Rethinking advertising

At Nakibook, our mission is to serve three parties. These are that of our users, advertisers and also our shareholders and employees. In order to do this, we must make sure that there is a balance that pleases all three groups.

Advertisers want to reach users, users want to see relevant and useful ads that aren't intrusive and Nakibook itself wants both advertisers and users to be happy with the end result so that they will continue to use our products and services.

We have always thought about how advertising should be part of our overall system. That's why we're now introducing huge changes in our NakiAds (Nakibook Advertising) program that will see internet advertising become a useful tool for so many businesses within and outside Taranaki.

"NakiAds 2.0" as we are calling it internally, will help small businesses work with us to build a brand and campaign structured around easy CPM pricing models and also a customizable business profile with our Nakibook Local Business Centre.

Essentially, businesses sign up for our Local Business Centre, create a profile and then sign up for NakiAds. Once a business is registered with NakiAds, they can create their first campaign. They can either create a "General Promotion" campaign, which allows Nakibook to simply take information from their LBC profile and publicize it, or they can create a "Custom Campaign" which allows them to describe a completely separate promotion about their business - for example, for a particular event they may be holding.

The advertiser specifies a target number of page views for their campaign or business' profile page over any specific or unlimited time period. Once that target has been reached or the advertiser chooses to pull the campaign, the advertiser pays the amount specified at the beginning of the campaign set-up process.

The difference between this and other internet advertising alternatives is that as a business owner, you don't have to worry about setting up keywords, what mediums to use or any other way of advertising. Nakibook takes care of all the details. You just tell us what you want to advertise, and we'll take care of the rest.

Nakibook Advertising is a combination of different mediums. Our primary medium is search. However, we do use other forms of promotion for your campaigns - such as third party partnerships with other websites.

We hope that you'll check out our new advertising offerings and will consider using them to their fullest extent. Sign-up is easy and only takes a couple of minutes.

Thanks,

The Nakibook Team.

Homepage up and running...well, most of it

We've launched our new homepage, but without all the bells and whistles that will one day grace it. There are currently no other features up and running, but the basic quicksearch feature is going.

We haven't indexed a tenth of the items that we anticipate to before the full launch later this year.

At the moment, our capabilities are limited to just basic web search and some product search qualities. However, these are early days yet, and we invite you to check back regularly to see what progress we will be making.

We intend to roll out new products one at a time.

Thanks,

Alistair and the Nakibook team.

The new generation of local search - What we're doing now at NakibookWe W

We understand that our products have been inactive for some time now, and we're not surprised users are wondering what is taking so long about releasing the new design of Nakibook. The answer is not a simple one.

What we're working on at the moment is making your simpler search tasks online easier.

Take for example, shopping. Say you want a digital camera. Most people would first go to Google, and type in "Digital Camera" and maybe a few other search terms. Google will probably deliver you something like 96,000,000 results. Now, that's wonderful, if you're prepared to sift through millions of results.

The fact is, saying "we found you this many millions of results" just isn't all that helpful in this day and age. Nakibook saw this, and decided that it needed to change.

Web search is not our primary focus. There are already companies that do this particularly well. Google is just one. There are a number of other innovators out there (Bing, Cuil and others) who are dreaming up the next big thing in searching the internet.

What Nakibook intends to do is drill down into a more local format. We want to help you find the most affordable fare on a plane ticket, the best hotel, the best vet, the best restaurant, the best new laptop for your office. Our mission is to look at the real things people search for on the internet, and find out how to do it better.

Shopping is just one way of doing this. It's no good to give you a million links to a bunch of shopping sites that sell cameras if you want a digital camera, we're going to provide you with a list of cameras, and then tell you who can give you the best offer.

Likewise with an airfare.

Nakibook intends to cut through the clutter, and look at what people are really searching for on the internet.

This is our mission.

NakiAds explained - Nakibook's new approach to advertising

At Nakibook, we're always looking to innovate in every area in which we offer our users services. Furthermore, advertising and the way we generate revenue is no exception.

NakiAds is just one of Nakibook's many programs that allow businesses to easily connect with their customers in innovative and exciting ways - right at the point of sale, and at the point where customers are actually looking for their products.

With NakiAds, advertisers and businesses can place ads in Nakibook search results. By selecting keywords, the advertiser's small text ad can be seen at the top of the search results highlighted in a beige tint. The advertiser can tweak their array of preferences in order to receive the best results from the advertisement.

Advertisers can place as many ads as they please, and can set a daily budget for how much they want to spend.

NakiAds works because advertisers only pay for a click on their ad, meaning that advertisers aren't paying for ads that aren't attracting clicks. In addition to this, NakiAds is a particularly strong option because it targets users at the moment where they are looking for an advertiser's product.

However, NakiAds is just one of the efforts in which Nakibook is looking to make advertising a more productive, effective and exciting platform for promotion. Nakibook Merchant is a new product that aims to link up Nakibook Shopping (Product Search) with our other advertising efforts.

In Merchant, retailers can pay an annual fee, and place a link to their website alongside as many products on the Nakibook Shopping site as they wish within a specific category. In contrast to NakiAds, advertisers don't pay on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, but instead just pay a flat fee.

If a retailer offers a product through an online store, they can place what Nakibook calls a 'Buy Now' button. This is a feature in Nakibook merchant where a user can be taken to the direct page on a retailers website where they sell that product. Retailers pay in a CPC model for this feature, and the costs are slightly higher. This is because the user has indicated that they intend to purchase the product.

These are just some of the ways that Nakibook is looking to increase the validity and usefulness of advertising online. For more information on advertising within Nakibook and on Nakibook products and services, simply see our advertising page.

Sorry guys, back to the drawing board

After a short trial period, we've decided to go back to the design phase of Nakibook, taking with us what we have learnt from our users' comments, ideas and suggestions.

The new Nakibook, users said, wasn't relevant, and didn't serve users' interests in the way that Nakibook has been known for in the past. Worst of all, longtime users complained that Nakibook had lost its focus. (See users' feelings here, on Twitter alone)

With that taken into account, and a greater sense of our users' feelings, we've gone back to the old phase.

So, it's sorry from us. We just want to release something that feels right.

Now faster, smoother and more useful than ever - introducing Nakibook Crypt

Today with the launch of the new look Nakibook, we are unveiling what's under the hood of the new Nakibook as well. In addition to the new look, we've upgraded the engine that powers the answers to all your queries.

We call our new architecture framework "Crypt". Crypt builds on what we have learnt in the past with search technology, and is set to revolutionize the way you search for products.

It will allow us to offer a search product that will be better inclusive of all the Nakibook products and services you know and use every day. Now, when we release the revamped Nakibook homepage, you'll be able to search businesses, products, services, hotels, places, restaurants all throughout Taranaki and the surrounding region.

Nakibook is no longer about just the internet, but in providing a search experience that is more relevant to the grassroots users who take advantage of our products everyday.

We hope that you enjoy the new agility and speed of Nakibook, powered by Crypt.

Print doesn't have to die - how the internet can help out "old media"

By Alistair Murray

Imagine the year is 2015. Each person carries 'round with them a small device. On this device, they have almost infinite access to all the world's information, video and content. At 6:00AM every morning, a trader in Bangkok has the latest news from the Wall Street Journal downloaded automatically for just thirty cents. The newspaper itself can be read on any of his devices, and is accessible from almost any computer, anywhere with just a username, a password and the click of a mouse.

Likewise with his music, photos, books and even movie library. They are all on what is known in tech as the "cloud". The basis of this idea is that none of the content you read, watch or listen to (nor any of your documents or files, emails or spreadsheets) are stored or are solely accessible on any one device. Because they are all stored on the internet, all of these devices (your iPod, your computer, your smartphone) are 'stateless'.

This is the basic concept of cloud computing.

There is an issue, however, with the current state of the media industry. Print media, the music industry and in many ways the film industry are all content producers that are being killed by the emergence of new technologies that allow readers, listeners and viewers to evade their means of making revenue.

What this means is that all of these businesses are in dire shape.

So, one must ask, what is the answer? The more basic of concepts is that there will be a "all-providing media-omnistore" where people will be able to purchase, for a very low cost, a newspaper article, song, movie, book or magazine with the touch of a finger. An iTunes of the future? Perhaps.

But, then the issue arises, will there become another way to evade this technology again. Sure, iTunes has been successful, but it has hardly been a catalyst for the music industry's long awaited u-turn towards vitality and growth. Will people simply create a bit-torrent for a newspaper article? Interesting concept, no doubt.

One must ask - how will such an old medium for news adapt to such a new way of delivering information? Well, one can only speculate.

It is hard to know what the fate of say, the newspaper industry will be. Personally, I believe that it would be of great sorrow to leave behind the deliverer of "all the news that's fit to print". After all, the newspaper is one of the world's oldest and most trusted institutions. Quality journalism is a responsibility and valued commodity that is expected to be upheld throughout history.

It is often forgotten that in the age of this new digital era, much of what we have once valued (ie. information) has been lost. If I can access every New York Times article for free online (by the way, I won't be able to next year), why would I bother feeling like a fool in paying for it?

If information really does become ubiquitous, as Nakibook aims to achieve, where is the value in information?

Quality journalism, is something which, I believe, will transcend all mediums. It does not matter how it is delivered, where it is delivered, or how often - quality is key. The internet can only make this process better. The internet isn't out to kill newspapers, it can be of huge help. That isn't to say that newspapers shouldn't be worried, however.

As newspaper publisher, Rupert Murdoch, once said, what has killed industries in the past has been complacency, not technology.

Mr. Murray is the Chairman and CEO of Nakibook.