within the next 3 weeks! That's right! Whether you're a trainer in Wellington, Florida or a Horse Trailer Retailer in Los Angeles, California, you'll shortly be able to serve advertisements to only the audience you want. By city or state! And, these campaigns are soooo affordable, you just won't believe it.

Frustrated at not being able to target a more local audience using the genuis that is internet advertising? Those days are now over. Bring more traffic to your website and more business to your door with the geo-targeting, category and keyword specific power that only Equilink.com can provide. We are now among the top ranked equestrian websites in the world and easily the most comprehensive and cutting-edge Equestrian Search Engine. PERIOD. Email us at info@equilink.com for more information or to sign up today.

We've got some very exciting new partnerships to announce, as well as a new feature on Equilink.com called Yedda.com. Yedda is an interactive forum that allows users to post questions that other users answer. So, if you can't find what you're looking for through our search engine and directory, you can ask the online Equestrian Community for their insights. Check it out by going to any page on Equilink.com and clicking on the link directly above the subcategories listings on the lefthand side of every page.

On a more irritated note, I made the decision this morning to inform a fellow equestrian of some shortcomings in their footing that might be causing soundness problems at their barn. I thought the better of doing this but decided that if I really and truly wanted to consider myself a horseperson, that I needed to do this for the sake of the barn's horses, some of which are very, very valuable. Imagine my surprise at having my good intentions met with a very competitive and defensive response. But, that's perhaps part of the equation in why I changed barns to begin. While I now ride amongst a bunch of total greenies, there is an atmosphere of friendship and unity that simply didn't exist at the previous barn. Perhaps when I have a lot more miles under my belt, I will become arrogant and intolerant of those who are less accomplished than myself. But, for now, I like being the "eager innocent."

Yesterday, Equilink.com was ranked at 15,543 by Alexa.com! This means we're fast approaching top ranking in the website universe. We had 21,177 unique visitors, 154,231 page views and a total of 771,200 total hits, yesterday. We also got PR coverage in:  http://www.techcrunch.com, http://www.killerstartups.com/, http://www.researchbuzz.org and http://scoop.isedb.com/, just to name a few! Thanks to everyone at Myspace for all your input and support. Please keep the comments and input coming!

Our traffic has already increased by a multiple of 10x and should multiply by that much again pretty quick, here. Exciting stuff! And, as of today, we've got ads posted for: Dover Saddlery's, Valley Vet, Farm Vet, Ice Horse, Back On Track, Platinum Performance and, the USC Equestrian Team, just to name a few!

We want to thank everybody on Myspace for their input, to date. We will be announcing the 10 Equilink banner winners on June 15th and are really thrilled and impressed with all the wonderful ideas everybody came up with. You guys are truly wizards!

And, if you still want to let us know what else we can do to make the site fulfill all your equine dreams, lemme know. We are here to help you, your horse and horses everywhere.

Barb

 

Well, tomorrow I go see the attorney so he can take pictures of the plate size bruise on my back and see how I hobble around like the elephant man. Sheesh! Gonna go see Cooper and give him treats tomorrow too.

Started doing the PR today for Equilink.com. Starting off with the vertical publications, i.e., horse specific magazines, both traditional and online. Once that's done, it's onto Horizontal Publications, i.e., People Magazine, The National Enquirer, Time Magazine, etc. Already getting excellent feedback regarding product placement stories. So, it's onwards and upwards. Doing it slowly like this is called a soft launch. I'm ok with doing a soft launch because it helps to build the brand name and user frequency instead of creating a quick flash in the pan, where every media outlet has the story and then poof, you're yesterday's news. Better to simmer strongly along.

Spoke to my insurance company and it looks like the Audi will be totalled out. Should hear for sure in the next day or two. Still waiting for a call back from the investigator in charge of the accident. I left him a message early this morning stating that the guy who ran the red light and then impaled himself on my car should get more than a ticket. This guy was being a reckless asshole. The red light was very clear and visible and that he didn't even realize he had run a red light, that he started trying to blame the driver of the first car he T-Boned before crashing into me for the accident, that he was obviously speeding, either to jam through the light after it had already turned red or because he was just being oblivious and was in a hurry, either way, his driving was insanely reckless and he should lose his license and spend time behind bars. Had I been driving a Tercel, I would be dead now. So, he only gets a slap on the wrist because I happened to have a well engineered car? What happens when he does this again and the person he hits is driving a Tercel and he does kill them? How is this fair?

I wrote a much longer version of this and MYSPACE goes to an error message and loses the blog. So, here is the short version until I can get another head of steam to write about this nightmare.

This moron runs a red light in front of me, hits a car, they bounce off each other like billiard balls and the car that ran the red light carreens into my driver door. Fortunately, I owned (The car is totalled, now.) an Audi TT and those super heavy doors saved my life. Had I been in a Tercel, I'd be your MySpace friend in Heaven right now. So, if you value your life, buy an AUDI! As soon as the insurance company settles on the car, I'm marching right back into my Audi dealership to get another car.

Glad to be a car snob,

Barbara

Here is my rather long-winded answer:

This site was developed by an IT company lead by programmer Bryan Ross, who happened to hire the best graphic designer (Jim Milner) I've ever seen while we were struggling with some earlier designs that were not really up to par. (I've posted the version we were about to implement under my pics in my myspace page.) As soon as I was shown Jim's design work for http://fatal1ty.com/, this big video game tournament player guy, I gutted the entire Equilink.com design as it stood and told him to give it a shot. He asked my what I liked, design-wise, I said I was very big on white space thing and the next time I saw him, he had designed Equilink.com, pretty much as it now exists.

In the earlier version that's posted, (Under my pics on my home page.) the horse discipline icons were only going to switch colors when rolled over. We were going to put streaming video of people riding all the different disciplines at the top of the page.

With Jim's new design, the streaming video was completely eliminated. So, the new design was stunning, but utterly static.

Then it hit me that we could animate the horse discipline icons themselves. This was a tremendous amount of work for Jim Milner. It took him four months to animate each and every discipline. When he was done, we decided to take the static illustrations I had originally drawn, have them do a cross fade to Jim's animation when the horse was rolled over and then cross fade back to my static illustration when the rollover was done.

Bottom line, it took a long time to do and was very, very expensive. But, I love rolling over all the icons all at once and watching them move, particularly the grey and white version where the horses are reversed out.

And today, Saturday, is the first time I rode him there. It's the Paddock in Los Angeles, a barn that I rode at in my teens and late 20's. I really like the trainer, Karen Perlo. She's very good and training a lot of super green people, so, while I'm not super green, I feel more comfortable working through some of the impasses I'm dealing with.

I seriously hurt my back in early February when I had to ride in, shall we say, an extremely substandard saddle for a couple weeks, while waiting for my new saddle to arrive from France. (It's an Antares.) I tried to ride through the injury but it got so bad, I was forced to just walk for a couple months while I waited for it to get better. I had x-rays and physical therapy and while the physical therapy is only working so, so, I have started trotting and cantering and working over cavaletti again. But the great thing about the Paddock, as I learned today, is their footing. It's like butter. Cooper is unbelievably smooth at all gaits anyway, and on this footing it was like riding on velvet. The only thing not great about the Paddock is they have a bit of a gnat problem due to their proximity to the L.A. river, but, I'm gonna get a bonnet to put over my helmet and if I have to wrap fly screen around my helmet, so be it. They are right next to all these great trails and theres no pressure to show.

Finding this barn was almost predestined. I had realized that I really needed to cut expenses for the time being and everyone at my previous barn has their own horses, so I couldn't half lease him out there. Karen Perlo's barn is called Grandview and it's the home of the USC Equestrian Team. In mid May, when I realized changing barns was imminent, I went over to the Paddock one day and saw someone getting a lesson riding this large grey pony/small horse, that looked an awful lot like a large pony I had ridden at Griffith Park Farms named Paisley. This mare even had side reins like Paisley, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence to be possible. (Paisley was and is my favorite horse to course on.) In fact, she's the first horse I coursed on after not riding for 20 years and it was so easy on her! She's 14.2, is super easy to see distances on and just plugs around cuz she LOVES it. Well, imagine my surprise to find out that not only was this mare in-fact Paisley, but that another friend of mine, Caroline, who I also knew at Griffith Park Farms, was riding in the same lesson!

So, I got the thumbs up from my current trainer that Karen is very, very good and now Cooper's at the Paddock.

Tomorrow I'm going to flat him and then I have another lesson with Karen on Tuesday. I can't wait!

Hey Everybody!

Barbara and Cooper here. We're completely exhausted trying to get everything ready for Equilink.com's June 1st launch date. But, we're really excited too! We've already formed marketing partnerships with companies like: Dover Saddlery, Platinum Performance, Valley Vet, Farm Vet, The American Quarter Horse Association, IPOD, The Disney Channel and many more of the brands you know and love.

Always know that here, at Equilink.com, we want to know what you're thinking. Is there a category we missed that's important to you? Is there a feature that would help make Equilink more helpful in your life? Whatever it is, please let us know! You can reach me with your ideas, comments and thoughts at: barbara@equilink.com. And, bear in mind that we're having this great contest too!

You Can Win A Free Banner Ad For Your Website or MySpace Page on Equilink.