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TourneyCentral: Tweet Inspires Local Student to Design Ace of Cakes Soccer Cake

“Can anyone draw a Maryland blue crab attacking a soccer ball like a monster truck?” That tweet from TourneyCentral.com President Gerard McLean moved 16-year-old Nicole Manzo, a junior at Fairmont High School, to try her hand at designing a cake. McLean forwarded the design to Charm City Cakes, the star of the popular television show, “Ace of Cakes,” on the Food Network.

TourneyCentral.com is using the resulting masterpiece cake to promote their complete end-to-end soccer tournament management system at the upcoming National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Convention in Baltimore, Maryland on January 13-15, 2011. The annual event is a showplace of soccer education, awards and exhibits for soccer coaches and youth tournament organizers nationwide.

The request actually got to Nicole secondhand through her mother Karen Manzo, who is a business associate of McLean’s. According to Karen, Nicole is an “Awesome artist,” whose first job was as a face painter at the Italian Fest. She continues to volunteer for that event and others as time permits. In addition to artistic pursuits, Nicole is a dedicated business student who is, “determined to own her own business some day.” On the extra-curricular front, the younger Manzo is a three-sport athlete spending time competing in field hockey, swimming and track.

ABOUT TOURNEYCENTRAL
TourneyCentral is the only fully integrated, event-focused online solution for youth soccer tournaments. Since 1999, TourneyCentral has been producing web sites that provide youth soccer tournaments with end-to-end integrated experience management for guest teams, from marketing through scoring. In addition, advertising tools provide tournaments with an increased opportunity for advertising and sponsorship revenue as a result of significantly increased traffic to the web site. TourneyCentral will be attending the NSCAA Conference in Baltimore in January 2011. For more information, visit www.tourneycentral.com.

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TourneyCentral announces major updates in 2011

TourneyCentral, the only fully integrated online solution for youth soccer tournaments, announced today it has included several new features in the 2011 release of the popular soccer tournament software. The features will provide additional capability via sophisticated integration with new media, including social media. Soccer players, coaches and fans will be now be able to combine their tournament experiences with their personal Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts. TourneyCentral is the only event-focused youth soccer tournament software that provides a complete end-to-end integration solution.

“Our customers continue to ask for leading edge features as the soccer tournament market develops and grows and we continue to respond,” says Gerard McLean, President of TourneyCentral. “At the same time, our competitors have become more aggressive in their attempts to mislead the market regarding our capabilities and strengths. As the established leader in soccer tournament software, it’s time to make another giant step ahead of the market by providing these unique and unparalleled new features.”

In addition to participants, TourneyCentral has also integrated its online DEALS section with advertisers’ social media spaces like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Fans can now connect with advertisers in multiple ways, providing a stronger and more robust experience for important sponsors of the software.

“All our advertising for our tournament has moved online,” claims Dan Monahan, tournament director for the Mead Cup. “The tools that TourneyCentral provides for us in their online DEALS area are far more comprehensive than anything we can print in a program. We can sell more quickly, distribute to a wider audience and drive significantly more traffic to our advertisers.”

“We’ve listened carefully to what the core soccer market wants, and this newest release is our response,” says McLean. “We’re making the tournament experience even memorable for our participants by integrating today’s vibrant new media environment even more tightly with TourneyCentral.”

The only solution of its kind that does not rely on external partners to provide functionality, TourneyCentral offers a stable, secure environment for advertisers as well as fans, coaches and players.

ABOUT TOURNEYCENTRAL
TourneyCentral is the only fully integrated, event-focused online solution for youth soccer tournaments. Since 1999, TourneyCentral has been producing web sites that provide youth soccer tournaments with end-to-end integrated experience management for guest teams, from marketing through scoring. In addition, advertising tools provide tournaments with an increased opportunity for advertising and sponsorship revenue as a result of significantly increased traffic to the web site. TourneyCentral will be attending the NSCAA Conference in Baltimore in January 2011. For more information, visit www.tourneycentral.com.

TourneyCentral.com is owned by Rivershark Inc., based in Ohio. Companion and marketing partner properties consist of The Soccer Tournament Review, a blog and iTunes podcast for tournament directors, MyTournamentSpace, a photo-sharing site linked directly into the tournament game schedule and www.ticoscore.com, a single-source database and ranking system for soccer tournaments.

TourneyCentral will be attending the NSCAA Conference in Baltimore in January 2010.

Contact for more information
Gerard McLean
gmclean [at] rivershark.com
937-836-6255

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Dayton leads region in social media adopters

DAYTON – Internet entrepreneur Jeff Pulver strode, or rather, “surfed” his way into Dayton on Sunday, Aug. 22, as part of a road trip promoting 140Conf.com’s event Oct. 20 in Detroit. About two dozen emergent media/social networking and technology denizens met Pulver for a “meet and greet” at Blind Bob’s, 430 E. Fifth St. in Dayton.

“Detroit will show everything we do,” Pulver said summing up what he hoped the Dayton stop would help accomplish.

At Blind Bob’s Pulver was met by Gary Lietzell, Mayor of Dayton, who presented Pulver with a special proclamation from the city. Lietzell hoped that Pulver’s visit would help “Tell the world about us,” and would entrench his commitment to emergent technology and social networking that he pushed during his run for Mayor in 2009.

“I embraced it during my campaign,” Lietzell said of social networking.

Pulver, the Chairman and Founder of pulver.com, is on a week-long trip that will see him traverse the Midwest well ahead of the Detroit event, to be held at The Fillmore Detroit. He has testified before Congress on the importance of social media, and has been a key shaper in the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts on Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) development and its public policy implications.

Many in Pulver’s audience at Blind Bob’s were either using laptops or hand-held devices displaying the vision of pulver.com’s “Exploring the State of Now.” Many followed Pulver’s trip from Columbus, where held a similar event to the one in Dayton, to Dayton via an Ustream feed. Pulver had promised an Ustream or similar feed of his entire Midwest trip.

When asked why he chose Dayton, Pulver proudly stated, “Because when we announced our plans for the trip, Dayton was the first to shout out ‘Please stop.’”

His two-hour event in Dayton was then followed up by a similar event in Cincinnati before he traveled to Indiana on Monday. His trip culminates in Detroit on Saturday, Aug. 28.

Dayton is home to several social media groups, including New Media Dayton (NMD) led by Carole Baker. NMD is an organization that coordinates speakers and regular meet up between social media and business groups in and around the Dayton Area. Another group that has adopted social media tools is Dayton Most Metro (DMM) led by Bill Pote. DMM strives to be the central source of all things happening in Dayton.

Originally published on DogWalkBlog.com

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Social Media 140Conf Road Trip to make stop over in Dayton, Ohio

DAYTON – Blind Bob’s in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio will be hosting Jeff Pulver, Internet celebrity and 140 Character Conference organizer this coming Sunday. Dayton was selected early on as one of the stop-over cities by Pulver during his road trip leading up to the Detroit 140conf in October, 2010.

The Meet Up is scheduled for August 22 from 3:00-5:00pm. Attendees work in many fields of interest, including technology, youth sports tournaments, photography, journalism and business. The list of attendees is available on line, in real time at http://140roadaug22l.eventbrite.com/

According to Pulver, he tweeted out a request several weeks ago for places to stop on his road trip. Several dozen local Dayton twitterers replied back with pleas to stop in Dayton. Within minutes, Pulver decided that Dayton, Ohio was on his 140conf Road Trip map.

Dayton is home to a growing community that uses social media for personal communication and business. Social media includes Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and various other community web sites and Internet tools. Leading the charge in the Dayton Area is a group known as New Media Dayton which hosts regular “tweet ups” at local restaurants.

For more information about the Dayton 140conf Road Trip, including a short welcome video by Blind Bobs, visit http://www.dogwalkblog.com/

ABOUT RIVERSHARK
Rivershark, Inc. is a closely-held Ohio Corporation dedicated to cultivating and building brands that take advantage of technology and satisfy a need for human whimsy. It was formed in 1995 and is headquartered in Englewood, Ohio, with offices in Brooklyn NY, Minneapolis MN and Aalborg Denmark. It also wholly owns http://www.dogwalkblog.com a cultural and political blog. The corporate website is www.rivershark.com

ABOUT JEFF PULVER
Jeff Pulver is the Chairman and Founder of pulver.com, and one of the true pioneers of the VoIP industry and a leader in the emerging TV on the Net industry. Leveraging well over a decade of hands-on experience in Internet/IP communications and innovation, Mr. Pulver is a globally renowned thought leader, author and entrepreneur. He is the organizer for the 140 Character Conference.

CONTACT:
Chris Celek
Celek Media Consulting
937-681-4120
chris.celek@yahoo.com

Gerard McLean
Rivershark Inc
937-836-6255
gmclean@rivershark.com

Jeff Pulver
140 Characters Conference
http://140conf.com
http://140roadaug22l.eventbrite.com/

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Gerard McLean to moderate NARMS Workshop at the annual Spring Conference

Englewood, OH — On Sunday, April 18 from 1:00-2:00pm, Gerard McLean, President/CEO of Rivershark Inc will be moderating a workshop on integrating social media into a NARMS.com member company presence. Paulette Blaskey with NARMS International will be co-moderating.

For more information as it happens, follow @gerardmclean on twitter or search twitter for the hashtag #398NARMS2010 to follow the workshop or comment.

ABOUT RIVERSHARK
Rivershark, Inc. is a closely-held Ohio Corporation dedicated to cultivating and building brands that take advantage of technology and satisfy a need for human whimsy. It was formed in 1995 and is headquartered in Englewood, Ohio, with offices in Brooklyn NY, Minneapolis MN, London UK and Aalborg Denmark. The web address is www.rivershark.com. Rivershark currently manages the e-presence of NARMS and has since it’s inception in 1995.

ABOUT NARMS
NARMS member companies perform well over $3 billion in merchandising services, sales marketing, event marketing, demonstration and other retail services annually. The international trade association serves as a “central gathering point” for the retailing industry; promoting and establishing industry standards; providing critical industry research studies and educational information about the industry while acting as a voice for its diverse membership of service providers, manufacturers, retailers, and associates. NARMS represents all classes of trade including: grocery, drug, mass, department, home and building centers, computer and office supply, electronic, value retailers, specialty, and convenience retailers.

The 15th NARMS Spring Conference & Exposition at Saddlebrook Resort in Wesley Chapel, FL on April 17-20, 2010.