In the fall of 2006, major credit card companies joined forces in hopes of configuring a streamlined set of security standards that, when utilized by merchants, would seal off any remaining access to unauthorized data. The outcome is the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), a set of regulations intended to be followed by any and every merchant responsible for the processing, storing and/or exchanging of credit card data. When complied with, the Data Security Standard ensures the protection of all customer information throughout the transaction process and following the completed transaction.

VR Interactive is recommending that all of our clients review their credit card systems and consider the value of becoming PCI compliant. Read on to learn about the benefits of implementing this program with your own company.

• Why should my business become PCI Compliant?
• What are the PCI Regulations?
• What kind of expenses are associated with PCI compliancy?
• How important is it that small merchants comply?
• Want to learn more?

Why should my business become PCI Compliant?

These data security standards were devised to help merchants, no matter their size or volume of credit card transactions, avoid credit card fraud through improved regulation of information and its vulnerability to threat. Compliance with the PCI standard ensures that companies are yielding the strictest information security available for their customers’ protection. Following these guidelines guarantees that the merchant will avoid the high costs associated with credit card fraud and data violation, and will preserve the right to process credit card payments. Any merchant that chooses not to follow these regulations runs the high risk of accumulating fines associated with security breach and of losing the privilege to process credit card payments.

What are the PCI Regulations?

The PCI has specified twelve requirements necessary for complete compliance, they are organized into six categories:

What kind of expenses are associated with PCI Compliancy?

A recent study broke down the costs of becoming PCI compliant into three major categories: Upgrading Infrastructure, Verifying Compliance and Sustaining Compliance. The first cost relies heavily on the merchant’s existing infrastructure. While larger companies often already possess much of the necessary software, smaller merchants may find themselves lacking when deciding to become compliant. Therefore the process of purchasing the needed software and employing an IT professional to install and maintain these overtime, can be costly. The other expenses, which may not seem evident from the get-go, are those that arise not only from the security assessments required by the PCI Security Standards Council, but also from the maintenance of the standards, which are a key step to guaranteeing PCI Compliance. It is important to note that although the cost of becoming PCI compliant may appear rather high, the cost of non-compliance can easily be twenty times that of complying. For further detail on the costs associated with becoming PCI Compliance, be sure to read PCI Compliance Analysis: A Justified Expense by Solidcore Systems

How important is it that small merchants comply?

According to the PCI Security Standard Council, it is necessary that every merchant, no matter its size, comply with the PCI standard. Oftentimes it is the smaller merchants who fall prey to information hacking. According to Visa USA Inc, as of 2005, over 80% of the cases of illegal access to credit card information have been connected to smaller companies who remain unaware of the importance of and regulations required to truly secure credit card information. In spite of these facts, another Visa survey, which interviewed 600 merchants with less than 250 employees discovered that “52% of them were storing sensitive customer information”. Therefore it is crucial that all merchants comply with these standards in order to avoid not only the extreme costs associated with facilitating unauthorized access to data, but the ultimate possibility of being put out of business.

Want to learn more?

• PCI Security Standards Council: About the PCI Data Security Standard
• PCI Compliance Guide: FAQs and Myths
• Wikipedia: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards
• PCI Cost Analysis Report: A Justified Expense
• Q&A: Head of PCI council sees security standard as solid, despite breaches
• In Data Leaks, Culprits Often Are Mom, Pop : Credit-Card Industry Tries to Add Safeguards, Honest Errors Common

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100510/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc1977

We are well underway in development of both Android and iPhone applications, and hope to launch our first App in the next few weeks.

POW, created by Jeremy Jones in 2007, is a community of people committed to reversing the detrimental effects of global warming and climate change. This community consists of snowboarders, skiers, resorts, and corporations who put forth grassroots initiatives and widespread education efforts to protect our planet and save our snow.

If you love to ski, snowboard, or make snowmen, and you want to be able to do so for the next 30 years, please check out Protect Our Winters, or better yet become a partner, at www.protectourwinters.org.

Currently, POW is taking political action on a groundbreaking climate change bill before congress. Learn more at www.60daysto.org.

VR Interactive is a full service web site design shop located in Jackson Hole, WY. This is a great opportunity to jump into a fast paced established and growing web design firm. A large portion of our client base is outdoor, travel, and action sports oriented clients.

The Ideal Candidate:
We are looking for someone with 2+ years experience in web design. The ideal candidate shall display sincere attention to detail, the ability to self-motivate, creativity in solving problems, and shall demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of ground-up website deployment and web programming. Additionally, as we are a .net shop, an understanding of visual studio is preferred, and PHP/RUBY/Coldfusion programming is a plus.

The Ideal candidate will be competent in all of the following topics:
• WebServer Maintenance and Deployment
• CSS/HTML standards
• AJAX/Advanced JavaScript implementation
• SEO Conventions and analysis
• Database Development

Position Responsibilities:

-This position requires the ability to multi-task and meet deadlines, while being detail-oriented, and showing the ability to work in a fast paced environment.
-Foster a collaborative working environment, and encourage new ideas from the team for both internal and external projects.
-Convert graphical designs into web pages and emails.
-Build out .net / PHP components for Content Management systems
-Design and Deploy mobile applications

QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:

Ability to hand code W3C compliant – HTML, CSS, XHTML, XML
Solid understanding and expertise with XHTML, CSS, cross-browser/platform issues
Experience managing webservers and webserver technologies
Experience in JavaScript and JavaScript libraries (Prototype, JQuery).
2 + years experience with MYSQL, PHP, or ASP.NET
2 + years experience with Photoshop, illustrator and Adobe full adobe suit.
Knowledge of Office applications (Word, Excel, Access)
Previous experience with implementations of large-scale business web sites

PLUS FACTORS:

Previously working for an interactive agency, design studio or adverting agency.
Passion for Web 2.0. – Social Media outlets and social media marketing
Experience with Flash and Action Script
Experience developing and deploying mobile applications
Experience with web services and WCF

For more information, email brian@vri.me

In the fall of 2009 VR Interactive was hired to execute a social media marketing campaign for the independent documentary ski film Swift.Silent.Deep. Producers Jon “JK” Klaczkiewicz and Troy Beauchamp wanted to get the word out to the ski community about their new, critically acclaimed movie that tells the story of a group of renegade skiers from Jackson Hole. VR Interactive tackled the task and, in the process, designed an effective social media marketing strategy that works for almost all businesses. Below is a summary of the work we did to ensure the public heard about the film, talked about the film, liked the film and then, of course, bought the film.

The concept of social media marketing

When people talk, they talk passionately about the things they like and the things they dislike. Almost every day on the Internet people endorse or denounce products and services that they interact with. In this sense, each individual, including yourself, is acting as a mini-marketing firm or public relations executive. Through Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Internet forums everyone in the world has a proverbial soap box that they can stand on top of and sound-off on what they think is cool and what they think, well, sucks. Through this collective conversation, the cream rises to the top.

No longer can companies claim to be the best at what they do through generic slogans, banners, magazine and TV ads. These days, the people will decide if your company is good or not and that word will spread fast. The upside to this is that if you do good things, the people will love you and word will spread virally. People will become a fan of your company on Facebook, join your online group and tell everyone they know about your business. In the end, you will have direct contact with them – a far better outcome than wondering if anyone saw your newspaper ad, or heard your radio commercial.

Of course, creating quality posts, having clout in forums, getting bloggers attention, making sure your business or product gets mentioned in every nook and cranny of the Internet, takes time. That is where VR Interactive steps in.

Our social media marketing angle

The goal for the Swift.Silent.Deep social media campaign was to let the ski community know about the film and to get the ski community talking about it in a positive way. To achieve this, we systematically identified every ski related blog, forum, Twitter account and Facebook group out there, and  joined in on the discussion. The idea was to mention Swift.Silent.Deep as much as possible in a natural, non-SPAM way in order to keep the topic relevant. We linked, posted pictures and video and made sure that we were always providing good, relevant information, quality content, for the people.

Relevance is key. With so much content floating on the Internet it is important for your product to be the cream. What we tried to do, and were successful at, was keeping the conversation going to optimize search engine results. In doing that, people who are not even part of the conversation, who were unaware of Swift.Silent.Deep. but were, say, interested in watching a ski movie,  stumbled upon this fantastic film through search engines.

We exponentially  increased the film’s Youtube trailer views, increased the number of Facebook fans, updated the fan page daily, made lasting relationships with bloggers, got reviews posted on highly visited ski-related Web sites, and in the end, increased sales  – the bottom line.

If you are interested in a similar Social Media campaign for your business, contact us and we will use our existing strategies combined with your ideas and goals to design a program that fits your needs.

- VR Interactive

Here we work on Mac books and PCs; we have external hard drives chalk full of work and operate on multiple computer screens all at once. We even have a sticker making machine. Multiple dogs roam the office and if we’re tired of our steady burrito diet, we can walk across the street for supermarket sushi. No wonder two other stellar companies occupied this space before us. It’s great, feel free to stop by and check us out.

From this central location, near the corner of Broadway and Highway 22, we can get in and out of town with ease. Whether your business be on the town square, the west bank, or west africa, we can get to you and help you out with all of your web design, branding e-commerce or web-marketing needs. Here in the office, we have all the tools to operate conference calls around the world and can easily host medium sized presentations on our a high definition projector.

We welcome you to explore this site. Take a look at our portfolio, see what we’ve done in the past and think about how we can help you in the future. If you see any past work that you are interested in, or are wondering how we can help you formulate a solid web presence, feel free to contact us.

Be sure to check back in to this blog to find out about the new and upcoming projects we’re working on.

Cheers,

VR Interactive Media

Teton Gravity Research

TGR began in 1995 and was founded by 4 friends who were passionate about the mountains and ocean. The vision was to put out products that came from the athletes’ perspective, and that were more representative of the youth and progressions that were taking place in action sports. The company was founded by Steve Jones, Todd Jones, Corey Gavitt, and Dirk Collins with money they had earned from commercial fishing in Alaska.

TGR has been a long time client of VR Interactive. Their website is the most progressive action sports website in the industry. The TGR forum is one of the most visited on the internet.

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Project Components

• Custom Content Management system
• Ad management system
• CDN – Content Delivery Network for Streaming HD Video
• Web 2.0 Community – Video, Picture, Blog and profile for community Members
• On-line Store – BV Commerce Customization
• Pro-Shop – Affiliate Store

Jones Snowboards

Grand Targhee Resort

Grand Targhee Resort is a year round mountain resort situated on the western slope of the Tetons in Alta, Wyoming.

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Jackson Hole Central Reservations

Jackson Hole Central Reservations has been Jackson Hole Wyoming’s official travel source for over 40 years.

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