The project I have been working on at my new company for the last six months or so went live this week and so far, it’s being received really well. It was even the “Top Story” on the local news and aired at 5pm, 6pm and 10pm. If interested, you can watch it here.

The idea for Local540 initially came out of this tug of responsibility we were feeling to do something about the fact that many of the local businesses in our area don’t have any sort of web presence at all, whether that be because of financial reasons or because they don’t understand the importance of being in the one place where nearly everyone is already looking for them.

We often joked back in the summer of building everyone a very basic Web site so consumers in our area didn’t have to wait for them all to finally get around to doing it themselves. The joke quickly turned to reality once we realized that the technology already exists to make something like this that seems so impossible for a team of just a few people a reality. The only issue was that something on this scale would need some kind of revenue model in order to be sustainable. That’s when the idea of an upgraded site that would allow businesses to take their basic page to the next level by creating a fully integrated marketing platform came about.

And that’s what Local540 is.

For consumers, there is finally a place to go for real local information that is accurate and up to date and includes every business in the area, not just those with deep pockets. For businesses, at the very least, everyone has a Web site that they can log in to and update for free any time they’d like. And if they wish to stand out amongst the crowd and offer more to their customers (and potential customers), upgrading is only a fraction of the expected cost for something like this.

Whereas banner ads on local news sites can run as high as $1000/month, Local540 offers an entire Web site that is already categorized into a county directory at a cost that has been leaving some of our partners with their jaws wide open. To say we’re offering more bang for their buck is a tremendous understatement here.

If you live here in Washington County, Arkansas, please check out Local540. If you don’t, have a look anyway. Just click on “Restaurants” in the left column there to see all the restaurants in our area. Or search for “shoes.” It’s all there. All of it.