Mondays don’t typically have the reputation for being the best day of the week, but yesterday, we had a great day! Oniracom spent all day with our new client, the Santa Barbara Bar, to do a lifestyle photo shoot in the beautiful Santa Barbara. Working with the talented photographer Lexus Gallegos, we are creating a campaign for the tasty and nutritious bars. We are excited to be working with this amazing bar brand that’s local to our hometown!

Santa Barbara Bar founder, Peter Gaum has owned a wholesale bakery in Santa Barbara for 20 yeas. He created the bars as a delicious and healthy snack for friends and family, but it has turned into a local phenomenon, taking the area by storm. Not only are the bars full of flavor, but they are also gluten-free, a good source of protein and fiber, and contain no added soy protein of refined sugars. Right now there are three flavors: Coconut Almond, Peanut Chocolate Cherry, and Cranberry White Chocolate. We thank Santa Barbara Bar for stocking Oniracom full of these delicious bars, because we can’t stay out of the kitchen!

Check out the Santa Barbara Bar website here to see where you can find the bars-in store (or order online). Below are some of pictures from our photo shoot, check them out!

This past Sunday marked the end of the 2015 Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival, and it was a remarkable success! Thousands of people came out to Alameda Park in Santa Barbara to learn about how to make a difference in the environment while enjoying tasty foods, shopping at the eco-marketplace, and attending a multitude of concerts and events.

Jacob, Mike and Sean worked hard all week to make sure our Storywall platform was ready for the big weekend! Storywall connected festivalgoers with all the exciting things happening throughout the event such as live music set times, tips for being environmentally friendly, and more. Everyone enjoyed interacting with the platform by sending in photos to be displayed on-screen and by participating in contests with awesome prizes including local gifts from the farmers market and an electric bicycle!

Overall, Earth Day and Oniracom’s participation with Storywall couldn’t have gone better. Thank you to everyone who played a role in this year’s festival, we can’t wait until next year! Check out some of our photos from Earth Day below.

Sonos has been a wireless stereo powerhouse in Santa Barbara for over a decade, reinventing audio for the digital age. Here at Oniracom, we’ve been beefing up our music system with Sonos gear since January, and it’s definitely made an impact.

“After I listened to classic albums on our Sonos such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, The Doors’ Morrison Hotel, and The Beatles’ White Album I heard new things in the music I never had,” said our CEO Jacob Tell.

It’s that time of year again to celebrate the earth and environment at the 2015 Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival! This Saturday and Sunday (April 18 and 19) at Alameda Park in Santa Barbara, there will be tons of events, concerts, games, exhibits, and classes, — all centered on celebrating the Earth. The Oniracom team has put a lot of work into helping ensure the success of this year’s Earth Day, and we are excited to attend.

The festivities start at 11 a.m. on both days, beginning with Bike Valet. Save gas by riding your bike to the festival and park it for free with the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition. Is your bike broken? Bring it and fix it yourself with the help of local mechanics. If cars are still the preferred method of travel, make sure to check out the Green Car Show where potential customers can get behind the wheel of advanced fueled vehicles such as the Tesla Model S, Nissan Leaf, Toyota hybrids and more!

Visitors can shop at the Eco-Marketplace for green products, technology, gadgets, and clothing and then take a class to learn about healthy, organic cooking. Local bands will take the Main Stage to play all genres of music including, blues, country, rock, reggae, dance, and indie. On Sunday at 12:30, join Snook the Sloth at the Kids Corner to talk about how we can protect the planet. We are proud of Oniracom Video Producer Luke Archer for his efforts in bringing to life the giant sloth with built-in audiovisual technology.

An exciting contribution from Oniracom, developed by CTO Sean Campos, is “Storywall,” a technology platform that we will be beta testing at Earth Day. Story Wall will connect guests to events, allowing them to interact with the Festival in a unique way. Campos is excited to see thousands of people interact Storywall “in the wild.” Visitors can hash tag #sbearthday to see their photos on Storywall, so make sure to check it out! 

CEO Jacob Tell and Chief Business Development Officer Mike Wald made enormous contributions as a part of the Festival’s Marketing and Outreach, promoting music performances, speakers, events, and much more. Tell is excited to see the Kids Parade on Sunday because Oniracom will work with students from the Multimedia Arts & Design Academy to film the Kids Climate March.

Make sure to visit Earth Day and check out all the cool events and a big thanks to everyone at Oniracom who made this event possible! There is something for everyone at this year’s festival, so visit http://www.sbearthday.org/ to start planning your days!

Spring is here, it’s light out a little bit longer once we all get off work… the times, they are mellow. Which is why our staff compiled an amazing Mellow March Playlist that’s perfect for spring, the light sun rays, days out on the beach, or even a short road trip drive.

Enjoy!

Oniracom is proud to announce that we will be sponsoring the first ever TEDx live event right here in Santa Barbara on Tuesday March 17th!

TED is a nonprofit organization that hosts annual TED Conferences where some of the world’s greatest minds come to speak. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Sir Richard Branson, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and more. TED also hosts a program called TED Talks on their website TED.com where talks are posted daily that viewers can access anytime.

TEDx is TED’s new program of independently organized local events, where people can come together to experience TED Talks video and live speakers simultaneously. 

The first-ever live TEDx will be hosted in Santa Barbara and will include talks by leading scientists such as Laura Shulz, David Eagleman, Donald Hoffman, and Fei-Fei Li. The event will also host some of today’s top astronomers, mathematicians, authors, and philanthropists. For more information, check out the TEDx Santa Barbara website.

Registration is FREE but limited! Be sure to register online here while space lasts.

THEN, don’t miss the after party at Pure Order Brewing Co at 410 N Quarantina, off Milpas. Burger Bus will be serving some great food as well!

We look forward to seeing you there and expanding our knowledge of the world together!

Thank you for making Solutions for Dreamers Fridays a huge success!

The crowd, food, chat, live music & of course, s’mores were all a hit! Thank you to Playback Recording Studio, StartupSB, and Up Global Regional Summit for helping us put on the event.

Here’s to more SFD Friday Nights! Check out some photos of the night, below!

Come out this Friday, February 20th, to Oniracom and celebrate Santa Barbara’s music, art, startup, and entrepreneurial communities with us! This event is a part of the Up Global Regional Summit, hosted by Santa Barbara Up Champions and Up Global, an organization that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. 

This is a great networking opportunity to connect with creative community leaders and visiting startup builders in a relaxed setting. There will be food trucks, local beverages, s’mores, and live music! Did we mention s’mores?

Performances by:
Jonathan McEuen
DJ ZEEK BEATS
Erisy Watt
Matthew McAvenue
Playback House Band
Special Guests  

What: Solutions for Dreamers Fridays
Where: Oniracom, 720 East Haley St., Santa Barbara, CA
Date: Friday, February 20, 2015 Time: 5:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. 

This event is open to the public, but please RSVP here

Also make sure to check-in on Facebook!

Have you ever wondered if your music player was detracting from the original quality of the music? Well, it’s quite possible. After music is recorded, the file is compressed from its original rate of typically 192 kHz to about 44.1kHz in order to fit on CDs and properly download. But does this actually affect the sound we hear? Famous singer Neil Young believes it does, and so he set out in 2012 to create a device that would be able to support music’s original recording rate. To do this, Young and his team asked for $800,000 in funding through Kickstarter, but music lovers seemed to believe in the idea just as much as Young, as donations exceeded $6.2 million. And thus, the PonoPlayer was created.

The PonoPlayer claims to let listeners hear high-quality music in a way that gives puts the “soul” back according to Young and many others in the music industry. In a video produced by PonoMusic, artists such as Norah Jones, Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, Kid Rock, Mumford & Sons, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many other music icons agreed that listening to the PonoPlayer let music be heard in a way as never before heard when using a portable device. With all these stars agreeing that this is a revolutionary device, how can it not be true? But a double blind study by Yahoo! found that average music listeners could not confidently agree.

The study tested the PonoPlayer versus an iPhone and the results concluded that the people thought the iPhone actually played better sound. So why do so many say that this new device is the key to better music? No one is too sure, because those who say they love the PonoPlayer focus on the difference they “feel,” not the difference they “hear.” It looks like the better sound may just be a trick of the mind, because according to scientific studies, the human ear can’t even pick up differences after 44.1kHz (that of the average CD or download).

In the end, paying $400 for the PonoPlayer, plus having to re-download every song for $2, may not be the best investment in a “feeling.” But you can decide for yourself by trying it out at Fry’s Electronics. Would you want to try it? Buy it?

This Sunday February 8th, for the first time ever, the Grammy Awards will be streaming live via CBS All Access, the CBS Television Network’s subscription video on demand and live streaming service. With a free one-week trial subscription, users can access the red carpet arrivals and all of the behind-the-scenes footage before and throughout the awards. The event will stream on multiple platforms such as the CBS app, CBS.com, GRAMMY.com, and the GRAMMY live app for iOS and Android.
The only seemingly downside to this full access and clever marketing tool: it is only available in 14 cities – New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Lucky for you, however, if you happen to be in one of these 14, you’ll get legal and free access to live performances by Adam Levine and Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, Tom Jones and Jessie J, Annie Lennox and Hozier, Sam Smith, Ariana Grande, Miranda Lambert, Usher, Ed Sheeran, Common & John Legend, Madonna, Eric Church, and for the first time in 14 years, AC/DC.
Not only is the Grammy Awards expanding their viewership through legal streaming, but they are also capitalizing on a multitude of different social media platforms. Included in these are: Shazam, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Thinglink, Facebook, and Instagram. You can read more about the specifics of each platform here.

The marketing potential of this event is huge – perhaps even larger than any previous award show. This year’s Grammys may definitely be worth streaming from wherever you are, and even if you don’t get a chance to watch them, the odds that you’ll hear about them are definitely in your favor.