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THANK YOU to our first half-a-million Facebook fans! We are excited about and challenged by your interest in what we do, your comments and your feedback!

With over 2.5 million page views per month on our site, the most popular articles generating more than 8 million views, 168,000 newsletter subscribers and 123,500 followers on Twitter, what else can we do but work even harder, and to say Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! - Bill TIkos

Illustration by Fernando Volken Togni.

Our work has a side effect that we did not anticipate when we started TCH in 2004. We have been clear from the beginning that we do not follow or predict trends – we trust our own instincts and feature what we feel deserves to be featured. But what we did not predict is that we seem to be creating trends.
 
We have created a trend of success for the creatives, designers, architects, artists, brands and entrepreneurs we have featured on our pages. And giving them the exposure and attention they did not previously enjoy, we may have created trends that include their work, their style and their ideas.
 
Each week we receive excited emails from the individuals and brands we have featured reporting massive spikes in traffic on their websites and an avalanche of international enquires from agencies, retailers and other potential customers wanting to know how they can get their hands on their work.
 
Most report being inundated with enquiries from the international media - major magazines and newspapers who rely on The Cool Hunter and other great blogs to find content for their pages.
 
It's all part of the blog effect that has revolutionized the global media and the practice of journalism. Print can no longer compete in terms of reporting information first. By the time newspapers and magazines hit the news-stands their content is already old news, hence why you subscribe to our newsletter for free.
 
Bloggers are setting media agendas and have become a crucial resource for other media, who rely on blogs to supply raw, uncensored, immediate information.
 
We also experience this first-hand every day when we receive emails from major publications asking us for high-res images and more information on posts, which we then see covered in their pages weeks later.
 
The world's most powerful mastheads, the Vogues, Vanity Fairs, BBC, CNN and New York Times' of the world, have had to accommodate the increasingly influential blogs, with whom they now compete not just for news but for advertising dollars as growing slices of marketing budgets are being funneled into the blogosphere.

Google validates the blog influence. As just one example, our recent post on Castello di Vicarello in Tuscany, Italy ranks as one of the top three posts on the property. This means that when anyone in the world does a Google search on Castello di Vicarello, the very first review they see is ours.
 
The bottom line is that blogs reach more people than print media.
 
Here at The Cool Hunter, we are happy to report that much of the benefit of our influence as an information source flows straight back to the people and brands we feature.
 
For the past six years we've endeavoured to bring you the most inspiring stuff from across the globe and we are thrilled that the exposure we have given has helped launch careers, build media profiles or taken businesses to a global level.
 
TCH is the world's most-read culture and design site, a leading authority on all things creative and a truly global hub for what's cool, thoughtful, innovative and original.
 
We thought we'd share some of these stories with you from a selection of random posts.

"Almost immediately after TCH featured my paper sculptures, my email inbox became flooded with inquiries of every type. From magazine interviews, books and blogs, to a live radio interview in South Africa and a TV show on Fuji Television in Japan showing my sculptures. Inquiries have also included invitations to have exhibitions in Taiwan, China and Moscow, private commissions, and ad campaigns.

I was totally blown away by the power of the internet and the reach that TCH has to every corner of the World. Literally! Paris, London, Italy, Poland, Prague, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, India, Amsterdam, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, Finland, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, USA ... I'm sure I missed someone. :)

I've been making paper sculptures for more than 28 years now, had exhibitions in Japan, China and the US. But never have I ever gotten this much attention before and probably never would have if not for TCH! Thank you TCH! I am humbled and filled with gratitude." Jeff Nishinaka

"The first symptom was a peak of high fever in the statistics, followed by a rash of e mails : a flush of enthusiastic feed back as enquiries erupted from everywhere.

Then the epidemic reached the Store with a regular stream of reproduction orders, before hitting the international press. A flurry of  interviews from South Africa, London, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, USA.

Then it spread into work opportunities: Diadora shoes advertising in Italy, Burton snowboard, Music artists requests for CD covers.

And even though we get contacts from all over the world, it seems that the fever holds on as the high température is maintained through a constant flow of Australian contacts.

That’s part of the visible Coolhunter effect and I don’t want to be cured ! Thanks to Coolhunter and it ‘s team, and congratulation for having created such an extensive and powerful web of art and beauty addicts around the world". Francoise Neilly



Within 48 hours of being featured in this post Amsterdam-based architecture and interior design group i29 was flooded with emails from design publications around the world including Frame Mag (Netherlands), Monitor Mag (Russia) Elle Decoration (Romania) CASE da Abitare (Italy), LOFT publications (Spain) BOB magazine (Korea), GULF interiors (Dubai) De Architect (Netherlands), ONoffice (UK) Cover Magazine (Venezuela), Sisustajalehti (Finland) Vivenda (Netherlands) Maru Magazine (Korea) and plenty of other print media and numerous design blogs.





Dutch architects and interior designers Uxus recieved a "tenfold" increase in traffic to their website after we featured their project Merus Winery in California. Uxus was flooded by queries from magazines around the world, including Wallpaper (UK), Noblese Mag (Korea), Marie Claire (Brazil), GQ India, Casa Da Abitare (Italy) FX Mag (UK), Absolute Marbella (Spain), Home Journal Mag (Hong Kong), ID Mag (USA), The Shorlist (UK), Future Laboratory (UK) and many more.





"I have received tons of inquiry e-mails from all over the world with regard to my collection after your feature. Several people ordered hats. I assume the order volume would have been quite a bit higher, though, had my online shop been up already.
 
It has been interesting to see that the inquiries also came from very far away places – Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Korea, Israel (in addition to the US, UK, Belgium, etc.). Since I have had a lot of good press in Europe (especially the UK) and in the US and UK for instance through the publications in the respective Vogues I was quite used getting mails and orders from Europe and the US. But before your feature I had definitely fewer attention from the aforementioned other areas.
 
In total, the visitors on my page are up by 100-200% at the moment". Rike Feurstein



"For the month after we were written about in thecoolhunter.net, I watched the history of Europe unfold in my inbox. At the time we only had UK shipping enabled, and I was getting emails every day: he said 'How can you ship to England but not Germany?' and then 'You ship to Germany but not Poland?!' Now we’re in Luxembourg and the Czech Republic and Slovenia. We just enabled shipping to Colombia." Andy Dunn - Bonobos Founder



"Being on The Cool Hunter has resulted in a handful of opportunities - the NYTimes being one of them. After my work was posted on the site and I was commissioned to design an image for the cover of New York Times real estate magazine. My exposure on The Cool Hunter has allowed me to quit my day job." Andy Gilmore



"It’s because thanks too The Cool Hunter I’ve been featured in over 50 magazines that can be viewed on my website under editorials on the information page. The lights even ended up in Argentinean Playboy! Along that I also have generated many jobs within Australia, many o/s enquiries and an actual job in San Francisco.
 
I’m about to move out of my studio in my garage into a real studio which allows me to employ staff, too as business is growing fast and I desperately need more space as well as extra hands. So I can’t begin to tell you how much I thank you for making me famous!" Volker Haug



"The opportunities that thecoolhunter.net feature has provided me are beyond what I could have ever imagined. Not only did it kick start my career as an artist, but it did so almost overnight. I’m a graphic artist for network TV as my day job and fine art was solely a hobby. The day the feature came out I literally woke up, looked at my phone and had about 100 emails asking for information about the piece.  Within a couple of weeks the stats for my website showed over 300 other websites linking to me and nearly a half million visitors to my site from over 60 countries. 

I was written up in a number of international publications and was offered paid corporate speaking engagements such as at Disney animation. I just completed my first solo gallery show but have also had my artwork featured at 2 additional art galleries in group exhibitions. Additionally, I am working on commissioned pieces for international buyers all of whom found me on thecoolhunter.net. Currently my art is being considered for a feature film in which it would appear in a high end home. I am also about to show some pieces in homes for sale in the 10 million dollar plus price range.

There are no words I can use to express my gratitude for the exposure that you have provided for me." Matt Bilfield, artist



"Being featured on The Coolhunter has certainly increased awareness and understanding of Aesop to a very appropriate and progressive audience. Posts have resulted in communication with Case Da Abitare, Harpers Bazaar, Virgin Blue Voyeur, Surface, DIDD (industry), GDR (industry), A4 (Poland), Attitude (Portugal), BMW Magazine (Germany). Belle (Australia), Marie Claire (Australia), Cubes (Singapore) too many to list." Indi Davis - Aesop

"When TCH approached us to feature Saffire Freycinet on their website, we were thrilled. We understood the power of endorsement from such a popular brand and were happy to have founder Bill Tikos stay with us in our opening week. What we weren’t prepared for was the response to his post. The number of times his glowing review was re-blogged throughout the world was astounding. We have had media requests from as far a field as Mexico and Brazil, as well as throughout Europe and Asia, and we have no doubt that the far-reaching communications of The Coolhunter extended our brand beyond our wildest dreams considering we were within the first month of operation.” Matt Casey, General Manager". Saffire Freycinet

"The response from across the world to the images of my sculptures after being posted on TCH has been beyond amazing! As well as several actual books and and on line magazines picking up on the work worldwide, I have also recently been offered the chance to show some work at the Royal Academy with the ‘Sketch’ organisation. I have also just met (in London) curators from New York who are planning collaborations in New York Germany and Istanbul. The Cool Hunter is experienced by them as cutting edge in cultural terms and they watch it’s output regularly. The ripple effect of the posting is still on and looks likely to do so  probably well into the future. I now have work ‘within the same general  walls’ as Tracey Emin, Sophie Calle, Anthony Gormley, Stuart Hagarth (Haunch of Venison Gallery) . which is being seen by their audiences. It’s been great and thank you!". Robert Bradford.

"Ever since being featured on The Cool Hunter, interest in my work has increased massively. I've been contacted by several people from students, other designers and design blogs to magazines, books and brands, which have lead to some successful commissions with great clients. Other than my own personal work and portfolio site, The Cool Hunter has also helped my additional online project Random Got Beautiful gain a lot of attention. I now get photo submissions every week for the site. Although I was featured over a year ago and again several months ago, I still receive a high proportion of visits from The Cool Hunter site. The exposure has been very significant. Thanks a lot! - Nikki Farquharson"

Forget thinking outside the box. Forget the box. Where brands need to go today, there is no box.

As consumers, we are all skeptical, cynical and tired of being marketed at. We crave relevance, value, real connection, engagement, something surprising, an experience. And we crave entertainment that is worth our while. The success of Avatar, Toy Story 3, Cirque du Soleil or the iPad, or the virtual runaways of Evian Rollerbabies or Old Spice, testify that no matter how depressed the economy, how uncool conspicuous consumption, we happily spend our hard-earned money and our scarce time on entertainment, products, ideas and campaigns that pick us up, dazzle us, and give us more that we imagined.

With social media, the experience economy has exploded to cover every type of brand, nearly all socio-economic groups, and almost every part of the world. Everything has sped up and amplified. By the time traditional marketing catches up to an idea, the leading edge of consumers has seen it somewhere already, moved on, and told everyone else about it.

Now more than ever before, brands need to be fast, smart and way ahead of the curve to speak directly and engagingly to each consumer segments. That's where Access comes in.

This week, TCH launches TCH Singapore which joins our list of geo-targeted sites - TCH UK and TCH AUS.

A big welcome also to our Brazilian readers. As of this week, TCH will have a weekly column in O Estado de S. Paulo, one of the most important newspapers in Brazil with a daily readership of 1 million.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the numerous print magazines/newspapers that have published feature stories on TCH and our numerous projects.

We're getting ready to launch the real estate portal of TCH next month - The Cool Hunter Living, an uber-luxe real estate listings portal which connects vendors to a discerning, hard-to-reach market of high-income architecture and design aficionados.

For the first time, The Cool Hunter Living gives vendors access to this hard-to-reach market. The site also offers vendors an unparalleled opportunity to “position” their properties amongst the best and most luxurious in the world, endorsed by the highly-credible voice of The Cool Hunter, which has become a global authority on design.



The Cool Hunter Living offers technology savvy agents and vendors a new way to market their properties in a “designer” online environment, unlike other ‘real estate’ sites which are pitched at a mainstream audience and offer low value aesthetics in terms of site design.

TCH Living showcases properties in an unparalleled design-led, online-editorial environment positioned amongst the world's great architecture and design. Properties will be hand picked by our editorial team. For pricing, more info - contact [email protected]
 


We'll also be adding rentals and commercial properties, so next time you find yourself in a new city setting up an office and home, you'll have to look no further than TCH Living - a gateway to inspiring design you live in.

TCH wins best culture blog for 2007 & 2008!

It's official. We are proud to announce that we have won the Best Culture Blog category at the Weblog Awards for 2008. We are thrilled to take out the prize, our second, after also winning the same category at last year's awards.



A huge thank you to all of our very progressive and active readers who voted for us. We thank you for supporting us. We look forward to continuing to inform and inspire you with our finds.



Pics via TCH Platinum

The web's most read culture, architecture and design site will soon launch in early 09, The Cool Hunter Living, an uber-luxe real estate listings portal which connects vendors to a discerning, hard-to-reach market of high-income architecture and design aficionados.

Since its inception in 2004, thecoolhunter.net has amassed a global readership consisting of close to 1 million unique visitors a month who visit the site for the absolute latest in innovation and inspiration in all disciplines of design - from the most awe-inspiring architecture to the coolest new artists and products. 

The site's subscriber list reads like a who's-who of the international design, media, fashion, architecture and publishing industries. For the first time, The Cool Hunter Living gives vendors access to this high end market. The site also offers vendors an unparalleled opportunity to "position" their properties amongst the best and most luxurious in the world.



Also, in 09, we'll launch The Cool Hunter Hotel booking service, an online store, global job lists, Cool Hunter TV, magazine, retail stores and some major offline events. We’re eager to see our efforts translated into major global markets such as India, China, Japan, Singapore, Italy, Brazil and more. STAY TUNED!

New site designed by TCH Design

The World's Coolest Hotel Rooms - the first in a series of the cool hunter-branded books has just been published by Harper Collins Publishers (US). Next in the line will be The World's Coolest Houses, The World's Most Creative Work Environments, The World's Most Innovate Retail Stores, The World's coolest kids spaces/playgrounds and a few other special book projects.