This morning I discovered via a recent Twitter follower (@ChicagoStartups) that Where I’ve Been, a friend and client of Blueye from day one, is #12 in a July listing of the Top 100 start-up companies in the Chicago area!

Recently, Where I’ve Been (whereivebeen.com) launched a revised version of their already successful travel-based social media platform and has been steadily gaining users and followers alike through use of their Twitter trending topic: #TravelTuesday. Currently, @whereivebeen has nearly 17,000 followers on Twitter and 25,000 fans on Facebook, proving once again that people love to travel and they also love to share their travel experiences with others.

Over the past several months, Blueye has been working closely with Where I’ve Been on several projects. The latest project, Stadium Stops, is a new Facebook application for those hard core fans of college football. The application allows users to create their own map to show others what stadiums they have visited and ones that they plan to visit. In addition, users can choose specific college teams to support and taunt friends supporting rival teams. The taunting doesn’t end at the stadium, parking lot, or the bar anymore!

This list of Chicago area start-ups places Where I’ve Been in some elite company, right alongside some large names in the technology field, including The Onion, 37Signals, Sittercity, crowdSPRING, and Acquity Group just to name a few. Their growth and success would be enough to make even Casey Kasem proud. Congrats to the team at Where I’ve Been and remember to “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”

Do you love Twitter and Facebook too!? Become a fan of blueye on Facebook today, or follow us on Twitter all day long.

On a daily basis clients ask, “How can I get more people to use my website?”. On an hourly basis I find myself asking, “Okay, now where do I find the info I need?”. The Internet has become the go-to source to get our questions answered quickly, but there is still a real breakdown between the media and the user. Search engine optimization has become so important to companies on the web that they are cluttering their sites with jargon-laden copy in an effort to jump up the rankings, often overlooking the one thing that will keep people coming back: customer service.  Now I’m not referring to the ability to return a faulty screwdriver without a receipt, but rather referring to the experience a user has upon arriving at the site. The keystone: ease of use.

Okay, so this topic has the potential to become a lengthy post, and/or debate, so I’m going to keep this brief and use one example for now: skype.com .

Skype is one of the simpler, most user-friendly websites I have seen in quite a while. Personally, I don’t need to know how they got started or the technology behind their service. My main goals in coming to the site are: 1. download the service and 2. find information on using the service. Right away, I see a button to download and a navigation tab that will take me to another page about using the service. In addition, there’s even a little blurb about what Skype is, a true revelation (sarcasm). Please notice, there are not endless paragraphs about voice-over IP service, or VOIP applications that contain repeated catch phrases just in the hope that a random international college student or a small global business will search Google for ‘United States voice over internet phone service’.

Don’t get me wrong, search optimization can be vital to the success of your business but what use is search optimization if the user never gets past the first page of your site? At blueye, we put a lot of thought into the designs that we present to clients. We want our clients to not only be happy with the look and feel of the site, but we want them to be happy with the results once the site goes live. As a designer, the biggest compliment a client can give me is telling me that they are making sales and that clients and customers are telling them how easy their site is to use.

Remember, simple can be a really good thing. History speaks for itself: the tuxedo, chocolate ice cream, the bicycle – all simple products, with plenty of users worldwide.