BubbleUp

BubbleUp is a privately held, award-winning Internet marketing agency and technology firm headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas. The company was established in 2004 by Radio Margaritaville pioneer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Coleman Sisson, along with two of his close associates, music industry veteran Lee Totten and software developer Mikhail Kozorovitskiy. In founding the company, Sisson envisioned bringing services and technologies that he had adopted early on as a senior advisor for noted musician Jimmy Buffett, such as Internet radio and music downloads, to the music industry at large.

Clients

The company is heavily associated with Jimmy Buffett and his corporate enterprise, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, which was named after Buffett's notable 1977 song Margaritaville. Historically, BubbleUp has catered to the entertainment industry, particularly high profile country and rock music acts, including respective genre staples Academy of Country Music and Ozzfest. Notable popular musicians Keith Urban, Zac Brown Band, Heart, Foreigner, Daryl Hall, and Clay Walker are among the company's clients. Recently, the organization representing well-known American songwriters Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, known collectively as Rodgers and Hammerstein, also became a member of the firm's portfolio. BubbleUp has also expanded into the health care and hospitality industries, establishing relationships with prominent, industry-recognized organizations Memorial Hermann Healthcare System and St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital.

Technology

At the time of BubbleUp's founding, many of today's core Internet and Web technologies, such as AJAX, remained in their infancy. Sisson and Kozorovitskiy, both proponents of open-source software, established a model in which community packages would be combined with powerful, purpose-built software developed in-house. As a result of their initiative, the firm has made notable open-source contributions that include payment modules for e-commerce backend osCommerce. Kozorovitskiy continues to provide direction for the company's core software development division.

Structure and Growth

Outside of BubbleUp's Texas-based headquarters, the company also maintains permanent offices in Nashville, Tennessee and New England. Initially, Sisson appointed former Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) manager Mike Newman to establish and grow the Nashville operation, a division of the company that he continues to lead today. Newman, serving as Vice President of Digital Media services, has also provided crucial leadership in establishing the company's new direction within the health care industry. Recently, as part of a corporate expansion to the Silicon Forest, BubbleUp recruited Belmont University adjunct professor Pinky Gonzales, a noted brand developer and digital strategist. Gonzales, who is also known for his work as part of the Google-sponsored Portland Incubator Experiment, now leads the company's Oregon division. Company co-founder and recording artist Totten continues to direct New England operations, which are focused primarily on design.