INTERVIEW WITH JOHN EDIS, GLOBAL HEAD OF SEARCH OF SEARCHWORLD, AND DAVID BURDEN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF ANSEARCH LIMITED (ANH)

“Ansearch Unveils Global Search Advertising Solution”

http://www.brr.com.au/event/51492

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2008, 11:00 AM.

            BRR    On the 4th of September, Ansearch announced the launch of Australia’s largest independent search advertising network. Today, speaking to us about

10                    this result is the Chief Executive Officer of Ansearch, Mr. David Burden, and Searchworld’s Global Head of Search, Mr. Josh Edis. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me this afternoon

            ANH     Thanks, James.

15        BRR    David, this must be a really exciting and pleasing time for Ansearch.

            ANH     James, we are very pleased and as I hinted out in our last Boardroomradio interview, and also in some releases we put to the market over the last few months that we have been spending a lot of time developing a new product inside Search and we’re pretty excited with what was come up with

20                    Searchworld. The search market in Australia was worth $706 million in the last financial year, which had some growth of 34% and represented about 46% of the total expenditure online. Similarly in the US, the figures are just as startling with the market bid in total worth about $21.2 billion, and Search making up 41% of that market, so it’s certainly a very exciting market that

25                    Searchworld is launching into.

                        So James, to just explain what the searchworld network is, it consists of three components being syndication, advertisers, and publishers. The way that we develop this is we looked at the global market of Search and we did it firstly

30                    from Australian perspective and we found out that there were literally tens of millions of Australian search queries that are occurring on these second tier search engines and websites, and effectively, none of those queries were being monetized by Australian advertisers. So, we aggregated those together and we called that the Searchworld network, We put some technology to

35                    underpin that, which we’ve acquired from LookSmart, which enables us to build an option-based bidding platforms, so that advertisers can bid to place their ads against those keywords that these consumers are searching on in these T2 search engines.

40                    In addition to being able to advertise and from the publisher’s point of view, they can take a feed of those advertisements and place those on their own website, and when consumers visiting their websites click on those ads that we’ve provided they’re generating revenues through their online activities.

45                    In addition to the Searchworld network, we also still have the rights to syndicate a range of feed and make these available to publishers. The third leg of this is to eventually open the Searchworld ad centre to self-service customers to allow them to come into the system and to purchase advertising or purchase the feed for their website, you know, pretty much online and manage that completely online themselves, so that’s effectively what Searchworld is today.

            BRR    What is it that makes Searchworld an attractive alternative to other

5                      mainstream search networks?

            ANH     I’ll let Josh take over and explain that. Josh?

            ANH     Thanks, David. James, we see Searchworld as an attractive alternative to the other mainstream search engine or advertising providers like Google and Yahoo and MSN because we think what they’re doing with the network is

10                    essentially extending the rates of advertisers’ search campaigns. So, we think we can do that cost effectively by providing lower bid process that perhaps they might otherwise achieve with some of those other mainstream search engines. So in addition, we think that the Searchworld network is well positioned to our website publishers and other search engines outside of the

15                    Google and Yahoo tier, if you like, to help them generate complementary or new avenue streams for their website.

            BRR    Josh, can you explain what are the benefits of an auction based market place and how does this translate to revenues for Ansearch?

20        ANH     The market place or the search advertising network really enables Searchworld to tap into global network of, if you like, T2 search engines and websites beyond the mainstream search engines. We believe that it represents, you know, a significant portion of the global market. So significant portion of the search queries that people conducting on the Internet today,

25                    obviously Google and Yahoo and MSN, represent a big chunk of that, but there are many other search engines and websites that generate additional search queries and ultimately advertising inventory and that’s what we’re looking to aggregate and package up and also to advertisers in Australia and in other markets around the world.

30

                        I might just make another point there that, you know, by operating our own search advertising platform, this really enables us to have that closer one-to-one relationship with the advertiser, which means we can diversify our revenue streams and to complement our existing relationships with partners

35                    like Yahoo and Google.

            BRR    A key point that you’ve made is the abilities of advertisers to reach a worldwide audience through Searchworld. What’s scope do you foresee for market share in this base for Searchworld?

40        ANH     As David mentioned, the global search market continues to grow very aggressively, you know, Search representing close to US$10 billion in the US alone, so in Australia of course, you know, good 40% on size of $1.5 billion spent years going to Search. So we believe that Searchworld networks and the market place underpinning that, is really bringing additional reaches,

45                    adding new market share, if you like, rather than taking away from the existing players. Of course, the search market is global by nature so if you are operating a business pursuing customers in multiple countries then search advertising is without doubt the most targeted direct and economical method to reach that potential audience of customers. So, we believe that the opportunity for growth on a global basis is really quite exciting and we’re positioning the company to benefit from ultimately what is a global market place not just, you know, local operation.

5          BRR    Well today, Ansearch announced the Searchworld launch in North America, is this obviously a positive step in rolling out the global approach?

            ANH     Yes, James. This is a key component of our strategy here. There is a lot of activity that occurs in the US and it’s certainly one of the lead markets around the world, and it was very important for us to get a foothold in this market

10                    quite early. So, we scaled the market place and we found a fantastic key executive with ten years of experience in Search, Benjamin (inaudible) (00:07:08) and Benjamin actually joined us and started our US operation today.

15        BRR    Well, David and Josh, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us on Boardroom Radio today and give us an update on the latest development from Ansearch.

            ANH     Thanks, James.

INTERVIEW CONCLUDED

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