Global internet portal? Check.
May 2 Mike Butcher
Tuesday/Wednesday next week sees the launch of the grand-sounding World Biz Online, and my Spidey Sense is already tingling.
Big London launch in a Mayfair hotel? Check. “Global internet portal”? Check. “The first functioning Web 3.0 site on the internet”? Check. Poised to “change the way that business is currently done on the internet”? Check.
So I just got off the phone to the PR guy who wouldn’t tell me anything about who is behind the site, like the CEO’s name for instance. However, I gather it’s about 20 web apps wrapped into one big site (video, blogging, directories, email, VOIP, chat, text, photos etc) and mashes up consumer and business target markets. Its been “some years in the making”, built across the UK, South Africa and Germany, and is a “home page where you can do everything in one site.” Double check!
I’m in two minds about whether to go to the launch because it already sounds like they have ignored the now distributed nature of the Net and the emergence of APIs and platform applications. Should I go?
UPDATE: I did in fact go along to the presentation.
The site is positioning itself against large business-focused directories like Alibaba, Wand and Yell.com. However, they rather laboured the single point that they had come up with the “alpha and omega” of taxonomies to cover all possible categories. They have also wrapped up a tonne of tools (VOIP, IM, SMS, video, you name it) and are giving it all away free (not that original) as an incentive to register, create a profile and start hocking your business. CEO Stuart Sterzel, who is ex South African Special Forces but also former head of a number of mining and oil/gas businesses, very politely told me that they were extremely confident their plan would succeeed. Indeed, he said they have been researching it for 8 years and had put in well over 6-figures of funding into it via private investors.
My Opinion? I think the site does indeed look like it is 8 years old. The interface is very old fashioned. Plus they will need a lot (and I mean a lot) of marketing to give it any traction. I admire their enthusiasm, but I’m afraid I don’t hold out much hope for it’s success, to be blunt.
Comments
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
You should definitely go. The world could do with a “global internet portal”.
Anyway it sounds so dotcom that I bet there is free champagne and go-go dancers! (Plus you can laugh at the poor delusioned investors who have sunk money into it)
Man, you have a great job.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am
Yes you have to go… at least so Techcrunch UK can be posted about your thoughts…
Sounds interesting… like a AOL but realising that the internet is bigger than America!
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am
web 3.0? do we still have to say “Yay!” a lot….
…but what to wear?
good name for a destination site too.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
Are the boo.com guys behind it?
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Mike, you should definitely go… but in a self-knowing statement you should tweet the whole thing via an API-based twitter client
And maybe post a few interviews via Seesmic…
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I can tell they’re gonna be huge by the way they can’t even get a simple mailto: link correct on their holding page…
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Oh please do go!
Their holding page is so wonderfully early 2000s (the mailto: doesn’t even work). Can’t remember when I last heard the word ‘biz’ used anywhere…. or the term “international internet community”.
Drink their chamagne, eat their canapes and try to keep as dead pan as you can, then tell us all about it.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Are we in 1999? “Portal?” “Free Advertisments placed in …”. WTF!? Anything with “biz” or “online” in the URL = FAIL.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
This sounds like web 3.11 to me.
Dare i ask: is Sam Sethi involved?
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Yes, do go! You wouldn’t want to miss seeing the world being connected.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Names! Names! Please name the PR agency
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
“mashes up consumer and business target markets”
well, there’s ambitious, and then there’s *ambitious*…
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
http://www.cutcs.com/wbo.html
anything to add to this, anyone?
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Really ugly and off-putting Holding page? Check.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
@ Rodolfo - There is not a professional PR agency attached to this venture as far as I know. (Check!)
@Ted - Nice work - glad to know this might be connected some how with “Rwanda Business Online”. (Check!)
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Wow, sounds like they have succeeded where Google could not … although they haven’t succeeded in getting any local domain names.
a couple of further clues, and a name - Simon Tattershall?
http://whois.domaintools.com/worldbizonline.com
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
You should defo go Mike, just for shits and giggles…
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Tempting, but the holding pager does not bode well. Sounds like bad PR to me.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
You need to go, for the sheer comedy of it all.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:37 pm
“web 3.11″ - funny! I’d have Seesmic’d me lol-ing but the dog ate my webcam
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Mike you should go - and let it teach us all a lesson either way. If they do what they state, then great - you’ll get a scoop. If not, it will be a catalyst for debating the merits of over-hyped, non-sensical, pre-bubble PR methodologies.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Dear Mike
Thanks for taking the time to call my company last week, and for your initial comments re Worldbizonline on your blog.
As we briefly discussed on the telephone, it’ll be great if you can attend one of the presentations next week, and then perhaps give some further feedback to your readers.
The presentations next week are only for a small group of invited people, in order to provide a briefing on the site / company prior to it being opened to the public on Monday 12 May. It is for this reason that I asked our Media Liaison colleague not to discuss the matter with anyone prior to the presentations, as I felt that it would not be correct to provide details to some people and not others, prior to the actual presentations themselves.
As our site is not able to be viewed at this time, many of the comments from the readers of your blog are totally understandable, and I would have possibly made similar comments myself had I been in their position iro not having enough information, and not being able to access the site.
I hope, therefore, to be able to present our site and company comprehensively to you next week, in order that you may - if you think it worthwhile to do so - provide further information to your readers.
We too do not like hype and / or hyperbole, (as in press releases, including ours) but sometimes they are necessary if one is to secure attendance at one’s presentation as opposed to any one of the other hundreds of presentations occurring simultaneously. I would like to say though, that we have not made ostentatious claims about our company or site (like “Web 3.0″ - as what does this actually mean, and what substantive difference would it make to product success or failure anyway).
We believe that the only relevant factors in creating a business (of any kind) that can be successful, are thorough research, hard work, attention to detail, identifying core potential markets, and structuring the business model so as to be economically viable, while also providing a compelling reason for potential members to use it (i.e. a good product that is economically viable).
All this being said, you were contacted and invited because you have a reputation for being knowledgeable & experienced, and for telling it like it is - just as you have done in your blog above. My colleagues and I prefer and respect this type of approach, and so we hope to see you there.
Kind regards.
Stuart Sterzel
CEO, Worldbizonline.com Limited
May 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Her sitede TÜRK Bayrağı kampanyasına destek olmak için TÜRK Bayrağı Bandını sitene ekle. Hem kampanyaya destek ol hemde HİT kazan.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:17 am
So did you go?
May 7th, 2008 at 8:20 am
So did you go to the launch? We eagerly await the news.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I’ll pop along today to their presentation (around lunchtime) and update everybody after.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
May 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Crikey. *Takes out the noise canceling headphones to check for blood*
May 7th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Can’t hear the presentation fortunately.
Why don’t you put some headphones in and pop a film on?
~g
May 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
my web browser is my ‘global internet portal’
May 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
May 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Mike, why do you have to use your laptop for interviews? Doesn’t Seesmic support other methods/formats?
Also, tell the chap to speak up next time and remove the tie if he wants to be taken seriously as an entrepreneur today.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
UPDATE: I did in fact go along to the presentation and have updated this post.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Paul Walsh - I used the laptop because some people don’t have a Qik phone as yet yet
May 7th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
So any feedback on the launch?
May 8th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Mike- Can’t help wondering if your comments would’ve been stronger if the guy wasn’t ex-Special Forces
May 10th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I’m underwhelmed at the thought of anything has been researched “for 8 years” and “put in well over 6-figures of funding into it” in the web world.
Is this the “New Coke” of Enterprise software? I really hope not for their sake.