The Boca Raton News - January 1996
And don't forget the Internet

Kim Bregman and Nancy Diamond run their business from a small office in Boca Raton, and everyday they get about 7,500 visitors.

Crowded? Not at all. Their business is kids' Camps, an Internet listing of children's summer camps, and the visitors are 'net users checking out the directory from personal-computer sites around the world.

Browsing the Kids' Camps directory is free, and summer camps can get on the basic list at no charge. Camps do pay to have Bregman and Diamond advertise them with an enhanced presentation that goes out on the World Wide Web, just as a business can get a free listing in a newspaper's calendar of events, but pays to have a full page advertisement.

At last count, Kids' Camps was listing more than 2,000 camps and doing web sites for 100. Its latest web site is for the New York State Camp Directors Association.

The directory lists camps according to several categories, from location to type of program, so users can find what they want more easily. Bregman and Diamond recently added a day-camp category, and are working on a specialty listing for camps dealing with Attention Deficit Disorder.

For the two entrepreneurs, the business is a perfect combination of personal experience, professional training and technological timing. Both are mothers who have had to find summer camps for their children. Bregman is a former employee in IBM's manufacturing and finance divisions, and Diamond has a background in marketing, public relations and graphic design. Both were interested in starting a business together.

"I'd been watching the Internet for some time," Bregman said. "When Compuserve, America Online and Prodigy gained access to it, I knew it was time to act."

They spent the summer getting the business organized and went on-line in October. They are in partnership with Internetwork Publishing of Boca Raton, which provides graphics, marketing and other support services.

Though they're in a cutting-edge field that uses sophisticated tools and dizzying technology, the women got started in a decidedly low-tech fashion: They spent the summer calling camps all over the country, talking them into joining the list. They called about 600 camps in all.