NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- We are proud to announce that NSBNews.net is now Headline Surfer, Florida's 24/7 Internet newspaper.
Four years ago this month -- April 7, 2008, to be precise -- we launched NSBNews.net, the first fully-online newspaper in the Sunshine State.
Soon thereafter, we added the moniker VolusiaNews.net. Slowly, but, surely, we built the viewership, from a couple hundred a day to now several thousand.
And now we have an umbrella trademarked name, "Headline Surfer." NSBNews.net was considered too generic with "NSB News" and you can't trademark a web extension such as .com or .net or .us. The generic label left us vulnerable to copycats and leeches like a URL extension bought by a local glad-hander to try and capitalize on our success.
Headline Surfer, however, is our's alone, and just to be safe, we own all the URL extensions: HeadlineSurfer.com, .net, .us, .biz, .info, .co, .mobi, and even .xxx. Headline Surfer (and all of its web extensions), NSBNews.net and VolusiaNews.net are owned by NSB News LLC, registered with the state of Florida with your's truly as the sole member of the company, right here in New Smyrna Beach.
We are not the Daytona Beach News-Journal nor are we the Orlando Sentinel. These are daily print newspapers, whose aim is to sell newspapers. The websites to them are a secondary platform. We don't have to beat them, but they have to beat us.
We feel pretty good about our mission of reporting breaking news and news of record, and when we can, strong investigative reporting. We have the journalism and we have the readers. We are building a Google-like Internet newspaper that gives you a snapshot of what is happening across the Sunshine State.
Now we're working on the advertising and marketing. Hence: Headline Surfer.
We chose Headline Surfer because we have headlines and people love to surf the net. Florida is also known for its double shoreline -- Atlantic and Gulf. And what do people like to do in the ocean? Surf!
Now we have an identity that stretches beyond New Smyrna Beach to communities near and far: Headline Surfer, Florida's 24/7 Internet newspaper.
We are not just the Internet newspaper for New Smyrna Beach, but also for communities throughout Volusia County and as an online outlet throughout Florida.
Our next goal is to build a strong advertising foundation by our fifth anniversary so we can grow. We'll still keep NSBNews.net and VolusiaNews.net as secondary names, but now that Google News Directories has recognized us as "Headline Surfer," we have an identity to do just that.