Dear Advertisers:

    Frank Picchione, your host and owner & operator of Shop Las Vegas Webportals for the Southwest designed for local merchants, by profession is a software engineer of some three decades.

    Designing online business applications, first, for mainframe corporate systems and later for the microcomputer in 1982.


  3-Clicks is a reference to depressing your left mouse button 3 times.

"Infrastructure" is defined as the front-end table of contents and indeces available for consumers to find your advertisement (not just listing.)

    We dare anyone to compare (test) our 3-click infrastructure with their current or proposed Online Directory whether it be your local phone company, Yellowbook, Yellow Pages, City Search, or Kudzu. *     And, for more info on "free listings," Advertising Philosophy.    Remember the old adage:   "There is never a free lunch."     You may waste half a year experimenting only to find out that what you should have done, ie, signed up with us.

* Or, worse -- Las Vegas Review Journal (Online,) Las Vegas Sun (Online,) or Henderson Daily News Classified, and less we leave out, Nifty Nickel **     There - now you can compare some of our competitor directories, but while you are at it, ask them why they do not publish their advertising rates (straightforward ***) and/or tell people about Shop Las Vegas to give their potential advertisers the opportunity to compare their offerings with someone else ...

** We might add, the "new and improved" Nifty Nickel!     Nifty Nickel has some of the best print rates in town when based upon circulation and distribution plus display ad size in their special category directory pages.

*** Straightforward is explicitly state rates, period and terms and not some "inquiry form."

    During Frank's software engineering career, he has designed many customer service applications.     One of Frank's first business solutions was for the motorcycle division at American Honda Motor Company.     It was to be a short 3-6 month project that landed Frank a desk at Honda consulting for the next 7 years and since 1985, an outside vendor to Honda and the Metro Y.M.C.A. of Los Angeles since 1982 where all the logistic supplies for a nationwide network of over 2,400 Y's material was shipped and Frank wrote first for DOS 1.0 a pc application for order entry and sales reporting that has evolved in 2002 to Windows 2000, twenty years of evolution.

    Customer Service Applications take information in system databases and formats it on the customer service rep computer screen in such a way that the technician can respond on the phone in seconds, effortlessly.

Consumer Shopping Application

    Designing either computer systems or web server applications for your browser interface require an understanding of the principles of consumer shopping.     Frank initially designed solutions for real estate and then auto dealerships and the basis of the webportals, chamber of commerce diversified membership application where you have totally unrelated businesses that deal with the spectrum of services.

    Most chamber of commerce solutions was based solely on business category and did not give weight to either a logical arrangement of groups and section, eg, recreation.     Recreation (section) where water sports (logical group) would have categories such as boating and water sking (together.)     In traditional, one-level design, boating ("b") and water skiing ("w") would never be found together.

    The next issue was valley area, or where a business was located or chose to provide services.     It is human nature to (a) shop for services close to our location and (b) when there isn't any, the second best (valley) location.     We will use the Southwest valley area bordered to the north by Charleston and the east by Spring Valley.

    The next objective was to design a table of contents infrastructure that took all this into consideration and did not require the user to take his hand off his mouse.     That is, intuitive use of a browser application meant there was a harmony of the interface with the data and the user did not have to know anything at all about the content of the data.     For instance, the category for lawyers could be written as "lawyer" or "attorney" and most applications require a step or "trial and error" to find where the businesses the consumer is looking for is found.     And, by design, the reference for attorneys is designated a group with sub-categories found together for such categories as injury, family, immigration, corporate and so on.     You will never see this 3-tier hiearchy anywhere else than Shop Las Vegas Webportals.

    For instance, a trademark of good design is the ability to see and understand the human factor.     Let's take the application of an order entry system and invoices.     Normally, the computer user wants to see the most current (last 7 days) invoices and not some a,b,c, order by customer name, or shipping address, etc.     In an intuitive system, the user would pick "Invoices" and the next screen to pop open would be a list of current invoices, invoices from today backward and the list should be made up of a line that either provides the necessary identification information, or a link to the invoice record.

    Traditional applications do none of this.     They lack a consistent look'n feel, bearing of where you navigated to and how to return and the ability to bookmark that page for future access.     In fact, most online directories use some form of online database where the page you are looking at was formatted on-the-fly and really doesn't exist to bookmark.     You've all seen them before where you found some interesting information and wanted to access it at a later time.     Only your bookbark, when giving the web server that long string of queue says "Can not be found" instead of a physical page on the (web) server.

    And, of course, all these steps, or loops you are required to literally jump through take several seconds while our design has concise, succinct table of contents pages that literally snap up when you mouse click the level above it.

The Road Test, ie, kicking the tires ..

    May I suggest you open a window on your favorite or proposed Online Directory and Shop Las Vegas Webportal.

    Two items we want to search for with our 3-click mouse test:   category (Florist) and valley area (Southwest.)

  At Shop Las Vegas Webportal, you will be able to perform this 3-click test several variations that enhances your potential for being found (and called) by potential customers and not just buried in some huge database file, a string or a number.

Notice:   consider all look-ups starting from the homepage.

Business:   Red Rock Florist & Gifts

Option #1:   (a) Consumer Products & Services Section, (b) Personal Care, (c) Florist
(and either scroll down to Southwest or click on the page internal link to same.)

Option #2:   (a) Valley Area (Southwest,) (b) Consumer Products & Services, (c) Florist.

Note:   this method literally jumps to Southwest Florists within the Florist Category page.

Option #3:   (a) Browse by Category image, or Category ABC Search, (b) Florist.

Option #4:   (a) Group ABC Search, (b) Personal Care, (c) Florist.

Option #5:   (a) Business Name (or Contact Name) ABC Search on "R", (b) subset of "R" for "Red", scroll down to Red Rock Florist & Gifts.

Note:   this business name (or contact name) look up can be accomplished within the Southwest Sub-directory where a subset of all business unique to this vally area would be found, Option #6.

Note:   Marina Cheney * is the contact name for Red Rock Florist & Gifts for two more searches.

* By last name first, Cheney.     Directory-wide, 3-clicks; valley specific area, 2-clicks.

Quick Service Guide:   Many frequently searched categories reference guide page; (a) Guide, (b) Florish Shop.

"7-Ways to Sunday"

    I hope you have come to the same conclusion that we have that Shop Las Vegas is the most advanced design anywhere in the world!     Click here, for our order forms.

You, Shop Las Vegas & Guerrilla Marketing Concept Shop Las Vegas wants to attempt to define for you advertising online integrated with your other marketing efforts offline. .. but, then again, what do I know -- I'm only the 800 lbs guerrilla in the room.