Local search engine to offer Web service

BY VERONICA C. SILVA-CUSI, BusinessWorld Online Editor Local search engine and portal Yehey! is planning to launch a personalized Web site that will bring together some of the most common Web services in one Web site. In keeping with the Internet community’s Web 2.0 initiative to build a second generation of Web-based communities, Yehey! will launch Yehey! 2.0 in October. Donald Lim, chief executive of Yehey!, said Yehey! 2.0 Web site will be "user-centric," meaning, the user will be the one to create content for his or her own Web site. For instance, users of the revitalized Yehey! can customize their content to create myYehey! Content from the personalized Web site will come from the content of other Web sites where the Yehey! user may have existing accounts. Examples of this kind of content would be other Web-based e-mail accounts, news and information from different news Web sites, and even accounts from social networking sites. The concept is not exactly new on the Internet. Yahoo!, one of the earliest search engines and the inspiration behind Yehey!, has a myYahoo! service. Google, a Yahoo! competitor, followed suit with iGoogle. Mr. Lim said that with these personalization features, they expect Yehey! users to spend a lot of time on the site. "While we don’t expect pageviews to shoot up because of our liberal use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), ’user stickiness’ as measured by the user’s length of stay should exhibit a significant increase," he added. Mr. Lim said Yehey! will continue to copy success stories from the likes of Yahoo! and Google! "Our strategy is to ’Filipinize’ whatever is successful. We don’t have our own R&D (research and- development)," he said. Hopefully, advertisers and companies can find value in an interactive portal focused on the Philippines, he said. "Our strategy is to corner the portal market in the Philippines." Yehey! still continues to draw its revenues from online marketing and advertising. But instead of simply posting ads on Web sites, Yehey! produces other Web sites and positions these Web sites as marketing tools of companies. In an earlier interview, Mr. Lim told BusinessWorld that in the past, the bulk of their clients were big international companies like Citibank, Nike and Nokia. However, due to the company’s aggressive marketing, 80% of their clients now are local companies. New developments Another product inspired by Yahoo! is the Yehey! instant messenger called "TOL," short for Talk Online and local slang for "brother." Users of TOL, which currently runs on beta version, can chat with Yahoo! messenger users. Mr. Lim said a forthcoming and improved version of TOL will feature 3D avatars which can mimic the expression of the Web user with a Web camera. Currently, TOL offers localized avatars such as a character wearing a salakot or native hat. In October, Yehey! will also launch Dangka, a 3D virtual Web-based community with attributes and themes that are distinctly Filipino. Patterned after the role-playing game Second Life, Dangka features a virtual community which online users can use to create their own world. For advertisers and marketers, the virtual world is an opportunity to push their products and services online. For instance, a company can feature its products in a virtual online store. Dangka’s target market includes the youth and young professionals. This year, Yehey! expects to entice 35,000 users with Dangka with a 50% growth rate per year. Dangka will be free to registered Yehey! users. Currently, there are more than nine million "residents" in Second Life, generating actual revenues simply by role playing. Basic membership is free but other features, such as real estate buying in the online world, is charged a minimal fee.