We will periodically spotlight an area of the world where Coolmaps Components Club members have set up web design businesses and market themselves on the webbies.coolmaps.com locator.

This week we look at the Houston metropolitan area where four "webbies" can be found. You can see their sites by linking from the map above or by clicking in the Houston area on the coolmaps' USA Webbies map.

Even though the city of Houston has a population of three million and includes landmarks to technological achievements of the last century, such as the Houston Space Center and the Astrodome, three of our four webbies can be found in the suburb of Humble, a city of 14,000 people which was the original home to Exxon Oil company (originally called the Humble Oil Company).

In the last couple of years, Houston has been transitioning from an oil town to a key technology center in Texas. Much of that credit goes to its close-knit web community. Today, Houston offers lots of training in many tech fields and educates some of the top IT professionals in the world.

Here are some of our Texan webbies:

• Priority1Designs
  Based in Humble, this website design company is made of three moonlighting police officers. They specialize in small to medium websites for businesses, building sites with NOF and ShopFactory. Most of their sites have been for police officers in the Houston area who have small business of their own that benefit from a web presence. They also build sites for politicians.
• Your Web Developer
  Also based in Humble, Your Web Developer focuses on complete web development and marketing of its clients' sites as if they were the company's own personal web developer working on site. Doing business nationwide, they take pride in getting to know their clients needs and desires personally. Customer satisfaction is their only priority!
• Neteffects1
  Based in Houston, this web design studio provides an affordable alternative to expensive website design. Neteffects1 markets to small and medium sized businesses. They implement the latest technology and offer a full compliment of related services. (Check out their Member Profile.)