Web wisdom from an OE veteran

By PETER GRIFFIN

New Zealanders embarking on their OE to London can now lay the groundwork for the trip through the internet - and take in words of wisdom from a seasoned traveller.

Fronted by television personality, writer and Aussie expatriate Clive James, www.kiwiinlondon.com gives advice to travelling Kiwis on how to cope in one of the fastest-moving cities in the world.

It is a subject to which James can relate. Embarking on his OE in the early 1960s, he arrived at Southampton fresh off a ship from the southern continent with "nothing to declare at Customs except goose pimples under my white nylon drip-dry shirt".

"There were some elementary mistakes I wouldn't have made if I had that kind of help," he says of the site, which joins the already well established www.aussieinlondon.com, and www.bokinlondon.com, which caters to the substantial South African population of Britain.

The site is aimed at New Zealanders preparing for their travels to the UK and those already there.

It includes tips on everything from finding a bedsit in Earls Court to the all-important task of obtaining a national insurance number.

Kiwi-centric content - news, features and living tips - will be added by London-based writers to give the site its own flavour.

A collection of message boards enables New Zealanders to make contact with friends - or even vent their spleen over visa hassles.

It is a new but comfortable medium for the 61-year-old celebrity, who shares his time working on the sites with managing a TV production company, writing a book and indulging his passion for Latin dancing.

He will be in Auckland this week to promote the site.

But fronting the venture as non-executive chairman, he is not planning to make a huge splash in cyberspace like the instant dotcoms that emerged last year, targeting young affluent travellers.

Kiwiinlondon.com is run just like its sister sites - with low level investment and therefore a low level of risk.

"It doesn't cost us much to operate, so we can afford to wait rather than rushing out and getting the first chewing gum or condom ads we can find."

Simon Larcey, the creator of all three sites, agrees that keeping costs low and building the site gradually will pay off. "There's a threat of it not making us millionaires, but it's not going to fail."

Mr Larcey says that the majority of advertising on the sites has so far come from British companies looking to target the expatriate community.

But around 50 per cent of traffic to the Australian site comes from Australia, so advertising from the back-home end will also be pursued vigorously.

Promotion of the sites is yet to start in earnest.

So far, it consists of a branded VW Kombi van which does the circuit of Antipodean drinking spots in London, spreading the word about the online hang-outs.

But the three sites face a competitive online marketplace where a potential audience of 800,000 Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans has become extremely attractive to advertisers flogging everything from Aussie lager to cheap plane tickets and telephone calling cards.

Already standard-issue expat magazines such as TNT and Southern Cross have made their way online (www.tntmag.co.uk) with travel packages, accommodation and jobs listings mixed with useful tips on how to get by in the UK.

James believes the web traffic generated through the expat-oriented information portals will drive interest in his other online venture, the Aussie-tinted www.welcomestranger.com.

The site webcasts interviews conducted in James' library with notable visitors to London.

Having worked on successful prime-time shows for the BBC and ITV in Britain, James sees the site as a way of bypassing the headaches of the television world.

"I'm actually producing the type of TV that I wanted to do on the networks but it was getting hard to do.

"I'm interviewing the people I want to in the way I want."

The site is in its early days and is yet to attract advertisers, but James' first six web-streamed episodes have been sold to a digital TV arts channel in Britain.

James says the young Antipodean travellers who converge on London these days come with good job prospects and a sense of national pride - and, most importantly, are web-savvy.

"They're much more confident about the place they came from. When I arrived in London 40 years ago we thought Australia and New Zealand were a bit of a backwater.

"That's no longer true. The Antipodes are now the centre of the world.

"The world has been tipped upside down."

Links


Kiwiinlondon.com

Aussieinlondon

Bokinlondon