CityStar Wiki:Community portal

September 24, 2016

After selling its CityStar domains, websites and other intellectual property at auction in August, 2014, CityStar Group, Inc. was voluntarily dissolved in 2015. The CityStar directory sites are now owned and operated by BizIQ LLC, 3627 East Indian School Road, suite 205, Phoenix, Arizona 85018.

August 15, 2012

CityStar's development team has created a substantially faster search engine for its local city directory sites, and will be rolling it out on Monday, August 20, 2012. This is the latest development in CityStar's speed initiative, part of its ongoing commitment to faster loading pages and better quality.

The new code enables CityStar to reduce the size of its database of websites by 28%, resulting in faster database queries. It also enables international business listings to easily be found in 4,900 cities instead of just the 303 most popular locations for which CityStar operates local subdomain sites.

The search engine database and script improvement concepts were conceived by CityStar founder Artie Romero, and were programmed by John Bokma. The implementation scripts were written by Tim Romero.

CityStar's TV and radio commercials are currently being updated to match its new branding, and to include information on its recent international expansion.

May 19, 2012

CityStar's main search engines and directories, citystar.com and www2.citystar.com are now sporting this new skin. The main features:

   * A new, green logo and star motif
   * All display ads are in the process of being removed.  Listings will be the only content.
   * New branding as International Business Directory
   * CSS and HTML5 are utilized effectively.
   * The new design  is mobile device friendly: iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android phone users will find it much easier to use.
   * The new site is substantially faster loading.
   * The new design features more consistent style and navigation.
   * The sites are now hosted on substantially faster, more secure and reliable Web servers.

The new design was created by Ricky Romero of Redwood City CA, and implemented by eSolutions, Inc. of Santa Clarita, CA and the CityStar Group, Inc. technical crew in Colorado Springs CO. The new server technology was supplied by DigiPark, LLC of Colorado Springs, whose CEO John M. Powell created a secure and reliable configuration for CityStar's sites. The new hardware has proven to be amazingly fast.

The new design, over a year in the making, replaces a design created by Ricky Romero in 2002 while he was a Web designer at CityStar. The new branding of "International Business Directory" will replace CityStar's well-established branding as the "National Website Directory."

February 28, 2012

CityStar.com TV commercials started airing today in New York City, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Ft Worth, Seattle and Sacramento, CA. 400 spots will run during the next 33 days, which works out to about one every 74 minutes from 8:00 am until 11:00 pm 7 days a week in all cities. Broadcast stations include:

   * WKOB 42 New York
   * WYGA 16 Atlanta
   * KUVM 34 Houston
   * KODF 26 Dallas/Fort Worth
   * K31GL 31 Dallas/Fort Worth
   * KATA 50 Dallas/Fort Worth
   * KUSE 46 Seattle
   * KBTV 8 Sacramento

If your website is not yet featured in CityStar, this is a good time to add it.

November 2, 2011

CityStar® is working behind the scenes to create a total site redesign, as well as all new branding. Top designers are involved in the new look, which will be more compatible with mobile devices such as Android, iPhone, iPad etc. An important part of the redesign will be the elimination of all display advertising. There will be no skyscraper or tile ads in the new CityStar, only listings. The new CSS coding will also be much faster loading, which is expected to further increase CityStar's rankings in the major search engines.

December 22, 2010

CityStar® has opened a new office in the Denver metro area at 2 West Dry Creek Circle, suite 100, Littleton CO 80120. The Denver phone number is 720.989.1251. Our main office is still located at 2 North Cascade Avenue, suite 1100, Colorado Springs CO 80903. Complete contact information is here.

November 24, 2010

In addition to radio and TV ad campaigns that were previously announced covering the Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth and Knoxville, Tennessee markets, CityStar® has now launched 60-second radio ads in Orlando FL, Chattanooga TN, and two stations covering Reno, Sparks and Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Several of these stations also broadcast worldwide through streaming audio and iTunes.

The CityStar® Associates Program has now recruited almost 180 Associates and trainees. Plans are being finalized to offer Associates a number of special conferences, with prominent marketing professionals providing specialized sales training and answering Associates' questions.

July 7, 2010

The expansion of CityStar's network continues. This month CityStar's Associates, trainees and affiliates number more than 100 for the first time. Since November, 2009 the CityStar Associates program has placed 88.9 million banner and tile ads on popular tech-oriented websites.

CityStar started development of 12 more city sites in 11 countries, taking the network to a total of 300 cities. The new sites cover:

   * Paris, France
   * Berlin, Germany
   * Madrid, Spain
   * Rome, Italy
   * Athens, Greece
   * Tel Aviv, Israel
   * Cairo, Egypt
   * Mexico City, Mexico
   * Bogota, Colombia
   * Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
   * Sao Paulo, Brazil
   * Buenos Aires, Argentina 

In May, 2010, the Flat Rate Listing was reintroduced as a result of popular demand. In June a new product, the Video Listing, was introduced. In conjunction with this, a YouTube channel for CityStar was launched. The channel is being advertised on YouTube with promoted videos. As of July 5, 2010, CityStar's YouTube channels already have more than 1.5 million video views.

Commercials began running on radio stations in several markets, including the Seattle metro area, Dallas/Fort Worth and Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to CityStar's current radio advertising, the company is starting a new TV ad campaign. The first flight will begin airing in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday, July 12 on RTV (Formerly RTN, Retro Television Network), running 200 times per month. This on-the-air digital station is available to over 1.5 million viewers in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Here is some information on RTV.

CityStar is currently in negotiations to buy airtime on more stations and networks. An HD version of the TV commercial is available on YouTube.

Here is a 60-second radio ad (5MB WAV file). The radio campaign will continue to be expanded to more cities. So far, the radio ad campaign has increased CityStar's website traffic to record levels, and other metrics such as Alexa's rankings have improved. See server reports and Alexa metrics.

Recently, 2700 pages of the main CityStar site at www.citystar.com were recompiled, leading to a dramatic increase in search engine traffic. The inside page redesign includes a Google search widget on every category page, and this has significantly increased corporate revenues.

November 27, 2009

CityStar® Group, Inc. is currently working on a large scale relaunch of its network. The primary components of this effort include:

   * The institution of an official Associates Program
   * A large-scale advertising campaign
   * New Public Relations initiatives
   * An enduser contest with thousands of dollars in prizes
   * Strategic alliance with DexOne
   * Strategic alliance with Dunn & Bradstreet's PowerProfiles
   * Product improvements such as faster search 

Associates Program

CityStar's Business Development Director, David Gregory Taylor, is working closely with CityStar® CEO Artie Romero and a team of designers, developers and media specialists to create training materials, testing and certification systems for CityStar's first official Associates Program.

The goal of this program is to recruit and train hundreds of local CityStar® Associates in cities nationwide. A CityStar® Associate is an independent contractor who has been trained and licensed by CityStar® Group, Inc. to help business owners and other website managers boost traffic to their websites, primarily by assisting them in acquiring well-written and well-positioned Listings in the National Website Directory and relevant local CityStar® sites.

Associates are trained, coached and mentored on an ongoing basis, and are well paid for their efforts. New recruits enter basic Associate training. Upon completion of the first round of instruction, they are tested, and if successful, are awarded CityStar® Associate status. At that point they may start earning commissions, and may proceed to the CityStar® Academy, an advanced training curriculum which, when completed, gives Associates the added credential of Internet Marketing Specialist (IMS).

Ultimately, by reaching certain production goals and by contributing to the community of CityStar® Associates, an individual may achieve Owner Associate status. An Owner Associate selects a local CityStar® website, and earns commissions on all Listings placed in that site, no matter who sold those listings. Owner Associates receive several other benefits:

   * Spokesperson for CityStar® in their city, media interviews (optional)
   * Paid commissions on all listings in their local CityStar® site
   * Receives email submitted from their local CityStar® site (optional)
   * Local phone number posted on all pages (optional)
   * May initiate media cross-promotions, co-brand local site
   * Invited to CityStar® incentive meetings, accommodations paid by CityStar® 

Large-scale Advertising Campaign

CityStar® has committed to supporting the expansion of its directory network with a series of massive marketing and public relations campaigns. To help take the CityStar® network to the next level of traffic and to promote the brand, CityStar® is currently airing 60-second radio commercials and and 30-second television commercials in cities throughout the U.S. The current TV, radio commercials may be downloaded here:

CityStar® Marketing and Media Resources Public Relations

CityStar® continuously distributes press releases about its expansion efforts, strategic alliances, and other business news, and makes executives such as Artie Romero available for interviews. CityStar® has engaged an on-screen personality to record promotional videos, professionally produced in HD, for YouTube and other outlets. We will update these wiki pages as these public relations campaigns progress. Product and Infrastructure Improvements

CityStar® currently has local phone numbers in several large U.S. cities, and more local phone numbers will soon be added. Virtual office locations are also being established throughout the U.S.

CityStar's developers are currently constructing a new ecommerce system for use by our clients and Associates. Search engine improvements are currently being completed. A redesign initiative is underway.

This wiki is part of CityStar's infrastructure improvements. Our strategy is to provide detailed information to clients and Associates in a format that is easier to use, more interconnected and more scaleable than a typical FAQ page.

Through these developments, CityStar® intends to expand its network to dominate the city directory space in the U.S. in the near term, and eventually, worldwide.

Other Activities

The CityStar staff will soon post more information on the new YouTube channel, Video Listings, our strategic alliance with RH Donnelley Advertising, AKA DexOne, and our strategic alliance with Dunn & Bradstreet's PowerProfiles.