There's gold in them websites

Actually, you would be pleasantly surprised at how many technically savvy young people we have, so much so that our young graduates find well-placed jobs in Singapore, China and other Southeast Asian nations, showing to the world our proficiency in emerging e- technologies.

I read something in one of our leading dailies about a young company run by equally young people that was poised to post double digit growth for 2008 and my curiosity was instantly roused.

Yehey Corp. is a bona fide member of the local dot.com industry, and it is apparently leading the pack. According to the young Donald Patrick Lim, the company’s president and CEO, Yehey Corp. was founded by five university students more than ten years ago primarily for internet services and websites. Today, it is experiencing a phenomenal rise in total revenue of about 56 percent (P28.7 million), and an even more phenomenal 630-percent rise in total assets (P276 million). Its dominion over local web advertising seems to go unchallenged which is a pity because there is a growing market out there for web-based applications. Other equally bright young men and women would do well to follow suit.

Online marketing has been hot for some years now in other countries, and I’m glad we have finally caught up. They have since improved on the basic services they initially offered and come up with newer, more brilliant innovations, and we still have to catch up again on those, but I guess we’re on our way. If the United States has its Yahoo, we have our own home-grown Yehey that is making waves now. If you remember, Yahoo, led by founder Jerry Yang had Microsoft and Google on their toes when they started racking up twice as much online ad revenue than Microsoft, leaving Microsoft no choice but to pursue a buy-out bid for Yahoo at sky-high prices.

Google is the leader in online search, and that is how they make money for their advertising business. Other start-ups have come up lately, smaller than these pioneers definitely but their business volume runs up to several hundred million dollars as well. Some companies give away their software for free and make money by referring their members to banks, credit card companies, brokerage houses etc. who can offer better rates than what these customers are getting right now. There is a growing market for web-based applications and social networking applications, in particular, spell big money for the purveyors.

The software industry is the most innovative and remains the most dynamic simply because it cannot afford to stagnate or to flat-line. In 2007, some $20 billion was spent by companies in the United States for online advertising. Even now, new geeky terms are coming up, Greek to technologically-challenged people like me who have only recently discovered the ease and convenience of computers in their daily office chores. Whoever heard of “widgets” until very recently? Apparently, these are self-contained programs plugged into web applications like a blog. It was another very young man who brought this out into the market and it is now a popular marketing tool in the US as well.

Here in the Philippines, online advertising is fairly new and not yet as extensive as traditional advertising like television and print which are still the top choices of advertisers. That’s understandable because of the far wider reach of both TV and print. Not everybody has a computer, and not everybody has the time, or inclination, to surf the webs any free time they get. It’s far simpler to lie in bed and watch television, or spread out the newspapers on the breakfast table while sipping your morning coffee. In the foreign markets, though, it is the youth that is targeted mostly by online advertising, with ages ranging from 18 to 25. I guess these are the people who spend all their free time in front of their computers. They tout internet as the most accountable ad medium in the world, but is it? There is a growing concern over this claim as, understandably, content publishers want to keep track of how many viewers log on to their website. The old reliable tv plugs and commercials, I guess, are still easier to track for advertisers.

Yehey, though, says that with all their web architects and systems engineers in place, they endeavor to make online marketing more accountable. Already, this young company is beefing up its own marketing and consultancy group. Like their very successful foreign counterparts, they plan to venture into vertical search as well. Just recently, they also had a successful launch of the Pinoy Genio.Com which, hopefully, will entice users to dig into the wealth of information the website offers. And, more ambitiously, Yehey has just gotten into a joint venture with the Havas Media Contacts which is a well-known global media trader in Europe. In the pipeline is a business process outsourcing company for on-line services and web development.

Way to go guys. Now that e-tech is clearly the way of the future and with the dawn of e-commerce, it makes strategic sense that more and more young people should explore this emerging industry in the country. There is an urgent need for the local economy to have good software capability, and having established this, there is synergy needed to channel this into profitable long-term ventures. Soon, everything will be in software. Now, even financial planning is already looking this way, which is very, very untraditional. In the US, companies offering web-based services invite users to rate local businesses like restaurants, salons, even dental services and others like plumbing and other handyman services. You can bet that these businesses pay to have their establishments included in the list to be rated. They also use the results to improve their services, or as marketing tools (if positively rated).

The software industry in the Philippines still needs to mature, but with news like Yehey’s, it looks like we’re getting there.

Memories.... and more

From Kiko Jose of Mindoro comes this e-mail: “ Hi Butch. Your on-going series on Memories and more is fondly appreciated. I was a young boy in the sixties and I used to enjoy watching the daily noon time shows back then: Student Canteen with the team of Leila Benitez, Eddie Ilarde, Bobby Ledesma and Pepe Pimentel lorded it over the other shows, and this was immediately followed by Darigold Jamboree, a 30-minute show. Student Canteen actually discovered so many of our Pinoy singing talents like the Tiongco Brothers, the four Aces of the Philippines. This four-cornered hosting team was unbeatable during their time.”

And may I add my own to the list of favorite old Pinoy shows — Tawag Ng Tanghalan where a good friend Pepe Pimentel was discovered (he was the first champion). My late Mom never missed a show and inevitably let out a sigh when that ubiquitous bell rang a death knell for a contestant.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.