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| SearchChannel cuts to the chase |
| on online info |
April 27, 2005
BY SANDRA GUY SUN-TIMES COMUMNIST
A Willowbrook company is helping businesses get noticed on Web search engines, particularly those that appeal to hobbyists, enthusiasts and serious-minded researchers.
The company, SearchChannel, also helps business and enthusiast publishing companies -- primarily publishers in niche industries such as agriculture or telecommunications -- set up their archives, and index and aggregate Web content so they can be searched in Google-like fashion.
It's part of a new phenomenon called vertical search: Search engines spit out specific topics based on a searcher's interests, unlike the A to Z results that a Google or Yahoo would compile.
For example, one of SearchChannel's media clients is Advanstar Communications' DentalProducts.net, which owns the industry's definitive search engine, dental explorer. A dentist looking for ceramics would find information with the search engine about the type of material he could work with, rather than a mishmash of pottery and mineral Web sites that a general search engine could elicit.
In this case, a dental industry supplier would want its advertisement to appear in the vertical search-engine query.
Web entrepreneur Bill Furlong founded SearchChannel in May 2004 to help media companies get into the search-engine business and to quell business researchers' growing frustrations about a lack of relevant results with consumer-oriented search engines.
Furlong and his partners spotted an opportunity in specialized search and in helping businesses advertise via online search engines. After all, analysts say advertising revenue from Internet searches should grow to $7 billion in 2007 from today's $1.6 billion. Jupiter Research said large companies drove a nearly 50 percent increase in advertising on search engines in 2003, the latest data available. In addition, nearly 40 percent of all online advertising is comprised of search-engine advertising.
Among Furlong's partners are Pat Yanahan, founder of ad agency USA Chicago, a 25-year marketing veteran and director of the Chicago Software Association.
"Wherever there is broadcast, there is narrowcast," Furlong said. "While Yahoo and Google will remain the leaders in general search, there will be a flurry of specialized search players emerging in the coming few years. We see it as a great new publishing platform for media companies."
SearchChannel is profitable, has six clients and 10 employees, but intends to grow on its own for now. It has yet to take offers from venture capitalists.
"We're keeping our options open," Furlong said.
SearchChannel gets paid by its media clients for building their search engines with its proprietary ASP platform, and for setting out a business model and revenue strategy for the publisher. ASP stands for application service provider, a company that rents software to other companies.
When the search engine is ready to go, SearchChannel creates marketing programs for the media company.
SearchChannel also charges a fee to ensure that the publishers are properly listed in search engines and to help companies buy words or phrases for which people search, a weird new science called SEO, or search engine optimization.
"We don't just build the vertical search engine and go away," Furlong said. "We build the business. We sit at the strategy table with the CEO and the management team of a media company to ensure that a profitable business is built."
Publishing companies are sitting on a gold mine of archival material, and SearchChannel works to make the material accessible to Web surfers genuinely interested in it.
Trade magazines could eventually vie with today's mainstream news outlets in building an audience for their content, legacy and brand, Furlong said. The publishers can own and operate their own search engines, focused on their market.
A recent study by Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management revealed that 82 percent of the Internet users surveyed said they would "definitely" or "probably" increase their use of search engines if the quality and relevance of the results could be improved.
SearchChannel has jumped into a crowded field. Google and Yahoo also have vertical-search capabilities.
Already, robust search engines serve the engineering field (GlobalSpec) and the IT marketplace (bitpipe and KnowledgeStorm), and more will emerge. Other search companies, such as Verity, are designed for corporate users, and media giants also provide search capabilities.
Furlong credits SearchChannel's ability to compete to a fundamental aspect of business itself. "We're seasoned entrepreneurs," said Furlong, one of the founders of B2B Works, the online ad agency. "We're well networked, and we have been in the online media business for as long as it has been one."