Freddie O'Connell, Founder of SearchViz

'Search' is the name of the game these days, and it's a big part of why Freddie O'Connell is leaving Southcomm Communications.

On Friday, O'Connell will end his service as director of technology for Nashville Post Company and as Internet strategist for its parent, Southcomm.

Immediately, O'Connell is launching SearchViz, a startup that aims to help clients become more visible or "discoverable" in the searchable Internet universe.

SearchViz provides search-engine optimization (SEO), as it's known, as well as Internet marketing, Web-services integration and Web design.

O'Connell told VNC he will be focusing much of his effort on inbound marketing, which he described as relying less on traditional "push" promotional techniques, including traditional advertising and postal mailings, and more on the pull of discovery driven by the interests of consumers and stakeholders, themselves.

O'Connell explained it is essential that deployment, marketing and measurement of Web resources be integrated using analytic tools and techniques with the audience-generating power of social media, ranging from Facebook and Twitter, to instant-messaging.

Prior to his Southcomm tour, O'Connell's Optimized sole proprietorship also focused on open-source technology development and deployment and strategy for Internet users prior to the surge of social media.

Earlier, O'Connell was co-founder of Sitening, a Nashville web-development and search-engine optimization company; database architect and systems administrator for Sitemason, formerly known as MonsterLabs, a provider of hosted content-management and e-commerce solutions.

He played similar roles at Telalink, Nashville's first Internet service provider. O'Connell also credits early mentors at NCG Research/SolutionPoint for his early introduction to databases.

O'Connell knows life beyond the cube, as well. A native Nashvillian, 32-year-old O'Connell is co-founder with Mary Mancini of Great Minds Media LLC. The company produces Liberadio(!), a four-year-old talkshow focused on politics and airing on WRVU 91.1 FM at Vanderbilt University.

O'Connell's civic activities have included an unsuccessful 2002 run for the legislative seat held by State Rep. Beth Harwell of Nashville (R-56). He now serves on the executive committee of Generation Tennessee, and on the boards the Metropolitan Transit Authority, Walk/Bike Nashville and Belcourt Theatre.

O'Connell earned dual degrees at Brown University in music and computer science, in 2000. He is a graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy.

Note: On April 30, James Hanback, who was til then Southcomm's director of information technology, left the company. Hanback, who over the years had also served Village Voice, Nashville Scene and other media in IT roles, is now a content developer here for Boson Software LLC instructional materials.

Hanback and his wife have also launched an author services and publishing company, Two Peas Publishing. ♦