In its current state, many online market sectors have become dominated by corporations and big business, and this "stranglehold" has lead to small business becoming either choked or immobile. Nonetheless, Future Beta's experience spanning more than 10 years has provided the knowledge and capacity to deal with these constraints. Our mentality and attitude of having no limitations and the freedom of small business permits us to provide the best quality, service, and price.
For over a decade in the industry, Future Beta continuous metamorphosis has given it the uncanny ability to thrive. Although always adapting towards new and better things, Future Beta has and will remain a small business; an invaluable asset as it lets us conduct our business like no one else. With such freedom it lets us cater to our customers and not a list of protocols and procedures. Our unique and successful approach combined with years of experience has let us contend with the competition since day one, whether it was Samsung America's Web2Zone in New York or competing in the "Price Wars" with Dell and HP during 2004 - 2006 on our retail site LanLabs, where many small businesses were unable to continue or bought out.
In this midst of all this contention, Future Beta has proudly signed on numerous high-profile clients and continues to make an impact on the industry.
Back Story:
Future Beta's (FBi) success and knowledge of the SEO industry originally stemmed from a need to be able to compete with large corporations on a small business budget. At first, FBi was a scribble on a page back in 1998 that planned for two guys to open a small internet gaming cafe as a base of operations for future endeavors and research (Hence the name Future Beta; a beta is a test release) in the relatively unknown private gaming industry and "mod" gaming industry.
"We had such small and humble dreams back then, but the gaming industry, even long before its discovery by mass market, was not small or humble." - Doug DiFrancesco
FBi discovered the potential marketing power of gaming almost immediately, but talking about video games back then caused us to be literally laughed out of banks, Venture Capital firms, and other means of traditional finance. So we turned to the internet! Looking back, this was our first viral marketing campaign. Within 30 days of putting our plan into action, we received our first round seed money from an Angel Investor.
This gave us the resources to quit our jobs and pursue a large investment full time. However, we were still laughed at by traditional finance. So again, we turned to the internet. Within 60 days we had our first round capital investment and launched LanLabs, a 10,000sqft gaming paradise complete with gourmet espresso and coffee bar, restaurant and 150 state of the art gaming computers.
At the same time, we turned to our marketing skills to compete with Samsungs Web2Zone, a similar sized gaming facility that leveraged its corporate backing for a tremendous amount of resources. We had a larger overhead, less resources and much less notoriety. Within six months, due to our guerilla style marketing efforts, we had to close the gaming center to the public and make it by invite/appointment only. We simply did not have the space to facilitate the traffic.
Meanwhile, we created LanLines (our co-location facilities for game servers), ShopL2 (retail computer site), CORELabs (our original marketing firm) and finally our prized possession G-Layer. G-Layer was collaborative effort between Future Beta and MCI UUNet to offer a national, branded gaming DSL called GSL. FBi would be responsible for marketing and sales.
During this time we also introduced many high profile clients into the gaming industry and online marketing such as Autobytel, Nikon, MTV, Covad, Microsoft's IP TV, and many other industry specific companies with equal stature. On the technology side, we introduced some of the fastest computers and servers in the country and were featured is such publications as NBC, Forbes, Entrepreneur, ESPN, MTV, Daily News and more.
The only way to stop us was the complete privatization of the industry before G-Layer could go live. Verizon bought MCI, the private game studios consolidated, Steam bought Counter Strike and starting charging for commercial use and FBi was forced into the private sector as a marketing and SEO consultant agency for a few surviving gaming companies. Our only public offering was our retail site, ShopL2.com.
Future Beta's history is long and complex, originally stemming from a humble desire to keep the online video gaming industry free from the corporate dominance. We didn't want to see it share the same fate as TV, music and movies.
