Illuminating Insights from Matt Urban of Möbius New Media

Recently we contacted Matt Urban, Chief Excitement Officer of Möbius New Media to give us feedback on our services and understand the nature of his business. He provided great insight to what it’s like being not only a HostMySite customer, but also what it is also like to scale up to enhanced hosting services provided by HostMySite’s parent company Hosting. We also wanted to dig deeper into Matt’s background so we could share with fellow HostMySite customers.

Matt, please tell about Möbius and what you do?
I’m the CEO of Möbius New Media, also known as ‘Möbius,’ or ‘Mö’ as we like to call it. I co-founded Möbius in 1996 as a full-service marketing and advertising firm with a focus on the growing need for specialists in new media. In particular, we provide professional services in website development, brand development / brand marketing, hands-on media video production and photography services, search engine optimization, social media, graphic design, audio production, animation, and other digital media. In many cases we are able to integrate all these services into a long-term relationship with our clients as their agency of record.

I lead the day-to-day operations, planning and growth, but also like to be hands on managing traditional and online marketing campaigns, producing web applications, shooting and editing videos, photos, etc. – really any of our projects where I can lend my expertise.

What is that ö character in Möbius? How did that come into play?
That character is called an umlaut and it’s proper on the word Möbius, as it refers to a möbius strip. So it just rides with the name. But we chose the name itself because of its association with the artist M.C. Escher. We particularly liked his woodcut called Möbius Strip II. We liked that the Möbius strip infers infinity, and also that Escher was a mathematician before he became an artist, so he was hybridizing technical and artistic fields together, and creating paradoxical shapes and images. It seemed a good parallel to a company that was marrying technical web development with artistic marketing.

Can you provide some examples of the websites you’ve produced or designed for clients?
Absolutely. We’ve delivered for local, regional, and national clients. Here’s a few of our success stories. I encourage you to link through to see our hard work in action:

Tell us more about yourself Matt.
Well, for one, I’ve lived in Delaware all my life – born and raised. I graduated from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Fine arts, and an interesting mix of design and advertising, video production, animation, and other digital media, at a time when the digital field was just emerging

I like to give back to the community and am involved in many volunteer activities, including The Sierra Club (both locally and nationally), the Delaware Contemporary (formerly the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts), Wilmington Rotary Club, and more.

One of the recent efforts I’m most proud of is I’m founding Chairman of the Board for the Delaware Design-Lab High School. This is a charter high school that is pioneering an innovative, design-based curriculum for students. We encourage technology-enriched study where students research and produce projects, and approach all of the school’s curriculum using problem-solving methods designers use in solving creative challenges.

I’m also a self-taught drummer of 20+ years and am involved in a number of projects, including In The Light—a band that has performed tribute shows of Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Who, and Pink Floyd, and we’ll be performing an Eagles tribute, including a full performance of their Hotel California album, on September 24th at World Café Live in Wilmington.

How long have you been hosting with HostMySite?
We’ve been with HostMySite since at least 2003, and that’s more than half of the life of our company. Since we design and build websites, we have a need for long-term stable relationships with providers who can host our clients websites. HostMySite provides a number of services that we and our clients count on every day.

How has HostMySite and Hosting helped your business?
Although we offer hosting to our clients, we are not equipped as a data center for our own on-site hosting. HostMySite has allowed us to keep our focus where it needs to be – on building world-class websites for our clients – while they take care of the hosting infrastructure in a turn-key fashion.

You also utilize servers with Hosting. How did that come about and how has that experience been?
In some cases our clients require more robust web hosting, like a dedicated server, and in those instances we’ve scaled up to services through hosting.com. We particularly like the dedicated support team and knowing that we have excellent support and server administration just a phone call away.

Any advice for businesses seeking web hosting?
A lot of hosting companies talk about their uptime guarantees, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Having worked with a number of hosting companies through the years, what really matters is the service side of the equation. Will you get lost in the maze of a trouble ticket system with junior-level technicians trying – and failing – to meet your needs, or can you get your problems solved correctly the first time in a very hands-on way?

Any marketing advice for businesses these days?
I’d say two things as advice. First, for most businesses, traditional advertising in print, outdoor, and television is almost dead, and for good reason. Newer online/digital and social media advertising opportunities are more targeted to your customer, more cost-effective, and more trackable to help prove your ROI. Second, although that transition is occurring, there still is no way to sidestep the importance of a good brand, and a coherent compelling message that connects in the mind of your customer – in fact, with so many different ways of reaching customers these days, the brand coherence is even more critical. So while many things change, some things stay the same.

And that’s exactly what we do – we’re guides and partners to our clients, demystifying the myriad marketing and advertising opportunities out there, and harnessing all the tools available to help connect our clients their customers in compelling, persistent, cost effective, and replicable ways

Want to learn more about Möbius?
Please visit Möbius New Media. Want to speak with Matt about your next website? Contact Mö