Inquirerは、ローカルインターネットポータルのYeheyが今年中頃に新規公開株（IPO）を行うと報じています。
実は驚きました。Yeheyは長年沈黙しており、国内業界でニュースも出していませんでした。彼らが多角化していることに気づき、掲示板（フォーラム）領域で勢いを得ている様子も見られますが、内部情報によると、ただ大規模なフォーラムを無料で提供しているだけで、提携に関してはあまり重要ではないようです。
Not sure what an IPO would get them but it sure is an interesting development to watch out for.
Well, portals going IPO sounds so 90’s.
Yehey going IPO wasn’t really one of their biggest secret :P
And then the Yehey! site and marketing material are all revisionist… they say that they started in 1996, but they didn’t say who.. it was originally Alistair Israel, Dave Quitoriano and friends.
Of course they didn’t say that Yehey! started as a colocated Windows NT box (or 2) in my ISP :)
Abe,
An IPO would give Yehey cash that can enable them to expand operations more. Probably they want to aggressively push Yehey PayPlus (again)? The mainstream market may now be ready for this technology as more Pinoys get wired and earn more money (due to the booming economy and the continuous OFW diaspora).
As for the forum tie-ups, I think Yehey just wants to secure traffic to its site and ad space for its ad inventory. I may be wrong but I don’t think a lot of Pinoys would choose to visit Yehey given that they can use Google for search and Inquirer, Yahoo and Yahoo Philippines for Philippine-related information. The tie-ups ensure that traffic trickles down from the sponsored forums to Yehey.com and that the ad space Yehey sells are in sites where there is traffic (without the tie-up forums, ad space would be limited to just the main Yehey site).
PinoyMoneyTalk.com
Hi,
Good points. Actually, we are going IPO for many reasons: from gaining more cash for other investments, to becoming a global online media behemoth.
Yehey has undergone a transformation since last year, starting with its facelift and relaunch, and the introduction of Kaban (www.kaban.com.ph) which replaced Payplus, to becoming a formidable marketing tool for business.
For our users, we have introduced a rewards system called bretas. The more you search or navigate yehey, the more points you earn, and you can redeem it later for goodies.
I guess PinoyMoneyTalk is right in the sense that we have become too hybrid. What is our positioning anyway? For now, we are happy being home for Pinoys in and out of the Philippines. We deliver aggragated content, have a good message boards and chatroom activities, new channels and sections, and definitely, more interactive features. But we will see how it goes.
If you have ideas, please let us know. Thanks.