Is Earthgrid "The Starbucks of Websites”?
Why do we go to Starbucks? Because it's consistent. Anywhere in the world we can count on reliable service, free internet, reasonable prices, and MOST OF ALL, the best filtered water anywhere. Like many well-known businesses, it started out as one business in one location.
Great ideas happen in a flash of inspiration.
1984: An idea is born. Friedhelm Hillebrand, in Bonn, Germany, starts typing random questions and sentences into his typewriter. He counts each letter, number, and space. He discovers that almost every time, the messages amount to fewer than 160 characters. This would later become the limit of early text messages. The concept for the perfect-length, rapid-fire "short message" was born. " Perfectly sufficient," Hillebrand said, long before mobile phones existed. Simple messaging, which later became ‘text messaging’, was born.
What if?
In 1999, Motorola launched the world's first smartphone with web browsing and email, the iDEN i1000 Plus. I immediately bought one and got to work.
Following Hildebrand's ‘findings’, I had this idea: what if I built a web-based tool that could send SMS messages to any mobile phone? I met a man from India who was on an extended vacation and living in his van--a genius PERL programmer ‘in the rough’. Together we started working on this tool in the mid-90’s. Someone suggested I call it ‘Earthgrid’ - cool name. When the Internet came out, I snapped it up.
Earthgrid really started off as a simple messaging platform that allowed you to send a 160 character message about your business from a computer instead of a phone. I still remember sending my first SMS message with our software. It went from website to a clunky Nextel phone--and worked! My thought? This is the FUTURE!
Earthgrid: The First Social Network for Small Business Owners
Soon thereafter, we started building a membership system, because you needed security like username and password. You’d register with your email and mobile number and we’d confirm you via text.
Your alias could then be sent to and from any other member. You didn't need to know their mobile or email address. That was stored in their profile and they could change it whenever they wanted. With people changing their phone # and email address, you could always keep in contact with your social network as long as your contacts kept their Earthgrid profiles current. It worked. As you typed it counted the characters you had left. It was a revolution. I could send a SMS from my computer to any NEXTEL phone.
Mobile Messaging Goes to Hollywood
From there, we built a way to send ‘bulk’ in SMS. In 2002, we delivered a test of our system to actors in Hollywood for casting calls. They wanted to keep the actor’s identity private, but the agency still wanted to reach the actors in bulk. We also tested our software for a ‘meeting’ - 33% of the people who were texted showed up with only an hour’s notice.
Business From Your Phone?
I started speaking about this mobile revolution that was coming at various conventions. Most people thought I was crazy to think we’d be running our businesses someday from our phones.
Thinking ahead, I wanted to create simple shortcode that could be texted. If you had a Blackberry, you could click and see it on the web. The short link would click over to a 1-page website about the business and give details. It could be take up the entire page, but no more. We discovered that SMS was 5x more responsive than email. I’d wager today it’s probably 20x more effective.
We then added a 1-page website building tool for small businesses and linked mobile to the website.
Multi-Page Dynamic Template Websites
But then in 2006, someone asked for ‘multiple pages’.
To me, that was like asking Facebook to give you a multi-page fan page. Not feasible to scale. Around the same time there was a conference in Silicon Valley, where I met a web designer who had invented a technology to build multi-page websites that was easy, fast and clean. A week later, we shook hands on a licensing agreement. It’s now lasted more than a decade.
Like the SMS message, we couldn’t imagine why a business needed more than ONE page that was CONSISTENT across multiple ‘styles’ that could be SHARED. Sound familiar? Social media has evolved to that: it’s a dynamic website that has a consistent look and feel.
Fast Forward to 2018: The Starbucks of Websites
Last week, we launched our next-generation Earthgrid Eclipse website platform, and just completed our first full migration website with a VERY happy client:
"At 11:03 AM on Friday, we gave the go-ahead to Viktor to migrate our website from our previous provider to Earthgrid. It is 8:34 AM on Monday (three days later), and our website is beautifully updated, completely functioning, and moved to our new website application that is extremely easy to use and produces a very beautiful product. Heirloom Living Centers, LLC is very grateful for the quick turnaround and the technical and artistic guidance from Viktor's team. Thank you so much..." - John & Kathy Chmelir
Do we Really NEED a Website in 2018?
We all need websites, but what we don't need are usability challenges, mobile phone issues, and unhappy customers visiting a website that is too slow, or too 'fancy'.
What we've invented is something akin to Starbucks: a consistent website that plays back equally well on 4K monitors as it does on laptops, iPhones, androids, and tablets, and which you can customize yourself once its done.
Consistency is more important than ever in today's highly competitive mobile world.
Seriously, how much 'artistic design' do you really need on a mobile website? Think about it: your phone is only a few inches wide. It’s the same thing as a visual SMS.
Listen - Will 5 pages that convey your company's products and services be enough to cause someone to go to the 'add to cart' or 'buy now button'? You need 1 page, or 5 pages at most. You don't need Wordpress--it's too slow. What you need is fast, reliable service--not lots of pages that nobody reads.
That's what Earthgrid Eclipse is all about.
Our mission is to eclipse all other website platforms next year.
For that to happen, I need your help:
Are you a business owner? 
Please send me a direct message. Share a bit about your business, and the best way to connect with you.
Are you a web designer? Please send me a direct message. Share something about yourself, and if you'd like to join our team of designers.
Are you an online marketer? Click below to buy the product and sign up as an affiliate with us.
If you're not one of the above, let me know who you are and what sparked your interest. Want to chat?
Email Marketing? Nah. DM Instead.
I received an email this morning about a blog post relating the 4 metrics you should follow for email marketing: "If I gave you $1 to spend in your business, where would it go?"
They wrote: “The Data & Marketing Association said in 2015, for each $1 spent on email marketing, companies made $38 in return. That’s a 3,800% ROI!
Sorry, but that was 3 years ago. It used to be Email Marketing. Today, it’s Social Media.
If you want to achieve this result (and who wouldn’t?), you need to figure out if your emails and campaigns are actually driving business-building results, because now, in 2018, email marketing is a fraction of those numbers. What matters is your mobile website and your presence on Facebook.
To that end, I've created a Facebook training program for business owners just like you.
Earthgrid sells websites and all the ‘stuff’ that goes with it, but our mission was originally to ‘redefine’ the metaphor. We’ll be talking more about all this very soon.
Clicks to Website? Time to Upgrade...
Before you invest a lot of money in advertising, make sure you are providing your customer with the best online experience you can muster. If you've been thinking about upgrading your website, there is no better time than NOW.
Ready to Get Started? One quick question:
Do you need a website with SSL/TLS Security so your browser shows 
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Yes, I Want HTTPS!Yes, I Want HTTPS!
(only available with annual plans)
No, I don't need a secure website, show me Monthly options
Because you are my valued subscriber, I also put together this list of resources for you:
Bonus and Discount Offers
These were featured at the end of our webinar, and are the 'secret' tools we talked about that I can't recommend highly enough.
- First of all there's the Marketer's Vault: this is the BLUEPRINT. Can imagine trying to build a house without the blueprints?
- Secondly, There's Live Reach. This tool helps you generate more follower views and shares with your PRE-Recorded Videos and turn them LIVE on Facebook and YouTube. So you can record your webinar or talk at your convenience in the morning and go live at 6PM when most people are back from work.
- Third, there's Social Kickstart - this lets you schedule posts and syndicate them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN - all in a few mouse clicks. When you're ready to scale your business. This is the right tool for it.
- Fourth, there's PressPlay - discount link Build leads by generating opt-ins from videos.
- Fifth, Earthgrid Eclipse Website Builder.... all in one business platform that has helped thousands of small business owners build their brands online for more than a decade.
WHEW! There was a lot more. Check back on this page in a bit to see some clips of the replay... you missed an action-packed 2 hours of masterminding about how to put everything into focus.
To Your Success,
Viktor
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