theBubbler Blog

About Us

TheBubbler.com started in 1995. Keith Klein and Associates, Inc. had three divisions at that time: Klein Industrial Marketing Group, a professional recruitment division, and the brand-new division, Klein Internet Marketing Group. The word bubbler seemed a good choice for a Wisconsin-based project.

Klein Internet Marketing Group (KIMG) put theBubbler.com together in ‘95 as a way to show off their capabilities. The results were fantastic. KIMG had only three internet clients at the end of 1995. New prospects for KIMG were so impressed with theBubbler that the client base increased to 23 accounts in 1996, a seven-fold increase. Folks were much less familiar with frames and external links on the internet at that time. Many prospects were amazed to learn that KIMG was comprised of only two full-time and a few part-time people in 1996. They’d take one look at theBubbler and ask if we had a staff of fifty or a hundred people.
Keith Klein and Associates, Inc., dropped Klein Industrial Marketing Group in 1997 in favor of focusing entirely on the Internet. We saw the opportunity to gain the greatest marketing value for clients, including industrial clients, on the internet. In 1998 we ceased our professional recruitment services as well, focusing our efforts 100% on internet design, production, programming, hosting and marketing.
KIMG continued to grow through the years, as did traffic on theBubbler. By the late 90s, theBubbler.com enjoyed traffic of over 25,000-plus unique users per month. Unfortunately for theBubbler.com, KIMG was so busy with client work that theBubbler got shorted…paying customers had to come first. In the summer of 2001 we employed Michael Falk as a Summer intern to help re-organize theBubbler and update some of the programming. Alas, much of Michael’s time got chewed up helping on client jobs as well, limiting his time on theBubbler to some “band-aid” work. We lost Michael to graduate school after his Summer here, as we knew we would, (though he continues to root for theBubbler to this day).
In the spring of 2002 we were surprised to learn that, despite the utter lack of time and effort devoted to theBubbler over the last seven years, according to the latest metrics supplied by an internet traffic-measurement firm, theBubbler.com is the internet’s fourth-largest Wisconsin portal, with 896 other sites linking to it!
We took the good news about theBubbler in stride. Then, after a few staff changes, we found a new Chief Architect for theBubbler. We started him in sales to help create the revenue stream to make theBubbler self-sufficient – indeed, to make theBubbler a profit-center. Between April and August, 2002, we devoted the full-time equivalent of seven people – designers, webmasters, programmers, system administrators and marketers – to a total re-design of theBubbler. The result is a new theBubbler.com – one that we expect to grow exponentially in the years to come.

Keith Klein & Associates, Inc. was morphed into OnYourMark, LLC on October 1st, 2004. At about that time we devoted resources to creating a whole network of Wisconsin sites, all part of WisNetwork.com powered by OnYourMark, LLC.

The WisNetwork Sites include:

WisEvents.com – a free public listing of all kinds of Wisconsin Events

WisForums.com – a free forum for Wisconsin conversations of all kinds

WisPersonals.com – a premier Wisconsin dating site

WIroots – Wisconsin’s best genealogy site

…and more.
Our goals include involving the community by way of Volunteer Editors for community, county and category sections. We’ll be adding advanced features in classifieds and a blog, self-updateable sites with low-cost hosting for Wisconsin non-profits, youth groups and other community organizations, and more.
We invite you to subscribe to our Water Cooler News on a weekly or monthly basis. We invite you to Add-A-Link to build the content of Wisconsin’s Information Source and to promote your favorite sites. We invite you to talk to us, to share your ideas, and to share our passion and commitment to providing the latest and greatest information on all things Wisconsin. We also invite you to advertise to help support our cause…and mostly to increase your sales.
Please contact us with your questions and suggestions. Whatever the nature of your communication, we welcome your input.

MISSION

Our goal at theBubbler.com is to provide convenient, efficient, family-friendly, and FUN Wisconsin-based information. We endeavor to promote Wisconsin businesses, organizations, people, and places with passion and commitment. As the premier Wisconsin Information Source, our first priority is to provide timely listings to area web sites and events and to enthusiastically support the efforts of our advertisers / patrons, while maintaining a clean, interesting, informative and entertaining place for Wisconsinites to gather on the web.