Thursday, July 26, 2007 Toral: Targetting the global Filipino By Janette Toral Digital Filipino
TWO initiatives were launched yesterday and both were geared toward global Filipinos online.
The first one is Barangay.ph. This is a web portal designed around buildings typically found in a village. The 13 buildings include associations, bank, church, city hall, hospital, library, market, real estate, restaurant, school, social hall, theatre and travel. These buildings, each with their own unique functions, will provide online venues where Filipinos can effectively exchange ideas and causes as well as make use of each other’s trade and professions.
Barangay.ph chief executive officer Jonno Alcaro and wife Nanette are the brains behind it. They have more than 45 combined years of marketing expertise in the US, worldwide and online. Together, they have created the business and marketing model behind Barangay.ph.
Filipinos based overseas is the main target audience of the website, including emigrants and second generation migrants who are dying to know more about their roots and heritage.
Filipinos in the Philippines can participate as merchants, by providing content that Filipinos abroad want to stay close to the motherland.
It is interesting to meet Filipinos based overseas who are very eager to reach out to their home country and provide various services online. It is indeed “baya-nihan” at its essence.
Another partnership I witnessed was the Globe Telecom and Yahoo partnership.
To cope with the need for more information on demand, Yahoo launched its Yahoo! oneSearch service in partnership with Globe. This new service intends to provide instant answers to Globe users.
