‘Made with ♥ in Baltimore’ campaign lets websites display Charm City pride

Pop open the website for Betamore in your Internet browser, and you’ll spot a simple message at the bottom of the page.
“Made with ♥ in Baltimore.”
This online equivalent of a guerrilla marketing campaign has been around since April, the brainchild of Chris Ashworth and his software-developing compatriots Adam Bachman, Zach Waugh and Ed Schmalzle, all of whom work at Charles Village-based Figure 53. Thus far, just shy of 50 different websites carry the tagline.
“We were inspired by a little tag we saw on the Friends of The Web website, says Ashworth, 32. “We saw that no one had used that URL. We e-mailed Andy [Mangold] and them and asked if we could make a simple site.”

Ashworth says there had been some conversation among techies in the city about creating such a site, similar to the Made in New York City site, but that the idea “wasn’t getting off the ground.” So his crew at Figure 53 took an afternoon and created the Baltimore version of the site.
Websites interested in displaying the Made with ♥ in Baltimore tagline simply copy the code at the bottom of the site’s page, which effectively links those websites to the Made with ♥ in Baltimore site.
“The link-back thing is not a way to increase the ranking of the website,” Ashworth says. “We needed a way we could have some kind of filter about what we put on the list. We want it to not just be personal sites. It should be products and companies.”
Ashworth also says “there’s no commercial purpose” for the site, and that the entire Made with ♥ in Baltimore  has been “completely self-driven.” Minus, of course, the site’s original creation.
“It’s a good sentiment,” he says.