Thursday, April 27, 2006

Yahoo Philippines Ideas

Had an interesting chat with Yahoo's Larry Jordan at Greenbelt the other day. Among other things, we talked about Yahoo Asia's new mobile client, how Yahoo's knack for community-building appeals to Filipino bayanihan (bayahoonihan?), and the barrier of low Philippine credit card penetration (4%).

To sell premium services in this country, Yahoo Philippines should ride on the prepaid electronic metacurrencies emerging in the Philippines, like Smart Money, G-Cash, and MOLePoints. I know at least one guy who regrets signing on exclusivity with G-Cash, but Yahoo should have the clout to avoid such silliness. Larry was off to meet with local online game publisher Level Up after our chat; their COO Ben is clued in on the metacurrency concept.

Oh, and Yahoo's new DVR software could find a market with 80,000 computer-literate time-displaced disposable-income Filipino call center workers. Too bad its branding is confusingly similar to that of the Asian mobile product: they're both called "Yahoo! Go".

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