As the publishers and founders of NSBNews.net, launched April 7, 2008, Peter Mallory and I are proud to announce some major advertising partnerships with key businesses in greater New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater and Oak Hill as we continue our mission of building a reputable 21st-century news organization that puts news reporting before all else.
We have signed contract renewals with several signature restaurants, among them: A two-year advertising and marketing agreement with Clancy's Cantina on Flagler Avenue, beginning Jan. 1, and a new three-year deal with Norwood's Restaurant & Wine Shop on the North Causeway, beginning today. These follow a two-year agreement with That's Amore off Flagler Avenue earlier this year.
NSBNews.net is in the process of negotiating an exclusive multi-year contract renewal with Ocean Properties on the beachside and a new two-year contract with Settle-Wilder Funeral Home. NSBNews.net recently signed a two-year renewal with John Delevan of Edward Jones on Canal Street and brand new one-year contracts with the Dairy Queen of New Smyrna Beach, Jeff's Pest Control of Oak Hill and Edgewater Towing Services.
NSBNews.net recently entered into a two-year "marketing" contract with the Gallery Group of Flagler Avenue financed through the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority with emphasis on wine walks, arts and crafts and other cultural offerings.
NSBNews.net renewed its annual membership with the Southeast Volusia Chamber of Commerce last month despite being denied a request last spring for inclusion as a media sponsor. We were encouraged to submit a second application with our renewal. We discovered Monday, that that, too, also was rejected despite an impassioned letter of reference from fellow SEV Chamber member Ellen Darden, president of the New Smyrna Beach Board of Realtors and an announced candidate for the Volusia County Council.
NSBNews.net will publish the chamber's letter of denial as well as Darden's letter and our application for the sponsorship for the benefit of our readers and the public. Our official response to the chamber will be handled by an attorney we have retained in anticipation of being denied the sponsorship that is afforded every area media, even as NSBNews.net stands alone as the only newspaper operating within the city limits of New Smyrna Beach.
In the interest of full disclosure, NSBNews.net lobbied the city of New Smyrna Beach and its Community Redevelopment Agency for our inclusion as a provider of promotional advertising for community groups, which has been met with great resistance. Again, NSBNews.net, New Smyrna Beach's lone newspaper, stands alone as being excluded.
Mallory and I have long held the belief that as a newspaper, we are better off turning to the private sector four our advertising needs. We are no longer pursuing the public sector as an option. Instead, we are going to write about the process, the funding mechanisms and the politics at play including that with the chamber.
We have retained special counsel to represent our needs not only with the chamber denials, but also recent attempts to contact some of our advertisers to discourage them from continuing their relationship with NSBNews.net. We will not get more specific beyond what is written here for obvious reasons.
NSBNews.net was created as a business in New Smyrna Beach by Mallory, a longtime resident who graduated from New Smyrna Beach High School, with undergrad and graduate degrees from MIT. He has served on the board of the Utilities Commission of New Smyrna Beach and the former Daytona Beach Community College. Mallory's late wife, Jacqueline, had the distinction of being named to the board of the Southeast Volusia Hospital Authority by two different Florida governors.
My wife, Serafina and I, also live here in New Smyrna Beach. One year after launching NSBNews.net, we were married on the beach with our reception at Clancy's and have carried out the day-to-day operations of NSBNews.net with a home occupation license from our residence, first on US 1 and since last December, in our home in Sugar Mill, just up the road from Mallory. I have covered news events here in Volusia County since the mid-1990s.
We are indeed struggling like everyone else in this entrenched recession, but we are optimistic, the business community in Southeast Volusia and eventually across Volusia County. My wife Sera and I are proud of our daily commitment to news coverage here in greater New Smyrna Beach. Sera is very talented with multimedia, including video, graphics and online software.
NSBNews.net has the largest social media network on Facebook -- public or private -- with nearly 10,000 contacts. We have grown to the point were we are averaging 1,000 unique visitors daily and nearly twice as many page views.
We are included in Google's news directories with our editorial content and images given unfettered and immediate placement at or near the top of its search engines on the Internet. Much of our advertising now is carried on stories and blogs with click ons to their websites.
We are building a major network for the 2012 elections. Already, NSBNews.net has lined up prominent candidates and once again we will be holding a series of public debates and posting the videos on online as well as making endorsements in all political races. In addition to this, we are going to begin our news and public affairs show called "The Roundtable" before year's end.
It is disheartening the recent politics with the chamber and the CRA, but this gives NSBNews.net the opportunity to educate the public as to why there has been so much resistance to NSBNews.net's mission of reporting real news while others in the media sell out for taxpayer-supported advertising. So now we are going to ask the powers that be the proverbial journalism question that exposes the good ol' boy network that is pervasive here: "Show Me The Money."
