Category: Site Announcements

Management Job Opening (Monsey, New York)

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Long-time Atlasphere member (and Objectivist Singles founder) Dan Edge sends the following job announcement for his company:

Growing medical transcription company seeks full-time production manager.
Dan’s company is a small, growing company which provides transcription and other services to the medical communications market. We are currently seeking a production manager to coordinate subcontractors, manage projects, and ensure that deadlines and quality standards are met. We need a detail-oriented individual with exceptional organization and time-management skills. You need to know how to make lists for yourself, manage priorities, and operate under pressure.
Responsibilities Include:

  • Convert audio / video to a format usable by transcription software (i.e., MP3).
  • Contract, coordinate, and supervise subcontractors (transcribers, editors, proofreaders) on assigned projects to ensure that deadlines are met.
  • Complete administrative tasks including order status tracking, Purchase Order creation and approval, etc.
  • Proofread final product at various stages of process to ensure quality and accuracy

Requirements:

  • 0-2+ Years Experience in Project Trafficking or Production Management
  • Good familiarity with MS Office (Word, Excel, Power Point), and very computer-savvy in general
  • 2- or 4-Year Degree greatly preferred
  • Good written and verbal communication skills
  • Willing to learn new things, work creatively, and grow with the business
  • Willing to commute to Monsey, NY

I’m willing to train the right candidate.
Salary – $36k +, commensurate with experience
Call 845-558-9328 or email resume and cover letter to dedge (at) edgetranscription.com
Dan Edge
845-425-5495w
845-558-9328c
dedge (at) edgetranscription.com
25 Robert Pitt Dr
Suite 218
Monsey, NY 10952

Are You a Wine Lover?

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Happy holidays!
One reason why my own Ayn Rand meta-blogging has been sparse in recent months is that I’ve been working hard, together with Atlasphere programmer Marshall Sontag, to launch a new business in the wine industry.
Our new company, which we’ve named WineQ, is a “meta” wine club ($4.95/mo) that lets you queue up wines like movies, read plenty of reviews from other consumers while choosing your wines, and receive FREE shipping on orders of $35 or more.
Essentially, we allow people to create their own wine club: Instead of someone else choosing the wines you’re sent, you get to choose. Instead of someone else deciding how often your wines are sent, you get to choose. And instead of paying through the nose for shipping, you get shipping for free.
Shipping wine is costly, often amounting to a 30% markup on the wine you buy over the internet. Other e-tailers generally require you to order a bare minimum of $120 in wine to receive free shipping — so a lot of people are excited about our innovative business model.
See the write-ups we received, for example, at Winecast (WineQ: Wine Club 2.0?) and GoodGrape (The “Netflix Effect” and the World of Wine).
Currently we offer wines from a growing list of small California wineries, all of which are sent direct from the winery to the consumer (although, due to our unique business model, you can combine wines from different wineries into the same order).
Right now our selection is somewhat limited for East Coast customers, since not all of our wineries can ship to those states (e.g., New York). But wine lovers in most western and midwestern states will find plenty to enjoy, and in general our selection of participating wineries will be growing steadily over the coming months.
Our web site is at WineQ.com. Check it out if you’re a wine lover or know friends or family who might be interested!
You can enter the coupon code ATLASPHERE during registration or checkout to receive $10 off your first order, giving you a first month’s membership for free.
We also offer unusually good discounts on expedited shipping — $5 for 2-day and $10 for overnight — if you want some exceptional premium wines to round out your holiday dinner plans.
Personally, my favorite wines on our site so far are the Ceja 2003 Vino de Casa Red and Deerfield 2003 RedRex. If you’re more of a white wine person, I can’t say enough about the Ceja 2005 Vino de Casa White. (None of these wines are over $20.)
And you can find many other highly-rated selections on our recommendations page.
Enjoy!

Letters from Atlasphere Couples

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

We get e-mails semi-regularly from Atlasphere members telling us how happy they are to have fallen in love with someone they met through our site.
Lately, the frequency of these e-mails has increased noticeably. This morning I received my third happy-couple message in less than a week. After living together for about a year, they’re now engaged and have chosen a wedding date in May. Judging from their photos and profiles, they look like they’ll make a fantastic couple.
I cherish each of these letters, because they really embody the hopes we had when we launched the Atlasphere. My wife and I just celebrated our sixth anniversary together. We are insanely happy in our own relationship, and seeing other happy couples only compounds our joy.
If you’re single and still looking, don’t lose hope. I look forward to seeing a message from you in my inbox one day soon! 🙂

Atlasphere Columns Now Available via RSS Feed

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

The Atlasphere columns are now available through an RSS/XML syndication newsfeed.
Someone requested this feature last year, and it made perfect sense — but I’ve only now had time to set it up.
The little orange RSS icon is hidden behind the password-protected “columns” section of our site, but you can copy the actual link to your clipboard using this link.
Drop me a note if you notice any problems or have questions.
I know the feed doesn’t validate strictly, but haven’t had time to look into it, and I probably won’t bother unless it’s actually, you know, causing problems.

Atlasphere in the Christian Science Monitor

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

The Atlasphere was mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor today, in an article about niche dating services titled “Single white Earthling seeks Klingon for romantic orbit.”
The primary focus of the article, as you might guess from the title, is on “Trekkies” — fans of the Star Trek series. But fans of Ayn Rand’s novels make a cameo.
We’ve been getting plenty of new sign-ups today from the article.
To all these new members: Welcome!

About the Atlasphere's Business Model

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

This morning one of our members sent us the following message:

Guys at the Atlasphere — as an investor in a couple dating sites, and the CEO of a pretty large internet subscription company — I thought I’d point out that it’s most common to show the pictures to basic members, so that they get really motivated to contact the other party and then pay to upgrade. Hiding the photos is hiding your best sales tool!

We receive some version of this question several times a year, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer in public, since no doubt many other people have wondered the same thing: Why doesn’t the Atlasphere adopt the same business model used at other social networking sites, of showing photos for free?
As it happens, the Atlasphere’s subscription rate — the rate at which our free members elect to purchase paid subscriptions — is about six times the industry average.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean we’re taking in millions of dollars each year. We’re a tiny fraction of the size of ordinary social networking sites, since our target market is limited to admirers of Ayn Rand’s novels — and so our base of potential customers is accordingly much smaller as well.
I’m not certain why our subscription rate is so much higher than the industry average, but my guess is that it has to do with the strong interest that Rand fans have in getting to know one another.
The Atlasphere seems to have struck into an untapped market in Objectivism: The desire for meaningful one-on-one contact, without the hassles and aggravation of participating in the (always controversial and time-consuming) online discussion forums.
This is why we’ve never had discussion forums at the Atlasphere, and why we’re unlikely to do so any time soon. (Another question we receive regularly.)
Returning to the original question: Would our subscription rates be even higher if we allowed members to see one another’s photos for free? We were curious to find out, so we tried adopting this membership structure during the 4th quarter of 2004 (Oct – Dec).
During this time, our subscription rates immediately dropped, by more than 80%, and did not recover until we reverted to our old membership structure.
So that’s our answer to the question raised above: Been there, done that, and found out it doesn’t work well at all for our target market.
If you have any other ideas for improving the Atlasphere, please (by all means) drop us a note! We welcome ideas for further improving our service.

A Fun Question to Answer

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Most of the support requests we receive at the Atlasphere are pretty mundane: can you help with my forgotten password, can you accept payment by mail, can you update my e-mail address, etc.
But once in a while we get a question that leaves us smiling from ear to ear. This was one of them. It’s from someone who isn’t a member of the site … yet:

Many (many) years ago I read a chapter (I think) about the “20th Century Motor Car Company” in a book written by Ayn Rand. I still remember some of the details vaguely and now would like to read that story again. Can you tell me what book it is in?

Now isn’t that just the funnest question in the world to answer? Right outta the ballpark. C’mon, gimme another! Keep em comin’… 🙂

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