Brief History of Nick Ray Ball and Cape Villas.com

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Brief History of Nick Ray Ball and Cape Villas.com

1971 to 2013

As Cape Town Luxury Villas , was created from the website CapeVillas.com and includes it’s sizeable portfolio of properties, Cape Villas history and the history of Cape Town Luxury Villas developer Nick Ray Ball are relevant.

brief-history-nick-ray-ball-cape-villas

Born in Belgravia, London in 1971, Nick Ray Ball a Cubase network programmer by trade, emigrated to Cape Town and started developing websites in 1999. By 2002 he developed the world’s first Virtual Tour in Adobe Flash and used the technology to create a commercial website www.CapeVillas.com

In 2004 Cape Villas.com recorded significant income, and Nick Ray swopped hats from web developer to operational CEO. By 2007 Cape Villas became the undisputed market leader and had the largest portfolio of villas in Cape Town.

cape-villas-2002-2016

However, by 2011 the lack an efficient CRM or financial systems became a source of great frustration to Nick Ray.

So in 2011 Nick Ray decided to return to his programming roots and made plans to design a superior website framework, with integrated software that would gain momentum in Cape Town and set the groundwork for a global villas network, called ‘Villa Secrets’

But before starting on the actual development, a very detailed business development plan was created on the websites: S-World.biz & American Butterfly.

More on the History of Nick Ray Ball and Cape Villas

More on Nick Ray Ball
From CEO to Systems Architect
34 Years of Code
Villa Adventures
Marketing and Branding
String Theory & Networks and Networking

From CEO to Systems Architect

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Nick Ray Ball - From CEO to Systems Architect

Nick Ray Ball – From CEO to System Architect.

By Krissy Cabrera 11th March 2016

Born in Belgravia, London in 1971, worked as a programmer and web designer until 2002, when he became CEO and marketer of Cape Villas.com. In 2011 Nick Ray retired to focus full time on the design for Software & Systems that would improve the business.

The combination of his experiences make him uniquely qualified to build a next generation software system for the Vacation Rental industry.

Nick Ray Ball was Born in Belgravia, London in 1971, worked as a Cubase  programmer until 1999 when he swooped to Web Design & Development. Nick Ray has Experience in: System Architecture, Villa Rentals & Marketing, alongside creating a stellar network hypothesis.

Nick Ray Ball – String Theory, Networks and Networking

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Nick Ray Ball – String Theory, Networks and Networking

Nick Ray Ball – String Theory, Networks and Networking

By Nick Ray Ball 13th March 2016

The elasticity of String Theory & The Theory of Everything explained as never before, ‘a network of companies, within a next generation Software Framework’

String Theory, Chaos Theory, The Higgs Boson and The Theory of Everything, explained as ‘strings of companies, given power by the S-World/Villa Secrets Network.’

But before the particle physics, some network history. Which in a way started in 1991 and ran till 1999 as a part of Nick Ray’s job as a Cubase programmer was to create Midi networks. However the first, almost global network was nearly created in 2004.

Lux Guides – Virtual Travel Network – 2004

S-World and Villa Secrets stem from a global networking project called Lux Guides.com in 2004, which was the global title for the CapeTownGuide.com & the SouthAfricanGuide.com which were the first working virtual tour websites created using Flash and JavaScript.

Having already made a deal with SA’s only satellite TV network to present the tours on their digital channels, the objective was to connect to Galileo GDS to bring online booking of hotels onto the website.

Quite a lot of work was put in and interesting partners were made along the way, but in the end, the project did not get off the ground, and worse the website domains were not extended and all the work was lost, except for an adaptation that is seen on CapeVillas.com/CTG

Nick Ray Ball – Marketing & Branding

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Nick-Ray-Ball

Nick Ray Ball – Marketing & Branding

By Krissy Cabrera 12th March 2016

First mastered SEO in 2001,  PPC Advertising in 2002, Affiliate Marketing in 2005, Content Marketing in 2008 & Branding in 2009. Now all are used collectively.

To date the most financially successful marketing endeavour undertaken has been the creation on Cape Town Luxury Villas.com. Cape Villas made a greater income, but this was created over time within a high service cost model. On the Other Hand, Cape Town Luxury Villas.com (on its second release) was instantly successful and had a far more economic model.

Since 2009 Nick Ray Ball has focused on complex marketing strategies, entangling such strategies into the design of the S-World and Villa Secrets Network.

The marketing behind Cape Town Luxury Villas.com was SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and PPC Marketing in the form of Google AdWords. Of which SEO & SEM accounts for 25% of enquiries and PPC accounts for 65%

Nick Ray Ball – Villa Adventures

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nick-ray-ball-villa-adventures

Nick Ray Ball – Villa Adventures

By Krissy Cabrera 12th March 2016

Nick Ray bought & built a Villa in Camps Bay in 2000, then Founded Cape Villas.com which became the market leader. Created Cape Town Luxury Villas.com in 2013..

1: Planning and building a Luxury Cape Town Villa

Nick Ray Ball’s adventures in hi end Real estate started at a very early age. A very early age indeed

Nick Ray was born in St Georges Hospital in Belgravia in 1971, and from his widow the first view he ever saw was Bucking ham palace. From the age of five until twelve Nick Rays family vacationed in St Tropez, one of the world most famous villa locations. Little did he know then that he would create the market leading villa company in Cape Town. This is however how the story starts.

Nick Ray Ball – 34 Years of Code

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Nick Ray Ball - 34 Years of Code

Nick Ray Ball – 34 years of code.

Nick Ray Ball – Web Designer, Developer & Systems Architect

By Krissy Cabrera 11th March 2016

First programmed code at age 11. Develops world’s first Flash Virtual Tour in 2002. Started System Architecture on the S-World & Villa Secrets Software Framework in 2011

 

  • Born in Belgravia, Westminster, London in 1971
  • First programmed code at age 11 using a ZX Spectrum to play ‘Happy Birthday’ for his mother
  • Purchased music sequencing computer in 1987 spent 5 years learning then mastering the music networks and sequencing software.
  • 1992 to 1999 worked professionally as a CuBass music network programmer, over 30 commercial releases, founded two record companies. Nick’s penultimate release was UK Radio 1 single of the week and featured on the FIFA 2000 computer game. Nick’s last solo release went straight to No1 in DJ MAG Chart.
  • 1999 swooped music for the web design and Desk Top Publishing
  • 1999 Visited Cape Town, bought apartment, decided to emigrate
  • 2000 Create Cape Go web design company, started to master the creation of a Virtual Tour using Macromedia Flash
  • 2001 became an avid reader of ‘Search Engine News’ and applied research to websites
  • 2002 Created world’s first Virtual Tour in Flash, 4 years before Google created their product Street View, and launched www.CapeVillas.com using the Technology and applied the SEO and created a disruptive start up
  • 2002 to 2004 Cape Villas makes more money that the web design company, so development focus becomes Cape Villas.
  • 2005 Cape Villas creates Property Management System and leads the market for the next five years
  • In 2008 Nick Ray Ball designs and created the Cape Villas magazine purely in Photoshop. 22,000 were distributed with Conde Nast Traveller and it was a great success all round. This began the concept of creating an online magazine a process that was started in February 2016.