New Feature: Site Navigation

By Co-Founder & software developer: Juliana Korver

At the beginning of this month, Jubon rolled out a new navigation feature, a navigation box in the upper left hand corner of the map. As you can see, the box contains the compass rose as well as 4 directional arrows. Clicking on any of the arrows will result in the repositioning or scrolling of the map to reveal more of the community in the direction that you clicked. Because we cannot anticipate the size and shape of our users monitors much less the resolution that they are set to, we are using this scrolling to make sure that all users can see all parts of the map.

For example, if you have just opened the Orange City map and you want to find information about De Koffiehoek & Bistro, you can click on the right arrow to reveal the western part of town. For many of you, you will also need to click on the downward arrow to see the southern part of town. If one click is not enough, you will have to click again to move even farther in the desired direction. Once you have revealed your destination, then you can click on the appropriate business icon to show that popup or you can click on the street next to the business icon to command the Jubon 8 (the car) to drive to the location which will result in the popup opening upon its arrival. The other way that you can manipulate the map to get your information is to simply open the Quick Find menu. Click “Quick Find” to reveal a list of all the businesses on the map, and then click on “De Koffiehoek & Bistro”. This will cause the Jubon 8 to drive to that location which will again reveal the information that you are looking for.

With the second method, the car will drive past the edge of the map. If you are patient you can sit quietly and wait for it to arrive at its destination. Once it gets there, it will reposition the map on the left and right scroll to make sure that you can see the popup information. Currently the map does not reposition itself up and down so you may still need to click on the down arrow to see your information. On the other hand, if you want to watch the Jubon 8 speeding through the streets of Orange City, you can click the appropriate arrows while the car is moving to keep it in focus.

Along with the navigation box, we have both added to and rearranged the toolbar. Now all items in the toolbar are dropdown menus. To find the available features and commands, click on the appropriate menu name: Quick Find, Categories, Options, More Info, or Help.

As mentioned before, Quick Find displays a list of all the businesses located on the map.

Categories displays a list of categories that you can use to limit your search and control what items appear on the map. By default, all categories are selected, but if you want to find something specific you can first click “hide all” to remove all the icons from the map then click the checkbox next to the categories that you would like displayed to make it easier to find what you are looking for. Note: the categories selected will determine which businesses are displayed in the Quick Find.

The Options menu provides a number of commands that help to control the look of the site as well as some additional navigation features such as “Return Map to Original Position” and “Find the Car”. Both commands will scroll the map accordingly.

More Info gives us a way to link to additional information for each community (I know, we only have one community right now, but that should change soon). The menu is partitioned into community related pages which will include a link to the text directory, coupon list and start page for the community as well as a section for non community specific Jubon pages.

The final Menu item is Help. Currently this consists only of tooltips, but will definitely grow with additional methods of help in the future.

A couple more things with regard to the toolbar, if you click on the community name in the toolbar, you will be taken back to the community start page. Similarly, if you click on “Jubon.biz” on the right hand side of the toolbar, you will be taken to Jubon’s homepage.

Please give these new features a try. You can do so by going directly to the Orange City map. If you have suggestions for additional features, you can send them to admin@jubon.biz.

Enjoy!

Jubon's Future Plans

By Co-Founder: Bonnie Meier

The town of Orange City and the Orange City Chamber of Commerce have served as our “proof of concept” for Jubon since the 1st of the year. We are very grateful for their support as we develop our new website dedicated to promoting small communities. The site has been evolving every month and will continue to do so as we find new ways to make the map(s) and the site more useful to our users. We are purposely keeping ads off the map as we want to keep the look clean and usable. We want the user to control when and what business information they see on the map instead of throwing the information at the user.

With Orange City’s success, we now feel that we are ready to start adding more communities. All indications are that Sioux Rapids, IA will become the second community added to Jubon. We anticipate this will happen on or near the 4th of July weekend. The following week two of the Jubon co-founders will be meeting with four or five Chambers and community organizations in northeast Iowa regarding their involvement with Jubon. In September we will attend a state meeting for Chamber of Commerce Executives in Cedar Falls, Iowa. As Jubon grows, all who are a part of it will benefit by gaining more exposure as traffic to the site will increase. Clearly, our next step is to expand the reach of the site.

Though it may look like our focus is on Iowa, we have not placed any geographical limitations on our growth. We do hope to expand to other states in the future. Our goal is that Jubon.biz will be synonymous with community searches, business directories, and coupons for smaller communities.

Thank you for being part of the Jubon family and we hope you are enjoying the ride.

Spotlight:
Dove Christian Bookstore

By Co-Founder: Bonnie Meier

The Dove Christian Bookstore has a 25-year history in Orange City. It is family owned and operated originally by Opal Hulsart with help from her children Dave and Carol Hulsart. In January of 2008, ownership passed down to Opal's son and daughter-in-law, Dave and Karen Hulsart. Though no longer the owner, Opal still works in the store every day.

Since the Hulsart family purchased the business in 1984, then called Maranatha Christian Bookstore, The Dove has relocated 3 times. It now resides at 125 Central Avenue in the building that used to house DeVries Drapery Shop. The current location affords The Dove plenty of selling space to properly display their impressive selection of religious merchandise.

Initially, The Dove primarily sold books, music CDs, cards and Bibles with a few gift items. Over the years, the store has greatly expanded their gifts inventory as well as adding scrapbooking supplies, wall décor, piano and instrumental music books. In addition, there has been steady growth in their books, CD’s, cards and Bibles selections. To get a feel for The Dove, go to their website at http://dovebookstore.com where you can find images and descriptions of some of their products.

The Dove was one of the original Orange City Jubon customers and was on the Jubon map when the site went live January 1st, 2009. Since then they have utilized Jubon’s services to have a website created and in February participated in the hidden treasure promotion. During the promotion, they hid the Jubon 8 (our logo) in their store and provided the clue “Be Mine” to anyone who inquired. The little Jubon 8 car was found hidden among the valentines by a Northwestern College student who returned the logo to the Chamber office where he received Chamber Bucks to spend at the Dove Christian Bookstore.

Currently, The Dove and many other main street businesses in Orange City are experiencing some challenges due to the construction that is occurring in front of their stores. This is part of the Orange City Streetscape program that consists of tearing out 4 blocks of old pavement along Central Avenue to be replaced with new. However, all the sidewalks will remain open the entire length of the project so there are no restrictions on the access to Dove’s Front door. If walking presents a problem and you would like a ride from an outer parking lot, please call The Dove at (712)737-3000 or the Chamber Office at (712)707-4510 and someone will meet you with a golf cart to take you to The Dove or to the store of your choice.

We are proud to have The Dove Christian Bookstore on the Jubon website.