ST. LOUIS – With the recent launch of SantaClarita.com, The Kosmin Media Group added a third site to their stable of Geo Domains, after Kingwood.com and Peoria.com.

Associated Geos talked with Joe Kosmin regarding that launch, plus other issues tied into having various Geo Domain locations around the country.

Associated Geos: What design decisions (meaning the "look" of the website) were specifically made to get the aspect of what you wanted a user to experience with SantaClarita.com?
Joe Kosmin: The design of SantaClarita.com is meant to match the physical terrain of the area. The blues are for the sky (Santa Clarita enjoys something like 275 days of sun and blue skies a year on average). The greens, browns match the terrain. While driving around Santa Clarita, you'll notice a stark difference between the bright greens of watered lawns and manicured landscaping, and the much drier browns and oranges of the natural foliage and hills nearby. Santa Clarita, like many areas of California, is very much a man made oasis built on top of a very dry terrain.

In a more general sense, we always build our sites to be as useful as possible, while maintaining a simple user interface. We want people to visit the site and become engaged, without being overwhelmed by a dozen flashy bells and whistles. It's tempting to keep adding and adding features and content to a page, but sometimes it's better to take a step back and think about whether those additions are helping the user experience or hindering it. JK: Our sites have come a long way over the past five years or so, and the list of changes is quite long. Our web site are always a work in progress. Most of the value in our sites has been created through the small tweaks and improvements based on feedback, that happen slowly over the course of many months. A very small change to the user interface can have a huge impact on how visitors interact with your site. JK: Forums can be a lot of fun, but they can also be a lot of work. It can be difficult at time working with the various personalities and egos that participate, but you also get to meet a lot of great people you wouldn't have met otherwise, and you help to foster a sense of community within the town and among your members. That can be very satisfying on a personal level. Forums can also be a great way to boost traffic, which will make your advertisers happy. But more than that, they are a great way to gain fanatically loyal users of your web site. JK: I think it's a mistake to treat all locations the same. All of our locations have distinct "personalities" that shape the way the sites are developed. For example, Peoria has an amazing network of citizen reporters and bloggers, so we've developed a section to give these bloggers special recognition in the community, while creating an area residents can visit to quickly get a run down of what all the local bloggers are chatting about. In exchange, many of the bloggers link back to our site, so it's a win-win scenario.  Doing the same thing in the other locations would be very difficult, because their blogging network isn't as well established. These changes specific to each community develop naturally over months of interaction with members and community residents. JK: Although this may change in coming years, we don't participate in many large marketing events for our sites. We've focused on building one-on-one relationships, partnerships with local organizations, guerrilla marketing tactics, and most importantly, word of mouth.
JK: The browser is becoming more robust and is starting to look more and more like a full fledged software platform. It will be a key challenge for Geo Domain owners to keep up with technology and integrate new ideas, like social media, while keeping costs down. Of course, it's important to add software only in ways that help build a community participation effectively – software for its own sake is a community killer. JK: I hope to have our sales force well established in our new location, and of course, we're always on the lookout for new acquisitions. We're also looking at ways to increase participation of our web site visitors in more offline activities and get togethers. JK: Mostly going to the movies, hanging out with the family, and hiking and biking with my dog.