MikeLigalig.com

By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 04:18pm (Mla time) 07/03/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- Yahoo is putting a local spin to some of its popular user-generated services like Flickr in its bid to win over the succeeding millions of Filipino Internet users.

Yahoo! Pinoy Connect, a newly launched community site, aggregates local content from Yahoo services including Flickr, del.i.cio.us and Yahoo! Answers. It also creates a listing of Filipino mailing lists at Yahoo! Groups.

By consolidating content, Yahoo is creating country-specific sites that localize its services toward a more targeted audience.

Tom Sipple, Yahoo's managing director for Southeast Asia, noted there are around 14 million Filipino Internet users today and predicts a total of more than 22 million in 2008.

Yahoo claims to have an 85-percent "reach" in the current population of local Internet users.

Yahoo! Pinoy Connect was started late last year and was originally intended to be a platform for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to communicate with families in the Philippines.

"We are adding more depth to the site," Sipple said.

"The site now caters to four constituents: new Web users, schools including teachers and students, Internet cafe owners and veteran Web users looking for a more social media aspect," he added.

Yahoo runs around 20 similar country-specific sites including neighboring countries Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Yahoo is looking to generate advertising opportunities in these portals. Yahoo! Pinoy Connect is carrying ads from the local Department of Tourism.

"Advertisers are looking to leverage on the site to reach an OFW audience," Sipple said.


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