Following Australian Startups and Tech Trends

Today we showcase an exciting and successful venture founded by, Marc Lyne from, London, UK, Brownbook - A free business directory that ANYONE can instantly edit. Brownbook , one of the emerging players in the local search market which is heating up , seems to be following the Wikipedia model - publish then filter. All these players are competing in this market worth $235 million as reported last year (2007). It is expected to reach $532 million by 2010 . In a recent email-based interview with Marc, he gave insights into his venture and how he is progressing with it. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I have an extensive directory industry background, having put Scoot (formerly Freepages) on to the web in 1995, rolled out to Belgium, Holland and France and then sold Scoot UK to British Telecom. I then spent 4 years as the CTO of BT Directories - added the classified business directory to the BT PhoneBook, directory enquiries a...

Today we showcase an exciting and successful venture founded by, Mark White from, Brisbane, Australia, Locatrix . It provides mobile social networking solutions for deployment by network operators and location-based services to corporate customers and application solution providers. It uses location to create and shape mobile content experiences that engage subscribers and generate ARPU. This is the engine beneath Telstra’s (Sensis) Whereis Everyone . We recently learnt about Locatrix while compiling the list of Emerging Mobile Startups in Australia . In a recent email-based interview with Mark, he gave insights into his venture and how he is progressing with it. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I’m a native Queenslander, completing a degree in Computer Science at the University of Queensland before embarking on a career that gravitated towards technical marketing roles here and in Singapore for US multinational companies: ...

Background: I have undertaken this report to explore, learn and analyse the local online search and directories market to understand the developments that are taking place in this area. There are more than 18 players, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large corporations trying to get some share of this market. The main focus of this report is on Sensis and its competitors and how it can reinvent itself in a rapidly changing local market. Note: This report can be downloaded as a PDF from here . Introduction: Australia’s online search and directories market is rapidly growing and to this date, there are 18 players in this market segment , worth $235 million as reported last year (2007). It is expected to reach $532 million by 2010. Sensis, (owned by Telstra) is a dominant player in the directories market and Google in search. The online search market only represents a portion of the much larger local online advertising market. The local online advertising marke...