of the Downtown Council’s Economic Development Committee.

“It really has legs and people are really embracing it,” she said. “Everybody wants to get on board and work toward this common cause.”

(Article from http://www.sctimes.com By Dawn Peake, News Writer, March 19, 2007)
To view the full article on the Saint Cloud Times website, click here.

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