Search Engines Rev Up For Retail Explosion
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday March 28, 2000
Two Australian Internet start-up companies will launch search engine sites in the next six months, both in competition with Telstra's Internet giant Yellow Pages Online.
Click On Australia will roll out more than 1,700 subject search sites under the ``.au.com" domain space, such as gardens.au.com and hotels.au.com, while Zium will launch a product directory site, findnearest.com.
Both companies extend the business directory model of Yellow Pages Online, which regularly ranks among the top-10 Australian Web sites.
Businesses will pay for ``display advertising" space on Click On Australia sites, which are divided into business categories similar to those of the Yellow Pages. Zium's product directory will also function similarly to the Yellow Pages but consumers will find businesses by searching for specific products, such as a particular bottle of wine.
The founder of Zium, Mr Jonathan Burnett, last year pitched the product directory to Pacific Access, a wholly owned subsidiary of Telstra which runs the Yellow Pages site. But Pacific Access declined to take part in a venture.
Mr Burnett said the product directory had more specific search capabilities than Yellow Pages.
``Once online retailers are joined by physical retailers taking their business online, consumers are going to be faced with an enormous number of retailers and they are going to want a way to differentiate between them," Mr Burnett said.
``We do not just classify a business but we state what products they sell. You decide what you want to buy and then you find out what's got it."
A spokeswoman for Pacific Access, Ms Felicity Hand, said discussions with Zium would continue on a ``pretty ad-hoc basis" but Pacific Access was not convinced that a product directory would be more specific than the search facilities of its new GoEureka engine.
Zium has pushed ahead without Pacific Access, talking to retail chains such as liquor stores and computer sellers about developing catalogues for their Web sites. The product directory, findnearest.com, will be launched in the second half of the year.
The venture has been funded by Mr Burnett's contract programming company, Burnett Innovation, as well as bank loans.
More than $200,000 has been invested so far, he estimates.
Mr Burnett says venture capitalists have been hesitant to invest without proven revenue growth but he hopes they will show more interest once businesses begin to use the technology.
Businesses will pay $300 per retail outlet each year to be listed on findnearest.com and to use Zium's databases on their sites.
Click On Australia chief executive Mr Kerry Henry says its sites will have the advantage of being easy to find through search engines such as Altavista and Yahoo.
``The most powerful words in the world are generic words," he says.
Click On Australia is owned by the $10 million Web start-up, Australia e-Commerce, chaired by the former chief executive of the Seven Network, Mr Gary Rice. The company, which plans a public share offer within the next nine months, is selecting initial investment partners.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald