Sedona Resident Launches Sedona News Site

Sedona.biz LLC is owned and operated by Carl Jackson.  Born in 1961, Mr. Jackson grew up in Southern Connecticut and attended New York University where he earned a B.F.A. in liberal arts in 1983 and an M.B.A. in finance in 1986.

He spent the next 20 years as a banker in New York City at various financial institutions such as Credit Suisse, the last being Deutsche Bank where he was a Director in the Structured Finance division.

In 2002, Mr. Jackson became interested in the internet and its potential.  He made a number of investments in internet companies such as Rediff: an Indian web portal, Nutrisystem: an online diet company and Communicate.com: the owner of perfume.com and importers.com.

Said Mr. Jackson, "After investigating these companies, I became convinced that the internet is the single biggest growth industry to emerge over the last twenty years."

In 2006, Mr. Jackson left banking to start an internet business, and he and his wife Jodi purchased a home in Sedona.  Said Mr. Jackson, "Sedona is a unique place.  Although its population is only around twelve thousand people, the visitors to Sedona are in the millions.  For many tourists, residents, and people planning to move here, the internet, and in particular a Sedona branded website, is the way they will learn about what's happening in Sedona and the rest of the Verde Valley."

Of course, there are already some very good tourist websites focused on Sedona, the best of which, in Mr. Jackson's opinion, is the Sedona Chamber of Commerce website at visitsedona.com.

Said Mr. Jackson, "Unfortunately, I didn't find a single Sedona website that offers daily local, state, and national news for Sedona residents." He was then lucky enough to secure the one word domain name Sedona.biz and started a news website for the greater Sedona area. 

While the .biz extension is unusual, the fact that Sedona.net is a popular website here convinced him that Sedona residents would catch on to the name quickly.  Said Mr. Jackson, "I also think the .biz extension allows me to expand Sedona.biz beyond news to ecommerce.  That's why we have an online shopping area, coupons, classifieds, job listings, forums, and an events calendar, but it's going to take time to develop all of these areas.  Eventually, I'd like Sedona.biz to be the place for everything Sedona."

Mr. Jackson also sees an extremely bright future for the Verde Valley as a whole.  "If you look at real estate prices, you'll see they've more than doubled in some areas since 2000.  People are moving here in large numbers, and estimates are that the population of the Verde Valley will more than double by 2050." (read How Will Sedona Grow?)

For that reason, Mr. Jackson also owns other, as of yet undeveloped, domain names focused on the Verde Valley such as iVerdeValley.com, iJerome.com, iCottonwood.com, iCampVerde.com, and others for areas outside the Verde Valley like iPrescott.com, iFlagstaff.com, and iGrandCanyon.com.

In September, 2007 Sedona.biz LLC launched an epaper called The Sedona Biz and social networking site for Sedona at www.iSedona.com.

Ultimately, Mr. Jackson sees Sedona.biz and his other websites being folded into a larger newspaper organization that is either looking to enter the Verde Valley, or is already in the Verde Valley and wants to continue to grow.  Said Mr. Jackson, "For any newspaper organization that wants to enter the Verde Valley or drive traffic to its existing newspapers, Sedona.biz and vvconnect.com and my other sites are by far, in my opinion, the best internet brands currently available for this area."

If you would like to discuss a partnership with Mr. Jackson, or propose developing any of his sites, please email him at editor@sedona.biz.

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