Dragonfly Media Curacao

Last week we launched two new websites. The first one was for a local E-zone consultancy company, Ezonedesk. This company helps other companies that want to set up business in one of the economic zones of Curacao. Apparently, being in the ezone greatly reduces profit taxes (2%) but there are a lot of restrictions. We checked, and regretfully we would not be allowed to settle there so we’ll just continue paying our taxes.

The second website was for the dive and watersports operator on Cas Abao Beach.  Cas Abao is often named as the most beautiful beach of Curacao (with which we agree). Its crystal clear blue water and fine sand are great for a day at the beach and since a few months there’s also a well-run bar/restaurant and a lot to do.

We are really happy with both websites and would like to wish both our clients good luck with them.

A few months ago we came into contact with Janera Soerel, a Curacaoan woman living in New York. At that time her website was in Beta and needed improvements for it to be officially launched. After an interesting meeting and a lot of emails we could start overhauling nearly the entire website.

Janera.com is an online publication and international social network for Global Nomads. A rough description of a global nomad is; “a person who identifies with more than his/her national origins and sees himself/herself as a citizen of all countries”.  Consequently the website’s members come from the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America and I believe there’s a few African people as well. (more…)

The second website we launched this month is the new web design for Vidanova. Vidanova is one of the largest Antillean pension funds and they are growing at a rapid pace. Because of this growth they needed a new website. The previous one did not comply with their marketing message anymore.

Vidanova’s new website needed to better convey the idea that retirement is something that you should think about before you actually need it. So, the new design is more youthful and shows the benefits of arranging for your retirement early (with Vidanova of course).

It’s the last month of the year and this is traditionally not only the time of year where people party and eat too much, but also the time of year where people want to finish projects. The web design business in Curacao is no different in this respect so we will be launching several websites and website enhancements this month.

The new website for local newspaper Extra is the first website we put live this month. For the people outside Curacao who read this: Extra is the most popular newspaper of Curacao. The Extra is written in Papiamentu (Curacao’s local language) and they print 25,000 copies per day. On a population of ~150,000 this means that one in six Curacaoans buys this newspaper. (more…)

The news was officially announced today that one of our websites, the one for HSMAI Curacao, has won a silver certificate which we can collect at the Adrian Awards gala in New York on January 28. The website won the award in the category web marketing.

Dragonfly Media is just over a year old and this is the first award we win with this company. For it to be such a prestigious award within our target niche is extra reason for us to be proud. HSMAI Curacao released a press statement today: (more…)

No, that’s no typo. We just released the website for the Curacaoan motion picture No Kai (it’s Papiamentu and means “Don’t Fall”). Whenever we can , we want to do something back for our community. The last project we did in this respect was a marketing and tourism-related website and this time it’s an art project.

No Kai is a movie produced by the Curacao Talent and Showbizz Foundation and we are one of the sponsors of the movie project.  The movie is about love, the need for appreciation and jealousy. It’s dramatic, action-packed and of very high quality for Caribbean standards. The Americans and Dutch people reading this website will probably have some difficulty reading the website because it’s all in Papiamentu.

You can see the trailer on the website or on YouTube.

Yesterday we put another new web design live. This one is for the Curacao Ports Authority (colloquially known as the CPA). The CPA is the company that manages Curacao’s many harbors and ports and we are very proud that they chose us to create their new website (our competitors for this project were two very good, and well-known local web design companies).

The official blurb is on our web design clients page, so you can read all about it there.

We’re churning out websites like crazy these days. After a short lull during the summer holidays it seems like every company on the island wants a new website before the end of the year. We’re happy to oblige of course :D

Last week we launched two new websites. The first one was for a local magazine for management professionals; Coaching Magazine. We modified Wordpress to be used as a content management system and they are using it effectively to add content to the website themselves. For this project we worked together, again, with Bas Kok Creatieve Communicatie. He took care of the design and we turned his design into a fully-functional website.

The second launch of last week was the redesign of a Curacao beach and restaurant; Zanzibar. This beachbar and restaurant is one of the hippest places on Curacao and they wanted their new website to accurately reflect the unique look&feel of the place. Their old website was pretty cool, but it was all flash and they were doing terrible in Google and the likes. Their new website should remedy this.

The official blurbs are on our web design clients page.

Our latest and freshest website design is the new website of Hook’s Hut. Hook’s Hut is a laid-back, relaxed beach bar on Curacao near the Marriott, Hilton and Floris Suite hotels. During the day Hook’s Hut caters to the people on the family-friendly beach and around dinner-time the beach chairs are cleared away for guests to have dinner on the beach.

They have bands (jazz, merengue, salsa, calypso) four evenings per week and their happy hours are famous on the island. Hook’s Hut is also a great location for a romantic wedding (pictures) or for any other kind of party.

As Caribbean pirates are the main theme of Hook’s Hut the website needed to use this theme for the design. On the other hand, the beach bar can also be a very romantic place (hence the weddings) so we also incorporated a romantic touch. Oscar and Jerry (one of our interns) worked on this design together and you can be the judge if they succeeded in combining the two concepts.

Right now the website is only available in Dutch, but we’re working with the client on getting the English version on-line as well.

Tradewind Villas is a small complex of two luxury Curacao villas which are available for short-term rent. They are still working on the finishing touches of the accommodations, but it looks like it is going to be a fantastic property.

The villas are located in Bottelier which is an area in the south-east of Curacao (Banda Arriba) and from there you are just a stone’s throw away from some of the most popular beaches, restaurants and hiking areas.

The website is relatively small (6 pages per language, 2 languages), but we have a good feeling about its chances in the search engines for its most important keywords. It will be a question of gaining links to it and tweaking it over time. As the domain name is as fresh as the website it will probably suffer from the sandbox effect for a while, but that’s nothing a few good links can’t fix.