Brooklyn BIDs

The abundance of locally-owned & operated small businesses is one of the things that make NYC so great. To help foster the growth of such establishments, the city supports the nation's largest network of Business Improvement Districts. Of the 64 BIDs in the city, 22 of them are in Brooklyn. These partnerships are a great resource for the businesses within them, but they also provide some useful tools topeople who live, work or visit their represented areas. If you're interested in supporting local business, have a look at the 3/50 Project and check out the Brooklyn BIDs listed below! If you're on a smartphone, Park Slope 5th Avenue's site has a great, mobile-optimized directory of their 500+ businesses.

• 86th Street Bay Ridge
• Bay Ridge 5th Avenue
• Bed-Stuy Gateway
• Brighton Beach
• Church Avenue
• Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn
• DUMBO Improvement District
• East Brooklyn
• Flatbush Avenue
• Flatbush-Nostrand Junction
• Fulton Area Business (FAB) Alliance
• Fulton Street Mall
• Graham Avenue
• Grand Street
• Kings Highway
• MetroTech
• Montague Street
• Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership
• North Flatbush
• Park Slope 5th Avenue
• Pitkin Avenue
• Sunset Park

Fette Sau BBQ: Before & After

At one time, Brooklyn's Fette Sau BBQ had a problem familiar to many small businesses: a great website... that doesn't work on most smartphones. Apple's iPhone, the most common mobile device used for web browsing in the United States, does not support Flash.

Fette Sau's problem was quickly resolved when they started using Mobile Meteor. Now, not only does their site function on a smartphone, it's optimized for a smartphone. Fette Sau gets almost 2000 mobile hits a month. (And over 70% of these visitors are in the New York area.) With one tap, these visitors can call them directly, get their exact address on Google Maps or email them. Their mobile site also promotes their Yelp reviews, Facebook page and Foursquare checkins. Their menu and a gallery of images are available with a simple rotation for iPhone and through a button for other smartphones.

What else can you do with Mobile Meteor? You can run a poll or get direct feedback from visitors. You can include a blog feed and include your Twitter updates on your mobile site. Check out this presentation or this video to learn more. And for Brooklyn-based businesses, we are offering a special for the month of August: 50% off everything for the first year!

Fette Sau's site on an iPhone before Mobile Meteor:


... and after Mobile Meteor

Brooklyn Blackout Contest Winners - And Brooklyn Special!

Congratulations to Apex Exposure for winning a free mobile website! And to St Ann's Warehouse for winning a dozen cupcakes from Butter Lane. We're going to continue spreading the Brooklyn love through August: sign up for Mobile Meteor before the end of the month, and we will give you 50% off everything for the first year. That means only $49 setup fee and $14.99/month for our smartphone-optimized, social media-integrated, customized mobile solution for small businesses. Just enter "Brooklyn" as the referral code. And if you entered your business into our Blackout Contest, we will be contacting you with an even better deal. Thanks to everyone who entered!

And special thanks to the Brooklyn-business-loving people at DUMBO BID, Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership, Grand Street BID, 5th Ave Park Slope BID, Grand Street BID, Park Slope Chamber of Commerce and DUMBO NYC for helping us get the word out about the importance of having a mobile presence.

The drawing, on August 14th, 2010 ay 4:11PM ET:

Blackout Contest: Runner-Up Prize Added

We've received such a good response to our Brooklyn Blackout Contest that we've decided to add another prize! To show a little love to that little island on the other side of the bridge, we will deliver a dozen Butter Lane cupcakes from Manhattan to your business in Brooklyn.

Check out Butter Lane's mobile website below:

Brooklyn Blackout Drawing - Live!

This Saturday, we will draw the winner of our Brooklyn Blackout Contest. Tune into Ustream before 4:11EDT to watch it streaming live from the Brooklyn Bridge!

Bring Your Business out from the Dark

We're already coming up to the 7 year anniversary of the Blackout of 2003! I remember that day like it was yesterday... thankfully I wasn't one of the many stuck in a subway car in a tunnel or sleeping in Penn Station, I made my way down 30 flights of steps in a Midtown skyscraper and walked 7 miles back to Brooklyn. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge with throngs of New Yorkers was thrilling, and once in the County of Kings, my fellow Brooklynites were outside their homes with garden hoses to keep people hydrated and cool. In my mind, that day showed Brooklyn at its best.

In honor of the upcoming anniversary, Mobile Meteor will be offering a free mobile site to a Brooklyn-based business, plus one year of hosting! Too many businesses are in the dark when in comes to smartphone users. Here's an opportunity to revitalize your mobile web presence. We will draw the winner at 4:11PM EDT on Saturday, August 14th on the Brooklyn Bridge. To enter the drawing, please visit our contest signup page. Good luck!

Our Mobile Website Solves a Problem and Creates Opportunities

Mobile Meteor enables small businesses to get inform their customers, engage with website visitors and promote specials. Click through the presentation below to see how