Yahoo is taking an interesting approach to retaining its Filipino users and securing growth of Yahoo Search & other Yahoo services in the Pacific Rim market by launching Yahoo! Pinoy Connect.
Yahoo Pinoy Connect is a Philippine based community site which aggregated local content from Yahoo Answers, del.icio.us and Flickr. Yahoo is also trying similar approaches in other countries including Malaysia and Singapore.
Yahoo, which claims to have an 85% reach of the Filipino market, feels that the move will attract the new Filipino Internet users who are looking for community online. Friendster, a major Google advertising partner, is a top destination for the 14 million + Filipino users and Yahoo utilizing similar aspects of community and social networking makes perfect sense in attracting those active users as well.
Yahoo is using a very interesting marketing tactic in the Philippines, something I envision Yahoo & Google using as they target developing nations in a similar fashion, to win over Internet brand loyalty being the first company used to access the Internet.
More from Asian Journal :
Yahoo! Pinoy Connect, first launched December last year in cooperation with the Overseas Workers Welfare Association and Ayala Foundation’s GILAS program, among others, was originally designed to be an Internet educational outreach and awareness initiative, as well as to be a platform for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to communicate with families in the Philippines.
Through the Pinoy Connect website, ‘offline’ Filipinos all around the world were introduced to the Internet as a easy-to-use and cost-efficient means through which they could keep in touch with distanced family and friends.
The new Pinoy Connect website, besides engendering Internet education and awareness, now provides a platform for the online Filipino community, featuring a collection of relevant social and user-generated content and localized social Internet tools, including localized versions of Yahoo! Answers (social search), Yahoo! Groups (online communities), and Flickr (photo sharing).
Together with the Overseas Workers Welfare Association, Ayala Foundation’s GILAS program, and its other partners, Yahoo! reaches out to the country’s public schools and cybercafés, aiming to further fuel connectivity across the archipelago.
Having wired 1,700 students in five schools through the GILAS program to-date, Yahoo! believes it is helping in closing the digital divide between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, within countries and around the world.
Besides being a socially responsible step, Yahoo! officials said improved connectivity in the Philippines is tantamount to growing the market and key to the company’s own growth.
