Kirkland Courier - Local web site provides gateway to community

Local web site provides
gateway to community

By Peter Stekel
Scanned story

   Anybody who wants to know what is going on throughout the Eastside is going to love the Kirkland-based web site, myEastside.com. With links to shopping, entertainment and local government as well as restaurants, events, sports and many others, the web portal is a cornucopia of Eastside community information.
   Started 18 months ago by 11-year Kirkland residents David and Toni Wall, myEastside.com came about after the birth of the couple's son, Jacob.

   "Before we had kids we were part of the rat race lifestyle of going to and from work and never interacting with the community," Wall says. He and his wife wanted to spend more time at home with Jacob. Thinking of how little they knew about the place they lived in gave rise to a business idea.

   "We looked for a way to create a home business that would benefit the community too," says Wall.

   After a lot of thought -- and $100,000 in startup costs for hardware, software, and engineering -- they came up with myEastside.com, a web portal to cover the region where they live.

   Unlike so many of the commercial sites that surfers may come across, myEastside.com doesn't overwhelm visitors with glitzy shockwave tricks or complex graphics. Eye candy may look good, but it takes an awfully long time to download, even with a T1 line or cable modem.

   Since most surfers are still using much slower dial-up connections, "That kind of stuff can be very annoying," says Wall. "Many people just get fed up and leave."

   The site's simple design means that people can use myEastside.com for what it is designed to do: allowing Eastside communities to express views, news, stories, events and classified ads.

   And, by the way, it's all for free.

   "We thought it was time for a regular person -- you know, you and your neighbors and the smaller businesses throughout the community -- to have a voice in telling what's going on," Wall says.

   "Rather than trying to tantalize you with tricks to make you buy stuff, which TV, newspapers and radio are much better at anyhow, we thought it was time to share the Eastside stories that otherwise don't make it to print, without the clutter of unsolicited banner ads. Then we let you seek out ads from our sponsors or from others in the community classified ads when you are interested in buying something."

   That's the way David Wall thinks it should be. Less of a World Wide Web, and more of a Local Wide Web.

   People on the Eastside seem to think it's a good idea -- myEastside.com has pulled an impressive 175,000 hits to its over 350 pages since its inception in September, 1998. Wall admits that's nothing compared to the big boys like Amazon.com. But he also points out that his community-based portal isn't going after the big bumbers of a national web site.

   Wall also doesn't want to compare himself to print media.

   "The amount of space available to put stories in print media is limited; much more so than the web," he maintains. The regular press, he says, provides a watch dog function, sifting through the news, and deciding what is or isn't important. "They don't really deal with the small stories like we do."

   And myEastside.com really does focus on the small stories happening all around us. They post poems, photos and stories by locals. In many ways they are like a back fence to talk across, or the front porch in town that everybody walks past. They've used modern technology to bring back the town crier.

   News stories about community events and happenings are submitted by people who live on the Eastside. If the articles come from "registered" contributors, the type face is large. "Unregistered" contributors see their submissions in a smaller font. To be registered, all you need to do is log on to the site and provide some very basic information.

   Wall says they make the distinction solely so readers will be able to know that the writer is local, and not someone from, say, Texas, who is trying to promote something.

   "Privacy issues are very important to us," Wall says. "We don't spam. Lots of sites require your e-mail address in order to particpate on the site. They then sell that to someone else or they spam you. You don't need an e-mail address for our site though you can give it to us voluntarily in order to get e-mail from us about something new on the site."

   While myEastside.com continues to grow, the Walls are working on the part of the business that pays the bills: designing and building web pages. Most of their advertisers contracted with David and Toni Wall to produce a web page.

   Maintaining the page, often a time-consuming and expensive proposition, has been streamlined and made easier by a clever innovation of David Wall.

   Businesses are provided with boiler-plate forms that they fill out with the latest information about their business -- sales, coupons, etc. -- which they then up-load themselves.

   "It never felt right for me to take people's money when all I was doing was tweaking their sites," Wall says. "That's why we decided we would make a site where people could do the updates themselves."

   According to Wall, "For a local site to have value, it has to have very current information. You can't wait for a webmaster to get around to your site in a week or a month from now."

   Visitors to myEastside.com won't be assaulted by advertisements. If you want to see what companies have to sell, you must click on the sponsor's link, just as if you were interested in any other category on the portal.

   "We consciously decided to do no banner ads," Wall says of his reasoning. "They were pretty hot, with a 2 percent success rate, when they first came out. But that has shrunk as people got used to them and is now .5 percent and falling. We don't use popup ads either because we don't like them." Wall believes they're not effective anyway.

   "We try to appeal to the web surfer's needs, rather than our needs," Wall says of the idea behind myEastside.com.

   Contact myEastside.com at http://www.myeastside.com or by calling them at 822-4465.

Copyright © 2000 Kirkland Courier. Reprinted with permission.

Originally published in the Kirkland Courier, February 1, 2000, page 6. It included a photo of co-founder David Wall at his desk; the photo was by Doug Schwartz. The scanned story.
CLARIFICATIONS: myEastside.com was launched in September 1999, not 1998 as stated. This was only 5 months ago, not 18 months ago.

Local web site provides gateway to community
By Peter Stekel		Scanned story

Anybody who wants to know what is going on throughout the Eastside is going to love the Kirkland-based web site, myEastside.com. With links to shopping, entertainment and local government as well as restaurants, events, sports and many others, the web portal is a cornucopia of Eastside community information. Started 18 months ago by 11-year Kirkland residents David and Toni Wall, myEastside.com came about after the birth of the couple's son, Jacob. "Before we had kids we were part of the rat race lifestyle of going to and from work and never interacting with the community," Wall says. He and his wife wanted to spend more time at home with Jacob. Thinking of how little they knew about the place they lived in gave rise to a business idea. "We looked for a way to create a home business that would benefit the community too," says Wall. After a lot of thought -- and $100,000 in startup costs for hardware, software, and engineering -- they came up with myEastside.com, a web portal to cover the region where they live. Unlike so many of the commercial sites that surfers may come across, myEastside.com doesn't overwhelm visitors with glitzy shockwave tricks or complex graphics. Eye candy may look good, but it takes an awfully long time to download, even with a T1 line or cable modem. Since most surfers are still using much slower dial-up connections, "That kind of stuff can be very annoying," says Wall. "Many people just get fed up and leave." The site's simple design means that people can use myEastside.com for what it is designed to do: allowing Eastside communities to express views, news, stories, events and classified ads. And, by the way, it's all for free. "We thought it was time for a regular person -- you know, you and your neighbors and the smaller businesses throughout the community -- to have a voice in telling what's going on," Wall says. "Rather than trying to tantalize you with tricks to make you buy stuff, which TV, newspapers and radio are much better at anyhow, we thought it was time to share the Eastside stories that otherwise don't make it to print, without the clutter of unsolicited banner ads. Then we let you seek out ads from our sponsors or from others in the community classified ads when you are interested in buying something." That's the way David Wall thinks it should be. Less of a World Wide Web, and more of a Local Wide Web. People on the Eastside seem to think it's a good idea -- myEastside.com has pulled an impressive 175,000 hits to its over 350 pages since its inception in September, 1998. Wall admits that's nothing compared to the big boys like Amazon.com. But he also points out that his community-based portal isn't going after the big bumbers of a national web site. Wall also doesn't want to compare himself to print media. "The amount of space available to put stories in print media is limited; much more so than the web," he maintains. The regular press, he says, provides a watch dog function, sifting through the news, and deciding what is or isn't important. "They don't really deal with the small stories like we do." And myEastside.com really does focus on the small stories happening all around us. They post poems, photos and stories by locals. In many ways they are like a back fence to talk across, or the front porch in town that everybody walks past. They've used modern technology to bring back the town crier. News stories about community events and happenings are submitted by people who live on the Eastside. If the articles come from "registered" contributors, the type face is large. "Unregistered" contributors see their submissions in a smaller font. To be registered, all you need to do is log on to the site and provide some very basic information. Wall says they make the distinction solely so readers will be able to know that the writer is local, and not someone from, say, Texas, who is trying to promote something. "Privacy issues are very important to us," Wall says. "We don't spam. Lots of sites require your e-mail address in order to particpate on the site. They then sell that to someone else or they spam you. You don't need an e-mail address for our site though you can give it to us voluntarily in order to get e-mail from us about something new on the site." While myEastside.com continues to grow, the Walls are working on the part of the business that pays the bills: designing and building web pages. Most of their advertisers contracted with David and Toni Wall to produce a web page. Maintaining the page, often a time-consuming and expensive proposition, has been streamlined and made easier by a clever innovation of David Wall. Businesses are provided with boiler-plate forms that they fill out with the latest information about their business -- sales, coupons, etc. -- which they then up-load themselves. "It never felt right for me to take people's money when all I was doing was tweaking their sites," Wall says. "That's why we decided we would make a site where people could do the updates themselves." According to Wall, "For a local site to have value, it has to have very current information. You can't wait for a webmaster to get around to your site in a week or a month from now." Visitors to myEastside.com won't be assaulted by advertisements. If you want to see what companies have to sell, you must click on the sponsor's link, just as if you were interested in any other category on the portal. "We consciously decided to do no banner ads," Wall says of his reasoning. "They were pretty hot, with a 2 percent success rate, when they first came out. But that has shrunk as people got used to them and is now .5 percent and falling. We don't use popup ads either because we don't like them." Wall believes they're not effective anyway. "We try to appeal to the web surfer's needs, rather than our needs," Wall says of the idea behind myEastside.com. Contact myEastside.com at http://www.myeastside.com or by calling them at 822-4465.

Copyright © 2000 Kirkland Courier. Reprinted with permission. Originally published in the *Kirkland Courier*, February 1, 2000, page 6. It included a photo of co-founder David Wall at his desk; the photo was by Doug Schwartz. The scanned story. CLARIFICATIONS: myEastside.com was launched in September 1999, not 1998 as stated. This was only 5 months ago, not 18 months ago.