Workbox client Ampio Pharmaceuticals will open NASDAQ tomorrow (November 1, 2011) morning.

Congratulations to the entire Ampio team!

Workbox is delighted to announce the launch of SurgLine.com. SurgLine is a key part of our growing portfolio of healthcare, pharma and biotech clients.

SurgLine sells high-quality surgical products at a significant discount. They work directly with distributors so the distributors can pass the savings onto hospitals. We’re excited to be part of their online marketing team and know they’ll do well.

Also, as many of you know, Workbox works with select companies on an expenses & equity basis. SurgLine is one of those, and we’re happy to see that they have agreed to have their private stock acquired by a publicly traded company, CNUV. The press release is here:

http://www.surgline.com/news/china-nuvo-solar-announces-definitive-agreement-signed-to-acquire-medical-products-company-surgline-inc/

As of today, the stock is trading at .003 or so.

Again, we’re excited about SurgLine and look forward to helping them dominate online!

Cheers, Eric

Workbox would like to congratulate our client, Ampio Pharmaceuticals, for their ongoing success with drug trials and in the stock market.

The online publication, Seeking Alpha, named Ampio the best performing Russell 3000 stock for the first 1/2 of 2011.

> http://seekingalpha.com/article/276844-50-best-performing-stocks-year-to-date

We’d like to take some credit, but the truth is our website simply gives them a platform to tell their impressive story. And to get to the nitty-gritty, their pipeline really tells their story!

And that’s what online marketing is really all about.

Finally, for those who’d like a little inside info, we did work with Ampio for a mixture of cash and equity. We do this with select, publicly-traded companies that have great management, great investor relations and, well, great stuff.

Cheers, Eric

LAS VEGAS, NV– Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc. (CAA) today announced that it has launched its new corporate site, www.ConstellationAA.com, developed by its web designer and partner, Workbox, Inc. of San Francisco, CA. The website provides a comprehensive overview of CAA including News, Services, Partners, and Testimonials.

“The website launch is the next step in our development,” said Jens Dalsgaard, President of CAA. “We’ve assembled a formidable team of experienced professionals as well as expert service providers such as our partner, Workbox. The site provides clear insights into the Workbox team’s talent and ability.”

One of CAA’s core beliefs is that all publically traded companies should have a professionally-produced website that clearly and transparently communicates up-to-the-minute information such as press releases and company updates. Workbox websites enable a corporation to efficiently manage the enormous daily flow of investor and shareholder requests that a result from effective and consistent communication. Small companies should aspire to look their best and using Workbox as their web developers will help build recognition and respect on Wall Street and among existing and prospective investors.

“We have worked with Jens and the dynamic team at Constellation for nearly a decade. They take their business very, very seriously and demand nothing short of the best for their clients,” said Eric Weidner, President of Workbox, Inc. “‘Second Best’ does not exist in Constellation’s vocabulary. We are honored that they continue to work with us and that they carte blanche know we are the ultimate solution to make sure their clients look their best in today’s ever-changing high tech world.”

About Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc.:

Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc. (”CAA”) is a multi-faceted equity markets consulting firm. The senior principals of CAA have been engaged in private equity since 1985, and have collectively over 50 years of Wall Street experience. CAA provides advisory services to dynamic small and mid-sized companies, as well as services to clients in the energy, specialty chemicals, high technology and health care sectors. CAA seeks to partner with publicly traded, fully reporting entities. It provides advisory services on acquisition and merger management, capital investment, turnarounds, and a myriad of other business transactions. CAA brings further value by using its multi-market experience and top-level strategic alliances to bring together unique, undervalued assets and the groups that can most efficiently capitalize on them. CAA maintains a strong emphasis on established, long term partnerships and business arrangements with the best companies and partners in their respective markets.

Safe Harbor Statement
This report includes forward-looking statements covered by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Because such statements deal with future events, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties and actual results for fiscal year 2011 and beyond could differ materially from the Company’s current expectations. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “anticipates,” “projects,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “believes,” “estimates,” “targets,” and other similar expressions that indicate trends and future events. Factors that could cause the Company’s results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements include, without limitation, variation in demand and acceptance of the Company’s products and services, the frequency, magnitude and timing of paper and other raw-material-price changes, general business and economic conditions beyond the Company’s control, timing of the completion and integration of acquisitions, the consequences of competitive factors in the marketplace including the ability to attract and retain customers, and the Company’s success in attracting and retaining key personnel. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update forward-looking statements as a result of new information since these statements may no longer be accurate or timely.

For further information, contact:

For further contact:
Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc.
3753 Howard Hughes Parkway, Suite 200
Las Vegas, NV. 89169
(702) 784-7628

For Media and Public Relations:
Propheta Communications, Inc
www.propheta.com
Kevin Mercuri, President
(212)901-6914

It sounds like a bad joke, but Bank of America bought domains that contain their CEO’s name and the words “blows” and “sucks.” And they didn’t buy these domains because they wanted to. They bought them because they HAD TO.

A little background: In December 2010, Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, announced he has information that “could take down a bank or two.” Based on additional conversations and interviews, many people believe one of these is Bank of America.

Whether BofA did something awful, whether BofA CEO Brian Moynihan did something awful, whether Wikileaks has real dirt on them or whether this is all a tempest in a teapot, BofA is doing the best it can to maintain its online reputation. And that means owning the negative keywords and domains.

Negative Content and Reality

Companies that get a lot of media attention, or aggressively promote themselves and their products online, may get some negative content thrown at them. The negative content could be something as simple as replies to news articles or blog posts, or negative product reviews, to something as elaborate as entire websites, bulletin boards or blogs that are dedicated to negative content about the company. The content could be accurate, crazy, or deliberately malicious and intended to cause a company harm. Perhaps the content is created by real customers who have legitimate complaints, or by sleazy short-sellers who want to make a quick buck on a small-cap stock. And any bad press just adds fuel to the fire.

BofA learned this lesson the hard way – they already feel the heat from http://www.bankofamericasucks.com (and others), and they aren’t alone. Just ask the investor relations team of many small-cap, publicly traded companies about how they’re treated on the bulletin boards!

Online Reputation Management

Whatever the causes, it is nearly impossible to stop negative content, so companies simply have to deal with it as best they can. Which brings us to the particular flavor of search engine optimization called “online reputation management” – in other words, “what people are saying about us online.”

And for online reputation management, often the best defense is a good offense. This is why BofA had to buy BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, BrianTMoynihanSucks.com and the .net and .org variations – AND the same types of domains for many of their top executives. Here’s why:

First, there’s a good chance that someone else would have bought the domains if BofA hadn’t. The combination of a company name with the word “sucks” in a domain has become a sort of web custom, and some really negative press could have been the catalyst that motivated someone outside of BofA to buy the domains and start a negative bullet board, website or blog. They’re really trying to reduce the potential embarrassment factor as much as possible.

This tactic has its limitations: you can only buy so many domains with the targeted keywords. After all, there are many, many variations that someone could create (brianmoynihanREALLYsucks.com, for example). But “sucks” and “blows” seem to be the most critical.

BofA’s second reason is for SEO purposes. If someone searches for the words “brian moynihan sucks,” BofA wants Google’s results to show links to empty web pages or some sort of BofA content, or to at least push the really bad stuff lower in the results. BofA wants to own domains that contain these keywords because they might be able to get better organic search engine rankings if their page URLs contain the targeted keywords, which in this case would be “brian moynihan sucks.” Ultimately, they’re trying their best to exert some control over what content people get when they search using negative keywords.

You can imagine how tricky and weird the whole business of online reputation management can get. For example, the best way for BofA to “own” the keywords “brian moynihan sucks” would be to create (or have a surrogate create) a bunch of pages that contain those keywords (perhaps all their pages would contain this HTML:<h1>Does Brian Moynihan suck? Not so much.</h1>), and then get a bunch of other websites to link to those pages using the keywords inside the link text. This tactic worked great for “miserable failure” many years ago, but for BofA … not so much.

What’s all the Fuss About?

On a conspiracy-theory-type note, BofA’s real goals could have been to (a) generate a bunch of news around a trivial issue (buying weird domains) so everyone is sick of the entire story before it even appears on Wikileaks, or (b) to get the media (and me) to help them “own” the negative keywords by having the keywords appear inside high-ranking news sites rather than really negative sites (in all honesty, blog.workbox.com is not a highly-ranked news site – just a marketing site for a web consulting, design and development business – but I can dream). If these were their goals, I think they may have backfired. Right now, whether true or not, everybody assumes BofA is guilty of some misdeed and are awaiting Wikileaks to confirm it.

Alternatively, perhaps the threat of Wikileaks just got BofA’s risk management team to do something they had been considering for some time, and maybe we’ll see other companies start taking negative keyword domains more seriously. Perhaps corporate insurance, liability or securities regulations are involved as well.

It’s Hard to Keep Secrets and Hide Mistakes

Ultimately, the most important lesson to come out of Wikileaks’ recent attention is this: it is very hard to keep a secret or hide a mistake these days. Honest mistakes are easier to handle because a company can own up to them, try to correct them, hope the fallout isn’t too bad and that the negative attention will go away. And effective online reputation management can help speed the process of making negative content lose prominence.

Hiding misdeeds is another matter, and this is what companies and governments should really fear. Oscar Wilde wrote: “Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.” “Wikileaks” might be another trade-name of the firm, and perhaps some executives or politicians could use a little more “conscience/cowardice.”

Theorizing and moralizing aside, no matter the outcome of Wikileaks’ bank drama, effective or ineffective online reputation management can have a real impact on a company’s stock valuation, sales, marketing and employees. And BofA is probably doing the best it can in these circumstances. Besides, I’m a believer: I just bought workboxsucks.com, workboxblows.com and all the other important TLDs. But, if someone wants to buy workboxreallysucks.com, feel free.

I’d rather spend the money to see Tron.

Have a happy new year!

Eric Weidner

The conversation starts like this:

(Eric’s phone rings at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time)

CEO of Small-Cap Public Company: Hey, Eric. Some jerks are saying bad things about our company and stock on some websites.

Eric: Email me the links and I’ll check it out.

(Eric calls CEO at 6:40 a.m. Pacific Time)

Eric: The good news or the bad news first?

CEO: Gimme the bad news.

Eric: Google has cached the negative pages so you’re stuck with them for a while.

CEO: Ugh. Give me the good news.

Eric: The message board websites have removal request policies, and maybe if your lawyer sends them a letter, they’ll actually remove the posts. Also, it looks like you can respond to the posts.

CEO: Not sure my lawyer will let me respond or even acknowledge this at all. What else can we do?

Eric: The rest is the long slog. Create a blog, use social media. Use all the SEO tactics you can to override the bad content with your own good content.

CEO: Sounds expensive and time-consuming.

Eric: Well, it definitely takes time. But these tactics work.

CEO: %$#@!*& short sellers are scum!!!

The company is then typically paralyzed by legal, cost and time issues. Legal doesn’t want to deal with it, and nobody wants to take the time or pay someone to write the content, set up social media personas or build blogs. So nothing happens, web searchers continue to find negative content about your company and, in the short term, the stock languishes. But there is hope.

First, A Word About the Small Cap Neighborhood

Let’s be honest about Bulletin Board and Pink Sheet stocks. We’re in a bad neighborhood and the smallest misstep by the company will have the short sellers smelling blood. And shell companies often have a bunch of old garbage lingering around in various websites – either about the old company or the old management, or both – so you’re stuck with it even if it isn’t completely relevant anymore. So, there’s a good chance you’re going to have to deal with short sellers and the negative comments they generate. Whether the short sellers are behaving legally or not is not relevant.

The key is to acknowledge that people with an interest in your stock’s failure are going to say bad things, then go on the offensive by building a positive online reputation!

What Is An Online Reputation?

The good and bad things that people are saying online about your company and stock is called your “online reputation.” And, in practice, online reputation management (ORM) is very similar to search engine optimization (SEO). But first, a few definitions:

Online Reputation: The ratio of positive to negative content about your company or products contained in various websites or online services (like Twitter). If people are writing lots of good things about your company, you have a positive online reputation.

Online Reputation Management (ORM): The practice of measuring, monitoring and improving your Online Reputation. Many of the same strategies and techniques are used in ORM as in SEO: keywords, back-links, blogs, social media, PR, etc., but ORM for publicly traded companies also includes participating (either directly or through third-parties) in online forums, bulletin boards and message boards.

The Best Defense Is A Good Offense

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in online reputation management. That means getting ahead of the bad guys by posting as much positive, quality content about your company and stock that you legally can.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Content is king

Here is where the content comes from: Accurate press releases; blogs (a blog for each company division or product, and other personas); a LinkedIn account and group; Twitter personas; links with smart keywords to your press releases in the message boards, bulletin boards and forums.

You need to diligently and consistently create high-quality content to be sure your pages get into the search engines so your content pre-empts bad stuff.

2. Own the negative words

The shorts are going to use these kinds of words: scum, fraud, jerk, liar, psychopath, inept, stupid, incompetent, sleaze … you get the idea. A well-done off-brand or third-party blog can utilize these words so the search engines direct people to a positive blog rather than a negative one.

Also, your SEC filings may contain good keywords you want to own (like “fraud”). Be sure you include this news content on your site, and perhaps have a “Financial News” headline section.

3. Respond professionally and graciously

As appropriate, thank writers for saying nice things about your company, either on a website or directly or privately to the writer. Tell nay-sayers that you hope that you can eventually convince them of how solid your company is (create some boilerplate text with your legal team that you can quickly post and forget).

Yes, this takes resources. And yes, it takes time before you see results. But, you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing your short sellers eat their … shorts … while your company builds a long-lasting positive online reputation.

“You want it when?” is a kind of punchline for service businesses, like Workbox, but teams can pull together to get websites done quickly and professionally – as long as everyone keeps simplicity in mind. So, as an example, we thought we’d give our readers a little insight into how a rapid-fire web design process happens in the real world.

Workbox’s new client, Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a dynamic pharmacueticals company, was merging into a public shell corporation and needed to get a website online ASAP. Rapid action is not unusual in the wild world of small cap companies (it isn’t that companies are unprepared, it’s that the deals happen very quickly), so we knew what to do. And we also knew the site that we launched would soon be replaced by a website with a refined design and content management system.

• First we had a quick website branding discussion – what the company is all about, what its market is like, who the website’s target audience is.
• Second, we gathered as much content as we could from the client.
• Third, we created a simple site architecture document that included a sitemap and basic page wireframes.
• Also, simultaneously, our design team created a few logos for the client to choose from.
• Finally, we set up Google Analytics and recommended a website host.

We were able to show the site architecture document in one day, and get it refined and finalized in three days. We spent a total of four days going back and forth refining logos. And Ampio was able to get us final content within one week.

Triage: No Images

Our team was pretty lucky to be able to get a solid logo done so quickly, so we decided to not bog the design process down by researching and presenting imagery for the temporary website. As designers know, this process can eat up time pretty quickly – it isn’t easy to find images that are not over-used or trite and that match the company’s brand. So, we decided to hold off on images until the next design phase.

One Temporary Homepage Design

Typically, Workbox shows 2-4 homepage designs to start with, but we simply didn’t have time for this project. So, again, simplicity was the name of the game. We presented one homepage design and only had to edit some of the secondary colors to get it good enough to launch. This took a total of four days.

Also, while we were working on designs, our team was creating the “contact us” and investor relations forms, and tweaking our little stock information module (will become fully active once the stock starts actively trading). Additionally, we designed a nice product pipeline graphic – a must for pharmaceutical companies.

Website Launched in 2.5 Weeks

After the designs and various modules were finalized, we built out the individual pages, and loaded them up behind a password. The client and our team edited the content, then took the site live. And, on the same day, we added their first press release.

Lessons Learned

Our “simplicity” approach paid off. First, it allowed us to focus on the bare essentials required to look professional without getting into too much subjective design work. Second, simplicity kept the page coding work down to a minimum. Third, it reduced the amount of content the client needed to write. And finally, it’s always great to work with a smart, professional client team!

So, here’s Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s quick, temporary website: http://www.ampiopharma.com

We will post more information as this temporary site is replaced with the final design and the content management system is installed.

Full Disclosure

Since Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a publicly traded, high-growth company, Workbox is working with Ampio in one of our “investing” arrangements. Workbox received a small cash payment (to cover costs) and restricted stock. This one-year agreement provides Ampio with our full design, technical and support teams, and gives us a big incentive to make sure their website is world-class and well-maintained since we are, in effect, investors in the company.

Cheers!

Eric