Tag Archives: Online

Last day to “vote Birmingham” for U.S. Chamber community award

Posted on February 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

021006_CommunityExcellence_Wufoo_648x108px_Final3-2Six Birmingham area businesses were among the 100 recently honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as recipients of the organization’s annual Blue Ribbon Awards. There were nine recognized statewide by the organization.

Birminghamians now get a chance to help one of these businesses receive the organization’s Community Excellence Award, but only until 10:59 a.m., CT tonight!

The website for the organization’s America’s Small Business Summit (where all the businesses will be awarded on June 13) states the award “is designed to highlight a business that has found success in the eyes of its community.” The voting takes place online, and you’re allowed one vote per email address. Here’s the list of local winners:

  • Bhate Geosciences, Corp.
  • McSweeney Holdings
  • Proventix Systems, Inc.
  • Relax, It’s Handled
  • Silvertron Cafe
  • Urban Cookhouse

The local winners will also learn on March 19 if one of them are among the seven regional finalists. One of them will receive the Dream Big Small Business of the Year Award (and $10,000) while at the Summit.

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Posted in Business

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Safari Cup faces a fight against Starbucks… in Chicago

Posted on December 10, 2012 | 1 comment

It’s been a little more than three years since Safari Cup Coffee (somewhat) unexpectedly closed up shop at the corner of 21st St. (Richard Arrington, Jr. Blvd) and 3rd Ave. N. What some folks may not be aware of is that they simply moved the operation a few hours north to Chicago.

They opened in October of 2009 along the Southport corridor of the Windy City’s Lakeview neighborhood. A 2011 interview with the city’s RedEye has Dave McLaughlin saying the move was because he and wife “desired a more open-minded city and one that would embrace their African-only coffee.”

An email sent out over the weekend from “Andrew” via the site Change.org  directs people to sign an online petition asking Starbucks to not go through with plans to open a new location next door to the independent coffee shop. The email, however, asked for folks to “Save Birmingham’s Safari Cup coffeeshop.”

The news first broke in Chicago on November 16 via Facebook, with DNAInfo and the Patch site for Lakeview both writing about McLaughlin’s concerns and the fact that Starbucks hasn’t exactly done anything wrong.

A local blog, 900poundgorilla, maintained by W.C. Truck, has also been vocal about the impending Starbucks expansion. He’s gone so far as to write an open letter to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on his site inviting him on his radio show Sunday (yesterday) on WCPT-AM 820. We don’t know if Schultz accepted the invitation.

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Posted in Business, food

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Yes, Real Rap Wives of Birmingham exists

Posted on July 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

real rap housewives screenshotIf you looked at the query list on the back end of The Terminal yesterday, a common search thread was “real rap housewives of Birmingham.” Once you get more than five folks looking for the same thing and stumbling across the site, it means you’ve got to figure out exactly why they’re looking for it.

A search turned up a brand new YouTube channel, 21 subscribers, and well over 2,000 views as of late last night.

Considering the aforementioned Viacom blackout currently underway for DirectTV customers, it was only a matter of time before something like this popped up. This first “webisode” of Real Wives of Birmingham (part 1 | part 2) isn’t the first time the Wives have appeared online – at least not according to what you find when you do a search for them. For example, there’s this episode found via the Bham Music Blog from last April. There’s also this review posted on July 16 over on the Los Angeles based The Cynical Ones. Maybe you can let us know if you agree with Michael’s assessment of the show or not.

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Posted in Online

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Instagrams of Birmingham? There’s an online home for them

Posted on July 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

instagrambham badgeSome who’ve been online in Birmingham, AL for a while probably remember the Magic City Flickr Group. It still exists (with more than 20,600 photos and 800+ members as of this digital entry) as does The Terminal‘s Flickr Group, Birmingham Weekly‘s SEEN pool, and a profile maintained by Weld for Birmingham.

Well there appears to be a new and growing group of individuals who’ve turned to the popular photo sharing app Instagram to expose themselves and others to images of Alabama’s largest city. Instagram Birmingham lives entirely online; its Twitter profile only has 10 followers (& it hasn’t said anything… yet), but its brand page on Facebook currently has 80 people sharing what they’ve been able to capture digitally – with that number only able to go up.

The group connects using the hashtag #instagrambham when sharing their images on Twitter. Local fans of the smartphone app have gathered in person before as well, including back in March as part of the first annual Instagram International Photowalk. Incidentally, our namesake in the UK is preparing to hold one their own on July 26 as part of the next international photowalk that weekend.

Maybe we’ll learn some more about how our folks plan on taking part soon?

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Posted in Online, Photography

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Alabama Gives begins at midnight on Thursday

Posted on February 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Alabama Gives Day logoFor those who spend a great deal of time online, you’ve no doubt already received a notice from your favorite local or statewide charity about it. Your friends may have changed their profile images on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ (where, incidentally, we have a page) in recent days to what could become a familiar logo.

The Alabama Association for Nonprofits is joining forces with the Alabama Association of Broadcasters and Razoo to present the first ever Alabama Gives Day. As of this posting, there were 1,427 organizations taking part in this 24 hour fundraising event that helps to highlight what nonprofits across the state of Alabama are doing. Some of the local organizations have taken to some rather creative online campaigns, like  the video being used by Vulcan Park featuring their lovable mascot “V”.

Be aware that you’ve got to make your donations on February 2 (read: not this evening or this weekend) in order for it to count towards what could be the largest single day of fundraising in the history of the state. If the numbers included in the event’s press release from December are any indication, it could be a big day for many organizations.

Just in case you’re still wondering what the event’s all about, check out the commercial created to help publicize the event on television and online. The fun starts at midnight.

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Posted in Statewide, Take a moment

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Birmingham man wins custom-wrapped Nissan Juke

Posted on June 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Brooks interviewed about winning Juke. acnatta/FlickrDon’t be surprised if you notice a pair of eyes staring back at you as you’re trying to pass a certain Nissan Juke on the road on the left in the coming weeks and months here in Birmingham, AL.

Earlier today Hugh Brooks walked into the Jim Burke Nissan dealership (a member of the Jim Burke Automotive Group) in downtown Birmingham and drove out with his very own custom-wrapped Nissan Juke – his grand prize for winning the car company’s Juke Studio competition held online over a six-week period. His design was chosen from 18 finalists after 7,800 initially entered the competition and campaigned for votes via Facebook (and the official fan page for the car).

Just in case you’re wondering, it’s actually painted Cayenne Red under that full body wrap…

Photo: Brooks interviewed about winning Juke. acnatta/Flickr

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Posted in Timetable

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What’s in a hashtag?

Posted on June 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Screenshot from hashtags.orgSeveral folks who regularly visit The Terminal also keep track of what we say via our Twitter profile. They may notice that we use #bham to highlight those tweets that we think will be of interest to people here in Birmingham, AL. The thing is, all of us who use the hashtag are part of a much larger online family – a virtual secret handshake that may just help connect us with folks we wouldn’t normally think about.

Besides those here in central Alabama, #bham is also used by Birmingham, MI; Bellingham, WA; and some portions of Birmingham, UK. That last one is most interesting as while many there have turned to #brum instead, Wikipedia decided to make a decision on the issue themselves.

Some have turned to #bhm as an alternative, one that makes a great deal of sense considering the its the city’s official IATA airport code and our NPR affiliate’s call letters. It’s also (among other things) the rail code for Birmingham, England’s New Street Station (leading to a lot of tweets including it during their morning and evening rush), Black History Month, the initials used to reference journalist Bambang Harymurti.

Just don’t be surprised by who responds to you when using these tags – and where they’re from.

Screenshot from hashtags.org

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Posted in Quirky

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