Life Around Town, LLC is an online advertising company with diverse ambitions.  The company was officially formed in December of 2005 with a few main focuses.  The primary objective of the company is to serve as a local hub for community activities and businesses through its advertising campaign.  Businesses will be given the opportunity to place lines of text, a link, coupon, picture,  commercial, and even a new website within the Life Around Town directories through many comprehensive packages.  These comprehensive packages all include the ability for the business to update and even preprogram their advertisement and/or coupon to display or change at any given time causing the ad to be "alive."  Unlike its competitors, lifearoundtown.com is well organized, easily navigable, and free of clutter.  Advertisements on the site are both efficient and affordable to encourage greater participation.  Life Around Town operations began locally in the South Jersey region and will continue to grow throughout the United States.

The most cutting-edge web technology, which has been collectively labeled "Web 2.0", is comprised of many sites dedicated to user interface.  Uniquely, Life Around Town takes the concept of a vibrant online community and incorporates it into the framework of a geographic community based on the towns in which people live.  Each town's user interface features enable people to find others with similar interests, buy and sell items, barter goods and services, post and seek jobs, and strengthen their local community at no charge.  At Life Around Town, users determine the direction each town takes with a wide array of message board topics and postings.  Non-profit organizations, community groups, and businesses all benefit from our innovative calendar of events, which allows for free posting in each town.  As its popularity grows, Life Around Town will be the first and most successful company to create a hybrid of online advertising and user interface.

As Life Around Town expands, it will become actively involved in each new community.  At our Grand Opening parties, teams of coworkers, friends, etc. will compete in the Wild Around Town mobile photographic scavenger hunt.  The event will be catered and a great opportunity for networking, employee training, team-building, and a "fun night out" for the general public.  Before most new towns open on lifearoundtown.com, high school and college fundraisers will serve as a pre-launch to help local organizations gain exposure and meet their financial needs.  Shout Around Town allows student groups to get friends, family, classmates, and town residents to permanently submit pictures with messages attached to our large online grid and receive a gift card valued at $15 for a $15 fee.  

As the new center for all town activities, Life Around Town is revolutionizing the advertising industry while developing a more practical user interface model.  The company is also strongly committed to providing superior service to both its customers and its users.  Although Life Around Town continues to grow nationally, it will always maintain its strong local presence and focus.

Life Around Town has many diverse packages and uses but manages to incorporate them in a very easy to navigate website.  This page has been created to detail each aspect of the company fully so that the general public and local businesses have a complete understand of what we offer and how it is implemented.  As you read through these descriptions, please keep in mind that you can click through the site and see for yourself.

Business Directories:

                The website is built so that the user can click on the state of their choice, followed by the county and then the city.  Once inside the city of their choosing, the user can click on any of our 25 plus categories.  The categories have been designed to encompass almost every type of local business that exists.  Categories can be added if it is mutually agreed upon that we have missed a segment or industry of businesses.  Once the user is inside the category, they can view an organized list of businesses and the information that the business provided in their text advertisement.  The user can navigate from category to category or even change cities very easily.

            The businesses can take advantage of several different, creative and inexpensive packages within these directories.  The basic packages and prices are based on lines of text.  The businesses can place as little as one or as many as nine lines of text.  These lines of text could include but are not limited to things like:  company name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, owner or manager's name, a slogan, a special or an email address.  Any of the lines can be linked.  Typical links include the business website or the business email.  An advanced feature which is included in every package gives the business the ability to change or even preprogram their text ad to display or change any time they want.  For example, a bar could set a line of their text ad to display "$2 Yum Beer every Thursday" and change to "Trivia Tuesday Nights".  They can set it to change at any specific time or date(s).

            Within these directories, there are other packages that the businesses can utilize.  Business can purchase the exclusive rights to the only picture inside their category page.  Each category page of every town only has one picture where you will see a featured business.  In other words, out of the thousands of businesses that exist in each town, only about 25 will be able to purchase this option.

            Another package includes the map feature.  If this package is purchased, a small button will appear underneath the business' text ad.  When the user clicks on the button, a map will pop up on screen showing the user where the business is located in town.  The map appears toward the top of the page and is about 1/3 as wide as the web page.

            The "General Info" package offers the business the ability to type in a decent sized paragraph detailing anything they find important about their company.  This will also generate a button underneath their text ad that a user can click on.  Once clicked, a box containing the business' paragraph will appear about the same size as the map and in the same location as well.

            The 360º option is a service that is offered by our company that once completed also generates a button under the text ad of the business.  A business that wants or needs to show off their facilities would utilize our recommended software or any software they wish to construct their QuickTime panoramic image.  Once complete, they can upload their 360º image to our site through their account or during checkout.  When the user clicks the button, the image would appear in the same spot as the map or general info box and would be roughly the same size.  The user would then be able to see the facility as if they were standing in the center of the room and slowly spinning in place.

            The other button that can be generated is the coupon button.  This will be discussed in more detail in the next section.

Coupons:

Coupons are a very attractive feature for this site.  The coupons are also separated by town just like everything else.  The coupons are generated on a first come first serve basis.  In other words, the first business to purchase a coupon will appear and retain the spot on the first page of coupons.  A page will consist of nine printable coupons.  Once a page of nine coupons fills in a town, a second page is generated.  This can continue indefinitely to adhere to the town's needs.  These local coupons can be accessed two ways.  One of the ways is through the text ads.  It is another feature that generates a button underneath the text ad of the business.  When the user clicks on the button, they are taken directly to the page where that business' first coupon appears.  The second way to access these coupons is a more general way.  Once a user has navigated to a town but hasn't chosen a category yet, they can click on a link that says "Coupons Around Town" and will be taken to that town's first page of coupons.  Again, the coupons are placed on a first come first serve basis.  This means that the first coupon could be for an ice cream shop and the second coupon could be for a day care center.  Discounts are available on our already low prices for purchase of multiple coupons.

The Town Video:

          Another package that is slightly different from all of those listed above is the one that includes the town video.  As mentioned above, there is a package that offers the exclusive rights to the only picture inside a category.  That exclusive offer is for roughly 25 businesses within the town.  An even more exclusive offer is the video package.  On each town's page, there is a spot tactfully designated for a short video.  There is only one per town and this is also offered on a first come first serve basis.  The video is formatted to display the first frame of the video but not automatically play upon page load.  This allows the users to click it if they are interested or ignore it if they are not interested. 

User Interface:

The main focus of this website was to design a clutter free and easily navigable town centered business directory.  However, there are many other elements with the confines of the site that are exciting and useful.  Almost everything described above and described in all the features below take place from a central location.  The central location is the user's home town.  As stated above, once a user has navigated to their town within the site, they have the option of clicking on one of the categories, the Coupons Around Town link, or a third option.  The user interface pages can best be described as free local classified ads.  The ‘Barter' button allows users to post goods and services for trade.  The ‘Free' button allows user to post any item or service they are giving away for free.  The ‘Items for Sale' button allows users to sell their goods or services for free.  The ‘Resume' button allows people to promote themselves within the local community.  The ‘Help Wanted' button allows for the local businesses that are hiring to attract local help.  The ‘Events Around Town' button lets users, business, or community groups to post things that will be happening within the town.  A calendar is generated for this feature allowing for the ability to get a glimpse ahead.  The last button, ‘Message Boards', will undoubtedly take on a life of its own.  The message boards within each town were design to bring people together.  The mindset was for groups of people to get together for a variety of different reasons.  Examples could be:  nine guys need a tenth to play basketball, parents looking for friends for their toddlers or maybe video gamers looking for more people to play with.  The list and possibilities are endless.  The message boards might also unite people that want to discuss things like the local politics of the town.

Grand Opening Parties:

          Information about the town's Grand Opening party can also be accessed from the town's page within the site.  As Life Around Town expands, it will become actively involved in each new community.  At our Grand Opening parties, teams of coworkers, friends, etc. will compete in the Wild Around Town mobile photographic scavenger hunt.  The event will be catered and a great opportunity for networking, employee training, team-building, and a "fun night out" for the general public.  

            The event is advertised through a number of creative ways.  It will usually be advertised as a fundraiser for a large and respectable non-profit organization within the town and as the official opening of that town within the Life Around Town site.  While it may not be the case in each town, our main goal is to conduct these fundraisers through the PTA of the school district. 

The event step by step:

The people of the town generate their own team of 4 to 5 people to compete in this contest.  The teams must arrive on time at the predetermined place within the town.  We kick off the event by giving the rules.  The teams are then given a digital camera, one memory card, a list of crazy things or situations, and a time limit to take group pictures around town.  The teams are then dismissed from the location to get into their cars and try to accomplish as many of the situations on the list.  Each situation is worth a different amount of points and there are plenty of situations to choose from.  The situations can be combined allowing for creative combinations of points.  The teams must arrive back at the location at the given time limit.  Once they arrive and submit their memory cards, the Life Around Town staff convenes in a back room to quickly judge the pictures.  While the staff is judging the pictures, the people that participated in the event are eating.  Once the judging is complete, the staff emerges to announce the winning team.  The winning team is awarded a very large monetary prize to split between its 4 or 5 members.

            Life Around Town has a goal to make this a fun-filled community bonding annual event.  Life Around Town can also be hired by individual companies to conduct this event as a team-building type training for the employees.  The script of situations is completely rewritten for each new event.

Shout Around Town:

          Shout Around Town is also another community bonding fundraiser.  Before most new towns open on lifearoundtown.com, high school and college fundraisers will serve as a pre-launch to help local organizations gain exposure and meet their financial needs.  Shout Around Town allows student groups to get friends, family, classmates, and town residents to submit pictures on our large online grid along with a message to a friend, loved one, or teacher for a $15 fee.  Not only will these pictures and messages be permanently posted within that town's section of the Life Around Town website, but the recipient of those pictures and messages will each receive a $15 gift certificate. 

            Shout Around Town is also accessed on the town's page.  The link on the town's page takes you to the large grid with over 1000 clickable pictures upon completion.  This project resembles an online yearbook allowing students to forever capture some of their high school memories.

National Features:

          The ‘National Features' are almost identical to the user interface listed above.  Some individuals or companies may have a reason to post something that needs to be seen nationally.  For a small yearly fee, these individuals or companies can accomplish this type of national classified ads.  Most of the same categories are offered which include:  barter, items for sale, free, help wanted, and resumes.  All of those categories are part of the small yearly fee.  A separate and more expensive package includes national coupons.  This allows a company that does business across the nation to post coupons at an extremely competitive annual price.  The users can access the coupons for printing right on Life Around Town's home page.  The other categories can be accessed for browsing from the main page as well.

Contests:

                      Life Around Town often runs advertised and unadvertised contests accessible through the home page.

Arcade:

          Life Around Town also has provided a high quality online arcade to play while passing the time.