iBegin Takes On Local Search (in Toronto)
Despite the dominance of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in the search market, local search is still pretty fertile ground. A company working to crack this nut in Toronto is iBegin, which has created a new search engine to make it much easier to find local restaurants, bar, attractions, stores, events, etc. It includes listings and user-generated reviews. There is also a cool “Explorer” that lets you discover things in your neighbourhood by punching your address into a search box. There is also a tool to check traffic conditions (including static video) on some of the major highways. I’m not sure about iBegin’s business model as there doesn’t seem be any revenue-generating engines such as advertising. Other players in the local Toronto search market include Redtoronto.com and Toronto.com.
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2 opinions for iBegin Takes On Local Search (in Toronto)
Rehan
Jun 16, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Mark, the interview here explains the revenue model that they have in mind — “We will eventually incorporate ads. But in no overbearing manner.”
iBegin has a lot of neat features, and it’ll be interesting to see how the community evolves around it to help it grow.
AhmedF
Jun 17, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Thanks for the mention :)
We will be releasing an updated design in a few weeks which will be incorporating ads.
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