You remember MsTaken, right? It’s a faux engagement ring for women to help keep… undesirables at bay. Well, we just saw them on KOMO News! You can see the news video here. Ooh! Sparkly!

MsTaken Gets Kudos on Komo News is a post from: Foundry Interactive

When it comes to compelling offers, I feel the way Justice Stewart felt about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.”  For me, “up to 100% off” is pretty compelling.

We have just started to work with Lockerz, a social network which rewards you for doing things you were going to do anyway.  Users earn “PTZ” for watching videos, shopping, playing games, and talking to friends.  We’re not talking about virtual rewards, or emotional rewards; we’re talking about actual rewards.  Points get converted into discounts on stuff like clothes or electronics.  Those discounts can go all the way up to 100%.

Finally there is a place where I can get a huge discount on that iPad by talking about how badly I want that iPad.  God Bless America.

Lockerz – Up to 100% Off! is a post from: Foundry Interactive

Do you know those cool tools they have now for tracking the exact position, speed, and efficiency of an entire fleet of vehicles? Yeah, our friends at Wireless Matrix do that. Their Fleet Outlook product line is the bees knees when it comes to fleet tracking. Since they know so much about that problem space, they’ve just launched a new blog about fleet management. If you have even one company vehicle doing who-knows-what all day long, these guys are the place to go. Especially check-out their vehicle tracking ROI calculator; it shows how the solution can easily pay for itself.

Wireless Matrix Blog is Open is a post from: Foundry Interactive

After years of waiting for someone, somewhere, to do something useful in travel – we finally found something interesting.

Stash Hotel Rewards is a new hotel rewards program for authentic, independently-run hotels. Members earn and redeem points for free accommodations at one-of-a-kind hotels across the U.S., including some of the best spas in Napa, luxury resorts in the Rockies and Florida, and boutique hotels in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C.

Congratulations to Jeff Low, and all of our friends on the successful launch of stashrewards.com.

Stash Hotel Rewards is a post from: Foundry Interactive

That crafty Ms Taken is back at it. Foundry was thrilled to help bring designs from Yui Studio to life and add multi-product support to the mstaken.com site.

In case you haven’t seen them, be sure to check out the new clothing line which is perfect for when you are working the room in disguise.

Ms. Taken is a post from: Foundry Interactive

Dodson’s Jewelers is an institution.  Founded in 1887, it is one of the oldest family owned jewelry stores in the Northwest.  It was our pleasure to work with our friends at Kitterman Marketing Group to help update their site.  From diamonds to estate jewelry, Dodson’s is the place to go to find amazing pieces and personalized service.

Go ahead, add a little bling to your day.

Dodson’s Jewelers is a post from: Foundry Interactive

In the old neighborhood the word “crew” was typically preceded by words like “work” or “wrecking.”  Apparently it can also have something to do with a world of amazing athletes who use remarkably advanced racing shells to torture themselves on the water.

A little while back we had the pleasure of working with two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Mary Whipple on www.9thSeat.com.  She was kind enough to introduce us to the gang at Pocock, and it is has been a pleasure working with them and learning about what they do and launching the updated Pocock.com.

Hopefully the next time we build something with these guys they will let us use the Hypercarbon.

Pocock Racing Shells is a post from: Foundry Interactive

We love entrepreneurs, from scrappy tech startups to the corner flower shop.  That is one of the reasons we love working with Wald Imports.

Helping folks find Wald’s amazing array of floral, gift, and specialty containers helps make sure that moms and girlfriends never have to be subjected to junky gift basket or bouquets again.  As you know, here at Foundry we are all about helping moms.

After optimizing their site, organic search traffic immediately spiked. Traffic has stabilized to a value almost twice what it was before.

Wald Imports is a post from: Foundry Interactive

There is no sense in hiding it, Foundry is populated by Apple fanboys.  So we are more than happy to plug the latest effort of our dear friends the Pantless Knights:  I’m on a Mac featuring PC Pain for SwitchToMac.com.

I’m On A Mac! is a post from: Foundry Interactive

Our new office is a lot of things: cheap, roomy, comfortable, close to our homes – and until recently partially painted a disgusting shade of pea-soup green.  We know and love the previous tenants, but this is one of those paint colors you assume was picked while under the influence.  It had to go.  So while we were waiting for Comcast, we figured we could quickly paint over the offending wall.  Having taped everything off, thrown down a couple of tarps, and we got to work.

Since we were putting cheap white paint over a colored wall – we assumed two coats would be necessary.  After the first coat we noticed that some old looking water damage on the wall were still as plain as day.  We tried a second coat.  Perhaps simply putting more paint could be the answer.  Alas, our efforts to simply cover up the problem were to no avail.

A two minute drive to the Benjamin Moore store a few blocks down Leary, followed by a two minute conversation with someone who actually knew something about paint was all we needed.  A quick coat of oil-based primer, followed by another coat of the super-cheap flat latex I got at the Home Depot – and everything looked great.

I have worked construction and have painted countless houses and apartments over the years – so I was confident enough to just plow ahead and slap some paint on the walls.  It wasn’t until I was confronted with a problem I had never seen before that I even entertained the notion of consulting with a subject matter expert.  That consultation made all the difference.  If I had taken the 10 minutes it would have taken to do that before I started, I could have saved a few hours.

While it might not be very glamorous, we really appreciated that guy at the paint store and we were very happy to have him as a resource.  He saved us time and money, and shepherded us to a result we likely would not have gotten had we only had big-box generalists to rely on.  Of course, we should understand this concept better than most people because we are subject matter expects.  We perform the exact same function when it comes to SEO and SEM.

Here is to hoping you’re smart enough to reach out to an expert before being confronted with the indisputable proof of the error of your ways.

The case for: Subject Matter Experts is a post from: Foundry Interactive