Online Optical gets Vision Monday award

[Chris Ryser]

Coastal Recognized as Industry Leader With Vision Monday(R) Award
Download this Press Release
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 23, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Coastal Contacts Inc. (TSX:COA) (Stockholm:COA) the world's largest online retailer of eyeglasses and contact lenses announced today it has received the Vision Monday® Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way Award for the most Daring Social Media or Web Presence.This award is part of Vision Monday's 1st Annual Dispensing and Retail Excellence (D.A.R.E.) Awards. Based in New York, Vision Monday® is the Ophthalmic Industry's Leading Source of News and News Analysis and is a division of Jobson Healthcare. We are pleased to receive this strong recognition from Vision Monday and to be part of the rapidly changing landscape in the optical industry," stated Roger Hardy, Coastal's Founder and CEO. "With more than one million Facebook™ friends and having recently shipped our one millionth pair of eyeglasses, Coastal has become the leader in the online eyeglasses category. The momentum continues to build as we added more than 180,000 new eyeglasses customers in the most recent quarter alone. "We look at our category and think there are many ways to improve. It lags in technological adoption for several reasons, but we are of the view that the category will accelerate its migration to use technology to better serve customers in ways that they want to be served over time. Technology is changing so fast, those who don't innovate will be left behind as so many old world retailers have already discovered. Innovation is a key part of our culture and it occurs at Coastal every day, all in the interest of better serving an increasing number of customers."

[bhess25]

theres the reason i dont pay any attention to vision monday.

[Uilleann]

Ooooooold news.

[Steve Machol]

Considering how large and how long OptiBoard has been running (since 1995), it's a bit odd that it has never received any awards, and as far as I know, any significant mention in the Optical press.

[optical24/7]

Considering how large and how long OptiBoard has been running (since 1995), it's a bit odd that it has never received any awards, and as far as I know, any significant mention in the Optical press.

It's because all the optical press are Bozo's!

Thanks Steve for all you do for all of opticianry!

[Barry Santini]

Considering how large and how long OptiBoard has been running (since 1995), it's a bit odd that it has never received any awards, and as far as I know, any significant mention in the Optical press.

Agreed!

B

[Jacqui]

Considering how large and how long OptiBoard has been running (since 1995), it's a bit odd that it has never received any awards, and as far as I know, any significant mention in the Optical press.

I also agree it should be winning more than some of the others.

[Chris Ryser]

Considering how large and how long OptiBoard has been running (since 1995), it's a bit odd that it has never received any awards, and as far as I know, any significant mention in the Optical press.

The optical press is a good and typical example of all the press. They live off advertising,..................... press releases are usually a free service they provide because they are industry news.

However that is where they also do discriminate between the hand that feeds them and the other that does not. They ignore the the real fact that actual informative news furthers their web presence by increasing their rankings. That is also why their standard news is that Mr XWZ has been nomintated by company 1234 as the VP for sales, while ignoring that the small company "somwhere" has just announced a revolutionary new concept.

OptiBoard however is competition to the old fashioned press that is slowly adapting to the open internet by having participating members that use it to publish opinions, good or bad, interesting or not and all of it for free. Steve who ventured into OptiBoard gets the respect from his members, but the income from the commercial sponsors that support OB. Also members can support OB by joining the "For Professionals only" where you can post real cost and prices and these posts can only be seen by paying members.

Having said that, I would also mention that OptiBoard has a much better and higher web ranking than any of the optical publications world wide. This is due to the instant transmission of the post's made on it. The optical world is watching what is said on OptiBoard and opinions good or bad are noticed by a large audience ............................even Google will transmit some of the post's minutes after they are made.

[Patrick888]

Only rich company can do "RICH" PR. Coastal is rich company. They send free eyeglasses to people.

[Striderswife]

Considering how large and how long OptiBoard has been running (since 1995), it's a bit odd that it has never received any awards, and as far as I know, any significant mention in the Optical press.

I think Eye Care Professional is the only trade mag I've seen mention Optiboard. :/

[LandLord]

It's because most don't admit in real life they read optiboard