Good things come in threes? We've had three regular Sandbar friends in the news over the past couple of weeks. Our internet guru/web host/Guinness drinking friend Frank is the latest.
Frank was interviewed by lawrence.com about the hacking techniques that are compromising people's online accounts. Frank provided some tips to help keep yourself safe online, most of which *should* be common sense to most people: pick adequately secure passwords, don't click on suspicious links, and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Frank has hosted our website for quite some time now. We're in the middle of a massive redesign of the site, and he's using his mad Django skills to build our new design. We're excited about all the new stuff our website will be able to do- like view the webcam on your phone!
So, even though we like to call Frank our "web guy," please don't think that he's responsible in any way for the current site we have! It's a little outdated but that's not his fault.
Check out the article and read Frank's tips. You might learn something you didn't know before.
If you follow any kind of social media, you've probably heard about "checking in" and location-based social networks. Maybe you've even been teased by your friends about being the "mayor" of a location in town (yes, I speak from experience).
But back in the days when Foursquare was still a playground game with a bouncy red ball, and Yelp was something you did when you hit your funny bone on the desk, people were checking in to The Sandbar in a decidedly old-fashioned way.
Dave and Peach long ago figured out that the way to attract more customers was to first attract the ladies; the men would soon follow. They came up with a game to encourage the girls to come in and stay awhile, and one that would reward them for time well spent.
They set up an old time clock near the door and created time cards for regular female customers; upon arrival, the ladies would punch in at the time clock, and punch out when they left. After accumulating a certain amount of time at the bar, the girls could pick out gift shop merchandise like t-shirts as a prize.
I honestly don't remember this gimmick- so either it was pre-1996, or I wasn't cool enough to have a time card. Dave doesn't remember how long it lasted, but it was fun to hear about an old-school style promotion.
Of course, now Dave and Peach think it would be funny to bring it back, since I've been trying to sell them on the idea of offering incentives to customers who check in or become mayor on a social network like Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, or Yelp.
Thoughts? How many of you use a location-based social network? Or would you rather punch a time clock?
We’re still super excited over our “Favorite Places” window decal from Google, and we wanted to find out more about this awesome surprise.
According to the Official Google Blog, the company sent 100,000 decals to local business in the United States. They chose the businesses that were the most sought out and researched on Google and Google Maps. These “Favorite Places” are located in over 9000 towns and in all 50 states.
Another FAQ section that Google provided states that the selected businesses represent less than 1% of the 28 million businesses in the country. Exciting!
The reason behind it? It’s part of an overall effort to help provide people with the best local business results when trying to figure out where to go. They also plan to send out new waves of window decals to qualifying businesses. Apparently we were in the first round!
You can see a sample of Favorite Places in 20 of the largest U.S. cities here.
We haven’t hung the decal in the window yet, because we’re still trying to find a good spot that’s visible, but not so accessible that someone would steal it. And, I’m still trying to figure out how to scan the QR code- I downloaded the QuickMark app that the article recommended, but I haven’t had any luck getting the scan to work. Supposedly, once a clear scan is picked up, the app will bring up a page that has business info, hours, and reviews.
Google has a fun (and kind of cheesy) little video that shows how all this works.
Peach surprised me with some very special mail the other day.
Google Maps (yes that Google!) sent us a letter congratulating us on being named a "Favorite Place on Google." According to the letter, their users found our business listing on Google 3731 times and requested driving directions or other information 269 times- all between July 1 and September 30 last year!
And, they included a super cool window decal that we can hang up! The tech-savvy sticker even includes a special bar code that people can scan with cameras on their phones, which apparently allows them to see our business listing on Google. I'm not really sure how that works, but maybe one of you will enlighten me.
(Perhaps Google sends letters and stickers to every business in an effort to encourage them to create/update their Google business listing, I don't know. But if that's the case, I don't want to know. I'd like to keep thinking we were popular enough to catch their attention. So don't burst my bubble, okay?)
It's been awhile since I posted about the keyword searches that internet surfers do that lands them on our lovely little blog. Okay, it's been a whole year. I'm sure you've been dying to know this information, too.
I can always tell when hurricane season is upon us- the real, actual, weather-related hurricane season, not the perpetual hurricane season at the Sandbar. How? Because people all over the internets start searching like mad for "what happens during a hurricane." It's easily the most popular phrase that lands people here.
Somehow, I don't think our answer is quite what they are looking for. It's probably more fun than the other answer, though.
Some other fun phrases that have popped up lately:
Wore heels all night Halloween. This search was probably done by Dave. And he was probably looking for the ladies who continue to wear spike heels and dance on his fancy benches and pound little dents into them. Thanks, girls. He'll probably want to re-do the benches soon now.
Actual volleyball team. This one made me laugh out loud. Wrong blog, people. There's no *actual* volleyball team here, just a bunch of wanna-be's.
Andrew, KU Bar Band, Tuba. We talk a lot about the Bar Band and our doorboy Andrew. Apparently there is also a tuba player named Andrew in the Bar Band, and someone is looking for him. I hope it's a cute girl.
Joe's Sandbar Ottawa. Another one that made me chuckle. We poke a lot of fun at Joe, but it's all in good fun, and he knows it. At least I think he does. He's now been elevated to the owner of the Sandbar in Ottawa by the internets.
How to add fan photos on Facebook. This search actually shows up a lot. I'm rather proud of the little instructional post I wrote about this- it was actually pretty difficult to figure out how to do this, so I hope this post helps someone out there.
There you have it, the search phrases I deemed most interesting. Or at least the ones I had something to say about.
I’m trying to figure out the best way to share our favorite Sandbar pictures.
We have a Sandbar Flickr photostream, and we also created a Sandbar Flickr group that you can join and add your own Sandbar pictures to. The photostream is available for anyone to see, but you have to be a Flickr member AND a group member in order to see the pictures in the group.
The reason I set up the Flickr photostream and group was because I wanted a place to share pictures without requiring you to register or sign in to another site.
However, is it inconvenient? Does anyone use Flickr, or visit our page?
I’ve thought about adding pictures to the Sandbar Facebook page– either instead of or in addition to Flickr. But I know that not everyone is on Facebook (yes, it’s true- my mom’s not!) so I don’t want to restrict the non-Facebookers from seeing our pictures.
So, I’m asking you. Here’s a poll. Pick an answer.
(Isn’t this poll cool?!?) Feel free to share with your friends. Poll closes on Saturday, October 10.
