This just In: To get on the guest list for The Ivy's ultra-exclusive nightlife venue "Envy" click here or email vip@discoversd.com.
Is it just me, or is the Downtown San Diego hotel scene starting to reflect a Las Vegas vibe? A hotel is not longer just a place to rest your head; Downtown San Diego is home to a booming new hotel scene complete with extravagant amenities and signature nightlife entertainment. Wave goodbye to standard chain hotels; it's officially time to welcome a new era in hospitality: luxury and boutique hotels. The Ivy Hotel in San Diego, slated to open June 2007, is making quite a stir in the hospitality scene-before it even opens.
Affordable Clothing: Fashion on a Budget
Is it just me, or are designer clothing prices rising by the minute? As loud and proud New York and LA affluence seeps into the previously low-key fashion scene in San Diego, how is a local shopper with a sweet-tooth for style supposed to keep up? There's got to be a way to find fashion on a budget.
Thankfully there is one rule of fashion that never fails: when a new trend comes to town, it brings a whole cast of sidekicks along for the ride. Impersonators, phonies, wanna-be's; call 'em what you will---with every original that arrives, there's always a fake in sight.
Are you looking to kick back at a Hotel bar filled with the young professional crowd and retire to your room late night to watch a DVD on the 42" plasma on the wall? Or, is your idea of a hotel stay more along the lines of your average Marriott?
For most, the decision is one part budget and one part amenities. So, looking at San Diego hotels classified by price and by geographical location, then comparing boutique hotels in San Diego to chain hotels in San Diego we find that prices and amenities can vary quite a bit.
We're requesting nominees for our San Diego Blogger Awards - Blogs to Watch in 2007. Be sure to submit your favorite local blogs from as may of the categories as possible!
Please email blogs [at] sandiegobloggers.com with the category and URL of the blog you nominate. Any additional notes or insight into why you nominate each blog would be greatly appreciated.
On February 28th, 2007 we'll post the nominees and choose finalists. Then, a poll will be setup for another week of voting. We'll issue voting badge codes. The second week of March we'll do a review post about each of the winning blogs to help showcase them and hopefully help them gain more visibility and subscribers!
Strange title, I know. But I'm consulting on monetization and user-generated content optimization for a prom dresses site that's being redeveloped and which is going to include a daily updated blog. Part of the concern was how best to monetize the blog as the rest of the site has its own monetization plan based on its structure.
So, I was searching for other prom related blogs to see if anyone in that space was already hitting a homerun. Part of that search turned up a prom scholarship contest, which coincidentally is for a school with a San Diego location, and I remembered what great potential there is for promoting and monetizing through contests and scholarships.
Learning how to use digg.com as a story submitter and digger of great stories is truly akin to being awash in the good, the bad, and the ugly of web content. With thousands of stories submitted daily, while learning how to participate in a productive manner, you are sure to really see it all.
You'll see stories so lacking in quality that you'll wonder why anyone read them let alone submit them, you'll see complete spam submitted by nefarious types attempting to game digg, and finally you'll see countless awesome and interesting pieces all comprised of different components which lead them to super-popularity status on digg (hitting the front-page).
You might have noticed that I have a guide to entertainment category. I'm pretty big on going out, enjoying the city's great restaurants, nightlife, and the overall scene. It's very diverse, and that's cool because I've got a diverse group of friends and acquaintances to enjoy it all with.
There are a number of San Diego nightlife guides, San Diego restaurants guides, directories of San Diego hotels... and of course the big aggregators of travel info, as well as the huge national travel guides (aol's, yahoo's, citysearch, etc).
- The Specific Guides - I find these to be ok... but most of them haven't changed much in terms of focus, design (and usability), or interactivity (web2.0 people!) in years. I know how to glean information from these various sources well enough but I think they could all do a better job.
- The Aggregators and National Guides - Large sites that don't really have any unique editorial content in most cases. Some that do, are somewhat complicated to navigate and really use as a resource. They do seem to often have a good amount of user reviews as they probably have quite large visitor bases.
What's Next in online San Diego Entertainment Guides?
I might just have to say that DiscoverSD.com is. There is obviously a lot lacking as the site is new, and has kinks to work out, and needs to grow a LOT to be a significant competitor. But, the foundation is right. The design is cool and refreshing, the layout and content are pretty much right on.
2007 is here! If your 2006 was anything like mine it went by really quick. I'm not even sure if I got half way through my resolution list… but maybe that's why, I just keep adding new resolutions to those left on the list from years passed. So what's one of the biggies? Simple, to have more fun!
2006 was one of the most trying years as we spent months and months developing things behind the scenes where there is no instant gratification (like adding a cool feature to a live site for instance), and often long hours (16 hour days should never happen) communicating with people from all over the globe to make the pieces fit. So, with development wrapping up, the fun part begins (the promotion, marketing, and product development) and there will be more time for real world fun (no, not watching the MTV real world show). Nightlife and good dining take top billing on my list of San Diego fun.
Searching through the websites I could find for "San Diego real estate" and "San Diego homes for sale" on Google and Yahoo!, I wasn't really able to find much in the way of information---the non-commercial kind.
What I found however, is that Home Sales San Diego, the self-acclaimed "San Diego Real Estate Insider" is a little different. There wasn't much salesy-speak or pushing of 1-800 numbers of agents, etc. There was more of an informational angle which was pretty refreshing. I gathered that it may or may not be the site of an agent or brokerage, possibly just someone with a real estate background writing about what they know and collecting home buyer and seller leads.
Refresh San Diego's January 9th web group meetup (location TBA) is sure to be an excellent learning and networking event for San Diego web professionals (and amateurs!). Discussions generally center around web design, search engine optimization, internet marketing, social media optimization, and viral marketing.
For more information visit RefreshSD.org or RSVP on their mail-list.