Building a GOP Web

Sunday, April 29, 2007

The road to the White House for many Republicans in 2008 runs through Chattanooga, at least on the Internet.

GOP campaigns are paying Chattanooga-based Web companies millions of dollars this year to help host candidate and party Web sites, blast e-mails to party activists and provide video streaming of Republican political events. Jeff Averbeck, founder and majority owner of Airnet and Smartech in Chattanooga, said he expects the 2008 presidential campaign to help to double his company's revenues, which already have grown to more than $6 million.

"We have a lot of political consultants that now use us because of our record and relationships," he said. "Politics requires so much communication, and the Internet provides a very cost-effective way for candidates and campaigns to personally reach out to potential supporters."

From the basement of the Pioneer Building in downtown Chattanooga, Smartech and Airnet now host hundreds of domain sites and route up to 30 million e-mail blasts a week, Mr. Averbeck said.

Less than two miles to the south, another Chattanooga Web-based company, episode49, also is building a base of Republican Internet links. Ken Smith, president of episode49, recently landed a contract to manage online operations for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He is preparing plans for Web development work for several other potential GOP presidential contenders.

"It looks like 2008 is going to be very big for us," he said.

The Chattanooga companies have built their links from the initial software work the principals conducted for the Republican National Committee in 1998. Smartech, which at the time also included the owners of what is now episode49, helped the RNC get ready for the 2000 campaign when party officials were struggling with a software glitch, Mr. Averbeck said.

From their initial success and contacts, the owners of Smartech and episode49 have built nearly half of their respective Web businesses on Republican political business.

The GOP links continued even through the merger of Smartech into st3, a video streaming company that ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and shut down altogether in early 2002.

Despite the collapse of what was Chattanooga's biggest Internet venture, some of the principals involved in the company maintained their Republican business ties. They went on to resurrect a spun-off Smartech as a major Web and domain hosting venture and develop a new episode49 as a business and political Web development company.

Read the complete Chattanooga Times Free Press article: HERE.