Thursday, April 26, 2007

Adtech in San Francisco

The marketing team of DriversEd.com attended our very first Adtech conference as an exhibitor in San Francisco yesterday. It was a great experience and I learned a lot of new and imperative marketing tools that our team can utilize.

Some companies have something new and unique to offer in terms of marketing ideas and the one that stood out to me the most is the marketing company AdBrite. The name speaks for it's logo, with it's utlra bright green background, which the brand logo gives a depiction of a laundry detergent soap.

They offered a CPC marketing tool that would allow publishers to create photos and videos which contains an advertiser's logo. This would allow your company to make money from advertisers who simply want to place an ad on your photo or video creation.

It's really cool.

The venue was packed with people from around the country and some parts of the world. It's amazing how internet marketing has evolved overtime and how it can bring everyone together and create such a big network of marketing savvy companies.

Written by Dave Arizabal

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Get Your Driver's License Colorado

Colorado has changed it's laws for teens who want to get their driver's license.

If you're under 18, you may take your drivers ed and complete the course -without interruption- to attain a Certificate of Completion and present it to DMV in order to take the permit test. No more affidavit!!

Once you get your permit, you may then enroll for behind-the-wheel's training and complete the minimum hours required for driving with an instructor in order to take your actual driving test at the DMV.

Driversed.com's Customer Support Representatives were very ecstatic after hearing this good news.

Now everyone's happy!



Written by Dave Arizabal

Friday, April 20, 2007

A moment of Silence

Our thoughts and prayers for Virginia Tech.

Written by Dave Arizabal

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Enroll Over The Phone


Customers may now call DriversEd.com over the phone to enroll!!

This option will allow customers who may have trouble enrolling online for whatever reason to simply pick up the phone and have one of our Customer Support Representatives (CSR) enroll them.

Anything to make our students happy... cheers to that!

Written by Dave Arizabal

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Web 2.0 Rules!

This video clearly demonstrates the evolution of internet usage.

Web 2.0 makes our job easier and fun. It helps us stay connected with with our audience. The marketing team of DriversEd.com salutes Web 2.0.

Thank you Michael Wesch (Assistant Professor of Cultural AnthropologyKansas State University) for your brief but yet informative and artistic clip of this ever changing web.

Written by Dave Arizabal

Monday, April 16, 2007

DriversEd.com Plans to YouTube

I've written about my own personal take on social networking sites, but this video puts the icing on the cake!

This spoof on Facebook is a genius, and I hope someone out there can create a spoof on DriversEd.com *hint, hint*. But what would it be about?

Well, we finally have a video camera and our next project is to create a video that would help mainstream us on YouTube -and we hope to reach more than 1 million viewers.

Written by Dave Arizabal

Dave's Take on Social Networking Sites

Almost everyone is there from friends, cousins, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, grandparents, nieces, nephews, classmates, and people you haven't seen in years. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, it's the infamous social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook that's keeping everyone on their computers for -at least- a minimum of two hours.

Similar social networking sites are driven to reach the success of MySpace and Facebook -in relevance to the number of traffic and users- partly because these sites can be very profitable at a very low cost.

MySpace, for example, generates millions in revenues from banners and other forms of advertisements that target youthful users. In addition, Facebook, geared to college students, is also cashing in from ads that students can purchase for whatever means they find it effective.

These social sites reinforces the whole idea of cyberspace being a real place. But for those who didn't grow up with internet will find this whole thing hard to believe.

For teens, these sites are becoming the digital equivalent to hanging-out at the mall, where they can also load -often HOT- pictures, and update their profiles according to their likes and dislikes.

Their page becomes their personality.

But how much influence do these sites have on teens? Depending on how you see it, it can have both positive and negative influence on them.

Positive:

  • Minimizes gallivanting. Teens would rather be online and browse thru social networking sights instead of going out
  • Getting reacquainted with old friends
  • They become creative and computer savvy especially MySpace users

Negative:

  • Spending too much time on it can be counter productive
  • Younger users become less active and sits infront of their computers instead
  • Curiousity can lead to danger. Meeting predators online
Social networking sites were not available yet when I was in high school, and even if it was, I don't think I would have one because I'm just not computer savvy enough. MySpace for example allows users to personalize their page. But in order to make it your own, you need to know how to configure html codes, but I hear that you can get templates from sites, which makes it easier for users.

Many teens nowadays are addicted to MySpace and if that were the case for me, then that would only add to the distractions I received in high school.

Even kids as young as 5 years old have MySpace, and I wonder who's teaching them how to use it and for what purpose? Well, I guess for the same reason as the other 47 million people that use it. This is one of the reasons why kids are less active now compared to kids then who didn't have access to computers. We can see why there’s so many overweight children… and I know this is a whole different topic but I just have to mention it.

I personally love Facebook. It’s very safe and user friendly. You can have the option of setting your account on private. Plus you can also control who can have access to certain things on your profile by setting up your privacy account accordingly. Predators will always be around so advice you to keep your account on private.

If you have a Facebook account, you may add DriversEd.com on your facebook group under DriversEd.com Students and Alumni. Tell your friends!!

We're also finding a way to utilize Facebook to help DriversEd.com reach all the freshmen and sophomore students in all approved states. So look out for us and add us!

Take the good with the bad but make sure to stay safe so keep on social networking!

Written by Dave Arizabal

Friday, April 13, 2007

California Charter School Conference

Not having to fully recuperate from the night before with only two hours of sleep, I managed to get myself ready to leave for San Diego for my very first business trip.

I had to leave for the California Charter School Association (CCSA) conference with my colleague Angela. The conference was held from March 28th thru the 30th of 2007, but we left the bay area on the 25th.

I was very excited for this trip since we had to travel by car. I felt the rush and got antsy days before the trip. I couldn't wait to go. Road trips can be so exciting, don’t you agree?

What I like most about road trips is food. You make rode stops and buy food from gas stations and you’re excused from buying all that junk and you don't have to feel guilty about it. It’s road trip man! Snack and eat the whole bag of Doritos until you get food coma and fall asleep, and finish the crumbs when you wake up again. Now that’s life!

We took the DriversEd.com mini cooper, which was part of our display for the conference, and I didn’t expect the amount of attention that it received. The attendees were asking if the car was for a raffle and I wasn’t sure whether to take their question seriously, but the moment they smiled I knew they wouldn’t want a car with DriversEd.com logos all over it.

I take it back...maybe they did really want it.

Overall, the conference went really well. Teachers and principals expressed their interest in having their students take online drivers ed with DriversEd.com. They’re well aware of the convenience and the benefit it will bring to their students considering that students are very computer savvy nowadays.

People loved our swag! Words were spreading how nice our pens were and people were coming to our booth to get their hands on it.

In addition, we had this attractive bright orange bracelets, which says I AM NOT A STATISTIC on them to promote safe driving. We passed out a lot of these bracelets, and I’m glad that people still find them cool. It sure made someone in our marketing team happy when she found out that we came back with not a single bracelet left…ahem *Dasha*

There's nothing that I can complain about our trip, except their wasn't a lot of space in the minicooper since we had to shove all our stuff in the back and so I had to scoot my seat forward.

But other than that everything was great, from the people we met, the food we ate and the food we ate.. oh the food!!!

I’m definitely looking forward to more future conferences.
Written by Dave Arizabal