Wikipedia Link -Dash's Market

Here is the link to my finished wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash%27s_Market

Wikipedia: Dash's Market

Info:

Dash’s Market is a small family owned and operated supermarket chain located in New York State. Dash’s has four locations throughout the Buffalo area and was started over 88 years ago. http://www.buffalonews.com/business/article514813.ece

The Dash’s on Hopkins and West Klein is known as the central location. Previous experiences pushed President Joe Dash to centralize the baking in order to avoid inconsistency of products.

All four locations include an in-store bakery and a Spot Coffee café. They also provide a simple meal opportunity by offering “Dinner in a Dash”, where customers can order some popular dishes to take home.

Dash’s is well known for their Famous Friday Fish Fry, as well as the ability to cater to large parties.

Dash’s is all about the customer experience. People are able to sign up for text message alerts notifying them of weekly deals, along with occasional coupons.

“Our goal at Dash's Market has been to create a shopping experience that combines the convenience of a smaller, more user-friendly store with great prices, while offering unique products and services and superior customer service.”

History:

Joseph and Mary Dash began the business in 1923, and have handed it down two generations. Joe Dash, the current owner and operator of Dash’s Markets is a third-generation grocer. The first Dash’s store was opened by his father, Frank, around 1955. The Dash family also had one of the first Tops franchise, turning it from a small store to an employer of almost 1,000 people.

However, the franchise was sold back to Tops in 2003 and since then, Joe has opened four Dash’s locations.

http://www.amherstbee.com/news/2010-11-03/Business/Dashs_Markets_gives_back_to_community.html

“We had to figure out how to take a new brand out onto the street that hasn’t been around, competing against some of the best supermarket competition in the world in Tops and Wegmans,” said Dash.

http://www.buffalonews.com/business/article514813.ece#comments

Community Involvement:

Joe has carried on his family’s tradition of generosity by helping various clubs and organizations.

The Tape Saver Program allows people to accumulate receipts and provides $3.50 for every $100 of the receipt tape value to nonprofit groups for them to use at their discretion. There are hundreds of organizations involved. Mark Mahoney, director of operations, said the store chain is also a big supporter of the Check Out Hunger Campaign, which assists the Food Bank of Western New York, and the 5K Dash for Dad, a race to help eliminate prostate cancer.

It supports other organizations such as Kids Escaping Drugs and the American Heart Association.

http://www.amherstbee.com/news/2010-11-03/Business/Dashs_Markets_gives_back_to_community.html

Dinner in a Dash:

One of the first things Dash and Mahoney did when they returned to Buffalo was to hire Chef Sean Van Volkenburg, who had been chef at a locally revered, four-star restaurant.

Unlike most supermarkets, Dash's always devotes an entire page in its ad circular to its fresh, prepared foods.

Headlined “Dinner in a Dash,” the page offers a huge variety of prepared foods, and different ways to buy them — by the pound, by the each, by the plate. “Dash's famous stuffed banana peppers” and other enticing entrees sold by the pound are advertised. At least three “family meals” to serve four, for $13.99, have a top spot in the ad.

The temerity it took to launch a long menu of chef-prepared foods just down the street from Wegmans — known throughout the industry for its hot meals and prepared-food programs — has continued to pay off.

“Our prepared-food sales have grown every year, including last year,” Dash said. “We didn't react [to tough economic times] by lowering prices, or quality or portion sizes, and still we did well.”

Last year before Lent, some customers had suggested that Dash's offer a tavern- or pub-style fish fry, but Dash said he was a little reluctant because he was “afraid the store would smell like hot oil.”

Apparently hot oil didn't bother anybody, because after a trial in one store, it was full speed ahead for the Wednesday and Friday fish fries.

“It worked so well there, that we quickly put it in all four stores. Now we're mobbed on Wednesdays and Fridays all day long. [The fry runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.] And sales are double what they were a year ago.”

Dash and Mahoney see their success with the meals business continuing to prosper. For one thing, consumers are not going to become less busy, they said.

“We'll continue to grow this part of our business disproportionately,” Dash said.

“We've already allocated more physical space for it, and it will be a larger part of our business going forward. We'll put more capital into it because we see a great future for hot prepared food to go and for grab-and-go.”

Seafood:

Dash’s seafood is delivered weekly from Hawaii and Boston, but finding a fresh source, keeping it fresh, and minimizing waste is a difficult task.

“We’ve always worked with third party companies, but I’ve never been a big fan of that arrangement,” said Dash.

Joe has hired two sushi chefs in order to gain control over the quality of the product and its ingredients. It took only two weeks before the sushi sales doubled as a result of the new chefs.

http://www.buffalonews.com/business/article514813.ece

Bakery:

Led by manager Penny George, the bakery is a cyclic, constant process. Keeping the floor filled with bread, cakes, pastries, muffins, bagels and doughnuts is not a simple task. The bakers are in the store overnight preparing the baked goods, which will be ready and shipped to the other location early in the morning.

Locations:

Clarence

8845 Main St. Clarence, NY 14221

phone: (716)-650-2888

fax: (716)-650-2890

Hours: Open daily 6am-11pm

North Buffalo

1770 Hertel Ave.

Buffalo, NY 14216

Phone: (716)-835-3082

Fax: (716) 834-9307

Hours: Open daily from 7am to 10pm

East Amherst

499 West Klein Rd.

East Amherst, NY 14221

Phone: (716) 204-0386

Fax: (716) 204-0433

Hours: Open daily 7am to 11pm

Tonawanda

1210 Covlin Blvd.

Tonawanda, NY 14217

Phone: (716) 874-1989

Fax: (716) 873-5277

Hours: Open daily 7am to 10 pm

Journalistic View of Web 2.0

Before the internet existed, news and information were delivered in completely different ways. Some people relied on the 6 o'clock newscast every day, or reading the newspaper each morning, but that has changed because of Web 2.0.

Journalists are seeing that newspapers are dying and moving to the internet websites. Why is this happening?

In today's world, news is 24/7 because people want the news NOW. Web 2.0 has made everything more and more user-friendly to the point where daily televised newscasts are not enough. Newspapers are not enough. People want their information as fast as they can get it, and this makes it extremely challenging for journalists.

Journalists are supposed to be a source for breaking news, but that doesn't always happen. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are often ways people find out news. Whether it is accurate or not, anybody can post something and the word will spread within minutes.

What many journalists are doing is creating an account on Twitter to get their news out there first. This is a huge issue in social media. If a journalist has breaking news, their job may not only be to report it, but to write a story about it and link readers to the publication's website.

The first person to report the breaking news will likely be able to get more readers to click the link and go to the website. However, timing is impeccable and doesn't always guarantee success in this case.

What if their information is inaccurate or doesn't include the full story. The issue that journalists are having is trying to post first, but still be completely accurate and high-quality. One mistake could crush one's credibility.

"The reality is that news no longer breaks; it tweets. Some 200 million people learn about breaking events as they happen, triggering a network effect that demonstrates the reach and velocity of social physics. The human network is becoming a force, a distribution network that rivals traditional newswires." (From buisnessweek.com).

Below are a couple of charts that illustrate how information circulated before and after Twitter. (These were found on arkarthick.com). If you click on the images, they should get larger and easier to read.

The charts above illustrate that the news spreads much faster than it did prior to Twitter.

Twitter Co-Founder, Biz Stone, shared his opinion on Journalism and Twitter during an interview with Rory O'Connor from the Huffington Post.

"We think that social media is largely comparable to traditional approach, in that credibility is key. In the future, social media tools will help the news media know such things as the location of the person reporting, we will be able to provide a social graph of our users... Can we then triangulate about their credibility via algorithm? We can certainly begin to get very sophisticated on credibility with new tools, and combine that with journalists leveraging open systems such as ours to find and vet crowd sources, story leads, etc."

Twitter has made a huge impact on Journalism and continues to be possibly the biggest source for breaking news. I believe that news organizations should use Twitter to their benefit to inform and update their readers faster.

Again, people, including myself, want news as soon as it happens. We can now get updates when we are away from the computer, using our phones as a source of receiving news, thanks to apps. All of it is user-friendly as you can control who you follow on Twitter and what kind of news updates you want to receive.

It truly is amazing how much of an impact a simple social network can have on journalists and news organizations. As we continue to progress, I believe Twitter will become more useful and beneficial for journalistic purposes.

What is Web 2.0?

After reading a bit about, it seems to me that Web 2.0 cannot be defined by a single definition, but rather, a set of characteristics. Web 2.0 is a step above what websites originally were. I feel that many websites were created to share news and information, but now, they have become so much more.

Most websites are becoming more and more user-centered, where the user is able to customize what they want to see. For example, a news site is loaded with the latest info, but maybe one viewer is only interested in the sports section. They would be able to customize the page so sports would appear first or be the only section they see. Creating websites that are user friendly can be extremely beneficial.

User centered could also be adding different ways to login using social media networks. Facebook and Twitter are the most popular and it allows users to login faster using their profile that is already put together.

Anybody can post something on the internet today, which has been how news has been broken. Websites like Twitter can relay information fast, allowing contributors to beat reporters to the punch. The one problem that arises from that is how accurate the people that post it are. They cannot always be trusted, which is why it's safer to learn it from actual reporters.

Contributors are the reason Wikipedia has grown so rapidly. Anyone can update and add to it, but it makes for a much faster process when everyone is working together. There are pages for pretty much anything, and the amount of detail on them continues to improve. Wikipedia may not always be accurate, as anyone can post, but it has definitely become a good place to start when researching.

Another thing that has really helped some websites take off is dynamic content. I feel that adding things more than text can really improve the appearance of a site. Whether it's photos, videos, polls or slideshows, users can interact more, allowing them visit more.

Web 2.0 is a sense of freedom, and it comes with great opportunities, but also some consequences. The information that users submit is not always safe, so people need to be cautious when entering data on a site.

Many websites are able to make profit off of advertisements and selling things. EBay and ITunes are just a couple of example of how the companies make money. Even if they are not selling things directly, they are able to collect a portion of the sale.

I think it's going to continue to improve. I'm not exactly sure how, but it will. Paywalls have been talked about for a while and I think you will see more and more sites begin charging people to read their material. However, the down side to that is if people can find your stuff anywhere else, or for free, there is a good chance they won't go to your site.

Web 2.0 has improved the internet, but it is causing many new problems that we are still trying to solve.

Where the internet began for me and how useful it has become

I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I'm pretty sure I was in middle school at the time. I got off the bus and walked into the house and in the corner of the room, I saw a brand new Dell computer all set up. I was so excited when I heard that we also bought the dial up AOL internet.

Since the dial up tied up the phone line, me and my siblings were only allowed to go on at certain times. We were each awarded one hour of internet time per day.

I didn't really have anything in mind that as to what websites I wanted to go on. AOL instant messenger and email seemed to be the coolest thing at the time.

The main thing I used it for was to send electronic greeting cards to my Grandma, who was at work. Everyone used it for a different reason, but it was rarely used for homework purposes.

After that, computers and the internet became more and more important each year, and they continue to do so.

Once I graduated from high school in 2006, I bought myself my own laptop and that's when I really started seeing what the internet could do.

I began playing around with a website I made, just seeing how nice I could make it look. Since then, I have upgraded it, and made it a much more professional looking site. It's a Buffalo Sabres website that covers the team, and I have fun with it.

At sabreshockeycentral.com, it's a place where I can write articles and build up a following. Since I am going to school for journalism, the website has already helped me get a few jobs. I've never taken a class that taught me about code or websites.

Over the past few years, I've taught myself what to do to improve the site and I've even learned some code. I know some basic PHP, CSS, and HTML just by watching what I am doing in the visual editor.

Wordpress has come up with a simple way to publish and easy to get used to.

It's amazing how important and useful the internet has become for me, and how much information is actually out in the cyber world.

Over the last couple of years, I have used social media to build up and promote my site. Facebook and Twitter have been a huge help and I never realized how useful they could becoming in promoting my own site.

The technological advances in general, have amazed me since I was a little kid. I remember going to my Grandma's and playing Oregon Trail or the pinball game that was on a CD-ROM.

Now, I use the internet on a daily basis. With the IPhone, I have internet wherever I go and can get the latest news as soon as it is posted. It's amazing and I didn't think it would impact my life in so many different ways.