Thursday, March 13, 2008

History of Hale Multimedia

Hale Multimedia started out as a website promotions company back in 1996 at Ft. Sill (Lawton, Oklahoma) under the name of World Wide Web Directories. Founder Brian Hale had the vision 12 years ago (2 years before Google even existed) that there was a great need to create an internet directory to help people find websites more easily. Brian created a search engine called 1 Best Directory (www.1bestdirectory.com) and a printed publication called The Internet Gold Pages to help those who don't like sifting through the millions of results you get when you search for something. Unfortunately, in 1996 the focus on promotions was a little ahead of it's time since only about 1 in 10 local businesses even had a website and many of those were not happy enough with their website to want to promote it.

Therefore, as Brian went around talking to businesses about promotions, most of them ending up asking if he could design or redesign their website for them first. The promotions idea was a great one, but the need for better websites couldn't be ignored.

After a year long self-taught crash course in html, Brian officially started producing commercial website in late 1997. After two years of experience in website design in Oklahoma and lots of research on the Western Nebraska area, he found the need was just as great there. Therefore, in July of 1999 Brian moved back to Nebraska to serve his hometown community with his new found skills. Brian's dad, Howard Hale, owns and operates a radio broadcasting company called Hale Broadcasting where he produces 3 different daily radio programs that get played on 20+ radio stations in seven states. Prior to Brian moving home, Howard's programs were delivered to the radio stations via a pre-recorded telephone bank where the stations would call in and re-record the broadcasts. This process was cumbersome compared to what we knew we could do with the internet. Therefore, Howard and Brian worked closely together to deliver the broadcasts in a much higher quality and easier to use streaming mp3 format.

Where we are NOT going...
Hale Multimedia has experienced steady growth from just a handful of customers in 1999 to the thousands of webpages that we have out there today. We have seen many other website companies and individuals come and go over the years. God has blessed with an attitude of NEVER QUITTING despite the many challenges we have faced in this constantly evolving business. So, let's squash one rumor that's floating out there right now... HALE MULTIMEDIA IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE, especially not out of business!

Where we ARE going... (Quality of Service vs. Quantity of Websites)
Now that the ratio of businesses with adequate websites has hit an all time high, the time has come to shift our focus away from mass production back to where we started... website promotions! We will continue to develop new websites, but our primary focus will be on quality of service vs. quantity of websites. We've done a great job of marketing our own business as we now have website clients in 20 U.S. States, Peru and Africa. However, we feel like we could be doing a better job promoting our clients websites so that their website becomes a more profitable investment. We have created some great avenues for promoting our customers' websites like www.websiteportfolio.net and www.agmarketonline.com amongst others. However, when our focus was formerly on mass production, we failed to properly develop these valuable promotional outlets. Therefore, we have recently re-designed both of these to do a better job promoting our clients' websites. Check them out and do a search for your business. If you are not listed yet, let us know!

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