Search Engine Room Conference : Auckland, November 2007
When it comes to New Zealand search, we’re onto it. As the home of smart search in New Zealand, NZS’ers like to stay on top of both local and international search trends, so it was a must for us to attend the inaugural New Zealand Search Engine Room Conference on Tuesday 13th November in Auckland.
The first major outing for the search engine industry in New Zealand was attended by companies from within the growing NZ search industry, as well as by many sales and marketing managers looking to get in on the rise of performance-based search advertising around the world.
Big name exhibitors
Exhibitors included Google, SLI-Systems, Netconcepts, FirstRate, Alekemi and SureFire, along with representatives from many big name brands such as Microsoft, Yahoo! and DoubleClick. Dr Grant Ryan from Eurekster was the keynote speaker who kicked off the morning sessions, with heavyweights from the search industry – Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft – completing the morning.
Competition in the NZ search market
New Zealand Google Marketing Manager, Paul Webster, will face a growing challenge in the coming year; Yahoo! Search Marketing head, Willie Pang, was adamant their introduction to the market will increase competition dramatically and help shift some of Google’s majority share (90%) of the search market in New Zealand, to Yahoo!
Liz Fraser, NZ Business Manager for MSN New Zealand, was optimistic about the new role MSN has within the New Zealand search market, announcing that the site is about to be re-launched. Liz stated that in the long-run, Microsoft see the greatest search competition solely between Microsoft and Google; this comment sparked some interest from the attendees, as she was effectively writing off the Yahoo! representative sitting next to her on the panel.
Bebo popular with young New Zealanders
A quick talk from the Australia / New Zealand manager for Bebo showed the level of influence the community site has in the 15 to 24-year-old market in New Zealand – Bebo has more traffic than TradeMe. Bebo’s new media relationship with TVNZ was touted as the first of its kind in the world, allowing Bebo access to 70% of the New Zealand Internet audience.
NZS.com at the Search Engine Room Conference
As NZS.com General Manager, I was a speaker at the conference, discussing the emergence of local directories in the small New Zealand market.
We’re already anticipating next year’s event – which should offer a similarly diverse and dynamic programme combining issues such as search marketing, search engine optimisation, blogging and social search.
