In a stunning move Precious Photos announced it is seriously considering filing it's IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The same principals of SBC Inc., in spite of lagging software sales, and still maintains SBC Inc. will remain private until the year 2002, are wasted no time in putting Precious Photos value in the hands of the Public.

Although stunning, because of the principals die-hard private corporation desires, expected, due the the enormous hits to Precious Photos sites from extremely satisfied surfers.

As difficult as it is to become a Starting Point Business "Hot Site", only 365 are selected world wide each year, Precious Photos had two separate sites to get top billing in the same month last year alone.  That truly is "Super Hot."  And lets not forget about SbcUsa's Software site.  It also won the Starting Point "Hot Business Site" award in June of this 1998 as well.

If you're thinking it's time for the wealth to be shared, you are right.  However, the sharing only went a few sectors over on Precious Photos hard disk to it's Catalog directory.  You guessed it.  Surfers just voted the Precious Photos On-Line Photo Restoration Dealer Manual as the Internet's Reference "Hot Site."  Score four Hot Sites for the Precious Photos / SbcUsa team for 1998.

Logs showed another site,  Black Art Gallery On-Line, was getting even more votes and hits in its short infancy than the commercial Precious Photos and Precious Photos Dealer and Opportunities Site did when they won the prestigious "Top Business Site Award."  Dwight Henry predicted it would win the 5th business "hot site" before summers end.

Well they surely know something at Precious Photos that we did not.  Score the 5th business "hot site" in September of 1998.   Two things this shows is Precious Photos knows how to get traffic.  No banner adds and  no sponsors on their pages either.  Only awards.  The votes say the people love the content enough to take the time to vote and let it be known.

Precious Photos appears to be following the footsteps of other internet businesses that are successfully using the "Concept Offering" of stock and are being very successful at  it and growing rapidly.  It is unknown, at this time, what the initial offering price will be however, 39% of Precious Photos stock will be made available to the public. 

The restoration quality is superb and turn-around time is extremely fast.   Precious Photos appears to be setting up to become the "Microsoft" of the Photo Restoration Industry.  Offering free dealerships and training to all and the internet is its office.

Precious Photos sites change daily and current displayed restorations showcase work from far away places such as Columbia, Scotland, Turkey, Russia and many other countries world wide.

Back to Black Art Gallery On-Line.  How does it all fit in?  Black Art Gallery On-Line is also the private baby of SbcUsa's CEO Dwight Henry who also owns all the stock in Precious Photos.

His response was.  "Already working 18-20 hours per day 7 days per week for 7  months."  "I could only find the time to develop the Black Art Gallery On-Line site during breaks in my 20 hour day."  "The real boost for that site is due to Rosemary Ashley."  "She's the renowned Canadian artist and marketer extraordinaire."  " I saw her art work, fell in love with it, but did not like the presentation she had for such fine art work."  "As busy as I was I committed to present her work properly."

"It was very difficult to go on the net without getting asked "when will the site be up?"  "I finally went for 5 days without sleep and laid out the site."  "When I finally slept I did so for 2 whole days."  "My dreams were of Jamaica and steel drums."   "It was about 5 weeks later the the site was up and running to the point of just maintenance and tri-weekly updates."

"But what about Black Art Gallery On-Line?"  "Is it a part of the public offering?"  "Absolutely not."  "It will stay as is.  "The Black Art Gallery On-Line is really, really hot, once again thanks to Ashley, and lots of fun."  "I love that site not having to navigate through banners."  " You can just click and enjoy."  "In fact you have to really work hard to find the sales information for the work presented at Black Art Gallery On-Line."

"One thing for sure is whatever the future holds for Black Art Gallery On-Line, Ashley will be an integral and permanent part of it."  "With my emphasis being Precious Photos and restoration in general, I doubt I would have started Black Art Gallery On-Line were it not for her."   "In addition all links point to SbcUsa and Precious Photos just like SbcUsa and Precious Photos links point to Black Art Gallery On-Line."

"I suppose I should ask, how does the greeting card business fit in all this?"  "hummmm?"  "Other than developing some of the cards for internet use I've only copyrighted, printed and made the cards distributor ready."  "I guess all those are very good questions as I am using all of my personal resources collaboratively to ensure the success of all the businesses."  "That part won't change. 

"Your Soul Exposed Greeting Cards" have helped tremendously in getting traffic to our sites."  "The layout allows the cards to be sent via ICQ and URL's."  "Although the greeting card site is still under construction it ranks in the top 200  internet web sites."

"The Smiling Hearts Club and Expressions in Black and White are the only greeting cards on the internet that are true greeting cards."  "You even open and close them."  "Right now you can't even sign your name to them."  A second server had to be activated over the Christmas Holidays to handle the 2,000 hits per hour at one point.

"Virtually all modifications and updates to other sites were put on hold during the holidays while we concentrated heavily on server logs to route that traffic to our pay sites."  "I will no doubt continue to use the cards for free on the internet for traffic and it looks like I will soon be able to finally mass produce the card version for physical distribution."  "Perhaps the starving poets can start receiving some royalties."

In fact it was just days ago we were able to develop a unique sponsorship - advertisement scheme into our cards.  With-out banners, of course.  And it's working.  No distractions from the content at all.

"By the way, what client tracking software do you use?" :):)  DbLink