Welly start-up Chrome Pages got some publicity today.
CP Guys – I’m glad you have the gumption to get this going, but I am really sorry – I’m going to have to be pretty negative here.
There is a somewhat lame and soundless you tube video showing the product. I cannot for the life of me figure it out:
Can you?
From the article:
Wellington company Chrome Pages believes it has found virgin territory in the hotly contested online advertising market with a mobile version of the Yellow Pages.
Note that is not “The Yellow Pages” online, but a new listing service for mobile phones.
Chrome Pages includes a free social networking site that the company hopes will drive traffic to its business listing service and a portal for mobile content such as ringtones and games. It also plans an event listings guide.
CP seem to be confused about what they are doing here. Are they a social networking site (yet another one), a ringtone site (so 90’s) or an event listings guide (90’s again)?
I’m totally staggered at the CP idea of a revenue model though.
I’m sorry to slam a newco, but why would anyone want to pay $495 to list on an unproven listing service?
CP has also outsourced development to an Aussie outfit that seems to specialise in resorts & hotels, and has no well known sites under its belt. That in itself isn’t a killer flaw, but it certainly points to an overly expensive cost model, and a lack of control of dev. There are, in fact, no full time staff at all at CP.
The CP website is unusable, with broken links, too much going on, no content and a menu bar that jumps around.
So nothing much there in this business, and what is there doesn’t make sense.
Most of all I’d be worried about where mobile phones are going. Sure I want pictures and videos on my phone, and yes, I even want a listing service. Except I get those pictures and video from the internet on my phone, and my listing service is Google. It has been for years – since 2001.
So my advice would be to start again:
A listing service may work, but start with a price of “free”.
You need a decent website to support the business. Read “Don’t Make Me Think”
Hire tech staff and stop paying others to do your work – it will be faster, cheaper and better.
Link up with one of the many online listing outfits so you don’t have to chase listings.
Choose your business – do one thing well before doing something else.
Make it worthwhile for phone users to use your service.
Make it work on all the phones available in NZ. (There’s a French outfit that will help out. for a fee.)
Keep your publicist.
Check what happened in advanced overseas mobile markets like the Philippines and South Korea.
Buy an iPhone. Then do some navel gazing.
Lance Wiggs 
Yes, I agree that Chrome pages fees is too high.
LikeLike
Couldn’t agree more. I try to be positive about our various local startups but this is just … what. Why. My real worry is not for the investors dollars that just headed offshore, but that some small tourism operators may be duped into paying their five hundred bucks (per year, mind you) being under the impression that they have to be on the new-fangled-interweb or their B&B is doomed. Luckily the few small tourism operators I do know are wiser than we, or Chrome Pages, generally give them credit for.
Anyway, what’s with feeling sorry for them – sending the work overseas? Tch! I think we can all name half a dozen local companies that could’ve done a better job for them.
LikeLike