KEY POINTS:
Kevin Bowler is about to go in to battle with the big media companies, scrapping over a share of the online advertising dollar.
Telecom's head of consumer marketing becomes chief executive of Yahoo!Xtra next month and is relishing the chance to take charge of a company that generates
money through advertising. "It's a really fantastic opportunity to lead a start-up business in a completely different model."
Yahoo!Xtra is a joint venture between Telecom and the Australian arm of internet company Yahoo!, which replaced Microsoft's MSN as Xtra's online partner early this year.
Bowler said the potential for growth in the online advertising attracted him away from the gadgets of Telecom's consumer marketing.
"I feel very strongly that, particularly in New Zealand, internet advertising is yet to really mature."
Time spent online was growing at a faster rate than any other media, he said, with the number of people using the internet daily up 40 per cent in five years.
"If you look back two or three years, the way people would use the internet was they'd log on, check their emails, get some information, then they'd turn their computer off.
"What people are doing now is they are leaving the computer on and they are actually using it as an entertainment platform. It's either complementing TV or an alternative to TV in some houses."
AGB Nielsen figures reported in the Business Herald yesterday showed that for the week to May 20 the number of people in the 20-54 age group watching television was down 10 per cent on the same period last year.
"We're not seeing [online growth] necessarily delivering the advertising opportunities that it should do."
Asked if this strategy could see a closer alignment between Yahoo!Xtra and Telecom's online shopping mall, Ferrit.co.nz, Bowler said it was not part of the company's plans.
"But all things are possible and one of the things about the web you've got to do is keep an open mind."
The Yahoo!Xtra site gets from 400,000-500,000 unique users a week, viewing 12-14 million web pages.
Bowler said while the site had not seen a huge increase in the number of visitors, people were staying for longer. "What we're putting up there is really working for people, they're really engaging with it. What we will be seeking to do is attract more people into it."
He put this down to the introduction of Yahoo!-developed services such as Answers, described as "the local version of the world's most popular question and answer forum".
"When I first heard about it I couldn't quite understand it," said Bowler. "This [Answers] isn't about finding out facts. It's about sharing opinions and beliefs."
Answers is all part of the Web 2.0 world - web communities built around sharing information - but Bowler admitted he had only dabbled in it and online photo-sharing site Flikr.
Until Bowler officially becomes chief executive of Yahoo!Xtra in July he is covering Telecom's marketing role as well as the new job. "The deal was I could do one or two days on the new job. What I didn't appreciate was that was Saturday and Sunday."
More site developments are planned and Bowler said users wouldn't recognise it in six months.
Part of the revamp will be additional services and features exclusively for Telecom's 400,000 retail broadband users.
Bowler described it as being like the Koru Club, which gives its members a service for free they may have otherwise paid for.
