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Strategy
Our current position
Interseek provides both the technology and media solutions required to operate a profitable, advertising-driven local search engine business. We are focused on providing search engines to national audiences and in creating an advertising inventory which, in-turn provides cost - effective advertising opportunities for local ventures.
The corporation is currently operating a network of five national search engines in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia. While Serbian and Croatian media properties are still in the incubation phase, the Slovenian Najdi.si (www.najdi.si) is holding an approximate 55% internet advertising market share and more than 90% of the search engine advertising market.
Three key industry trends:
Local and vertical search are becoming increasingly important
Approximately 80% of people's inquiries typed in search engines are fulfilled in the local environment. JupiterResearch projects that the search industry will develop in much the same way that historical media markets before it have, with the broad-based search engines spawning a raft of local and vertical search engines dedicated to specific categories. Broad-based search engines are extremely good at navigating vast amounts of information, but extremely poor at helping a consumer make a purchase decision or obtain local information. This creates a large opportunity to enhance the consumer experience with local and vertical search.
SEM and direct marketing revenues combined in the local search business model
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a leading online advertising segment, arguably holding approximately 45% market share within internet advertising expenditures,and is expected to further grow by more than 30% annually. In addition to that, local search is rapidly eroding traditional classifieds-based revenues, as advertisers increasingly started to allocate budgets online where most of the people search for local information.
Online collaboration and participation
Numerous research evidences indicates that most stakeholders (internet users, web publishers, internet service providers and local advertisers) would prefer to participate and collaborate in a much greater extent than is technically and conceptually possible on the web currently. Hence, with core search becoming a commodity, the whole ecosystem of dynamically interconnected stakeholders will play an extremely important role for the success of the future local information retrieving services.
Where are we going?
Interseek media network expansion strategy
"Our mid-term business goals include developing a network of next generation, local information retrieving services in twelve countries of Eastern and South Eastern Europe".
"The future is local"
Interview with Saso Stravs, Interseek's CEO
Q: Isn't it just Google and a few other global players dominating the search engine industry?
A: Yes, globally they do. Fortunately, this is not relevant for Interseek, as we are only concerned with national, regional, and local markets. While Google is arguably still the first choice for global web search, Interseek's current local search solutions offer substantial advantages to end users, as well as local advertisers.
Our business model rests on the simple fact that most people's wants and needs have to be fulfilled and accomplished locally. Simply put, people use a local search to find local information of any kind, faster and easier. Say: Order pizza, call a taxi, hire real estate agent, get a table in a restaurant, apply for the job interview, etc. Why bother with global search with lots of redundant, non-relevant results? It's all about speed and quality of obtaining local information.
Q: Don't global search engines attempt to localize themselves?
A: Yes they do. However, in most cases, they are only scratching the surface of the localization concept by offering translated user interfaces and by limiting the scope of the search to language - specific documents. In other words, they just narrow - down the global product, translate the screens, and offer it as the local one. Interseek goes much deeper than that. Here's how. "The true local way!"
- We provide a better source of local information: People need local solutions for local needs.
- We find more: An up to 500% bigger index for local languages compared to global search engines.
- We find faster: Faster indexing, fresher results, due to relatively smaller local webs and intelligent suggestion tools based on an understanding of local needs.
- We find more accurately: Deep language specifics integration (characters, letters , grammar, accents).
- We are truly localized, global competitors are not: Local brand, local marketing, local sales force, local support, local everything.
Q: Really? Is all of that "local stuff" relevant to people; don't they use Google anyway?
A: No, for local search they don't. Najdi.si (www.najdi.si) for example, a pioneer among Interseek's local search engines, is arguably the only national search engine worldwide with a nearly 80% reach among the national population, handling a vast majority of local web inquiries. In addition to that, Interseek actively promotes the usage of global search engines, as we don't perceive them as competition, but rather as a complement to a holistic web experience.
Q: Your financial statements indicate that you were successful in the past. How are you planning to compete in the future?
A: This is where you can come into play. We are awake and aware of the fact that global heavyweights are coming our way. Therefore, we've conceived a next generation, local information retrieving service that will go far beyond the current concept of local search and give birth to a new product category.
Interseek 2 is focusing on developing the next generation local information retrieval technology, based on the following building blocks:
- ILP (Integration - Localization - Personalization);
- SFO (Search - Find - Obtain);
- C-I-C-E (Commerce - Information - Communication - Entertainment) are predominant content categories of all search inquiries;
- The return to the structured data and uniform classification;
- Inclusion of relevant local information;
- Geographic and relevancy-based ranking.