"A difficulty with the Internet is that there's so much information out there, people are getting lost, or if not, are spending excessive time wading through long search lists to get what they need," says Frank Verhagen, president, World Web Technologies. "The idea behind Market Centres is to group businesses together so people have an area to focus on, a rather simple solution that provides greater value than a stand alone WebPage."

"Market Centres are similar to an on-line trade magazine, or trade centre," explains David Gertz, World Web's vice president, marketing. "To be clear, Market Centres (MCs) do not update the content on a company's website because only the Market Centre changes, not a particular website. Being in a MC is valuable as a means of being found on the Net and not just floating around in cyberspace."

"Essentially they combine the information and content of individual sites, and multiply their overall value significantly. By featuring these sites with targeted information, special links and customized software, information, products and services for an entire industry -- oil, tourism, telecommunications, utilities for example -- can be provided in one convenient location," Gertz says. "They become supercharged content-rich websites for an industry sector, leading to a loyal and consistent viewership that grows daily and is trackable."

Market Centres are a natural development for the Internet where audiences already self-select themselves into groups of interest (medicine, oil, sports, politics, entertainment, technology, and so on). MC businesses receive a steady flow of people most interested in specific products, services or information, something they wouldn't easily get by themselves or by relying on Internet search engines and indices.

According to Gertz, they've had tremendous success with Discovery Place, a focal point for the oil and gas industry. Imperial Oil has been using the site to list its producing and non-producing sites for sale. Discovery Place also features information on producing oil and gas properties, land sales, corporate and financial data, equipment sales listings, industry news, and employment opportunities. Another Centre having tremendous success is Discover Alberta, a MC promoting the province's tourism industry. Both Discovery Place and Discover Alberta can be accessed at: World Web Technologies.

by Gordon Eckert