Sponsor's Message

According to this IDG report, many of NZoom's features, including Webmail, e-cards, competitions and travel bookings will be ditched in favour of content more relevant to its broadcast offerings.

Now that the myth of a superhighway paved with gold has been largely dispelled, this move makes a lot of sense.

But something still has me scratching my head...

If TVNZ is getting ready to scale back and rebrand its online offering, why on earth is it still running a relatively high-profile advertising and branding campaign for NZoom?

Regular TV viewers will have spotted that the broadcaster has, in recent months, revitalised its promotion of the website and the services offered there.

I guess this is a pretty good indicator that it plans to try and sell the NZoom site and brand as a going concern.

Now, if the traffic reports are to be believed, NZoom is a pretty highly trafficked website and it even won one of those coveted (ha ha!) Qantas media awards for best news website. Clearly the NZ Herald and Stuff don't understand how these "awards" work and forgot to scratch the right back or oil the correct palm.

So is NZoom really a valuable piece of online real-estate?

Will potential purchasers be lining up at its door waiting to plonk down their hard-earned cash?

Only time will tell I guess -- but unless they're offering any new buyer the same level of access to key content such as sports, news and other (TV) programming support material, I don't think TVNZ will be inundated with suitors.

This is especially true if we assume that the "all new" TVNZ website, due for launch later this year, will provide the very same (TV) programme support material, sports and news.

Which leaves me wondering -- is there really any value in the webmail, e-cards, online competitions and travel booking components of NZoom without the rest?

Nope. Well not much anyway.

There are plenty of free webmail services on the Net, sites offering e-Cards are a dime a dozen, competitions are relatively commonplace, and specialist travel sites proliferate already. Remember that if you take away NZoom's key broadcast-related content -- that's all you've got left, and it's not much is it?

While these services may add extra value to a site that's already content-rich, they don't carry enough value themselves to justify spending anything more than pocket change to acquire.

However, NZoom's demise (or fragmentation) does create an opportunity. I'd wager that if properly designed, implemented and marketed, a content and service rich "portal" (I hate that word) launched at the right time could well step in to fill the void quite nicely. Which, I guess, further reduces the value of the bits TVNZ seem to be preparing to flog.

But hang on, what's the point in reinventing the wheel.

Let me ask you, Aardvark's army of astute readers, what are the killer services and content that you would like to see as part of a site that might wish to claim the title of "New Zealand's Homepage"?

If any Aardvark readers want to share opinion on today's column or add something, you're invited to chip in and have your say in The Aardvark Forums or, if you prefer, you can contact me directly.

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