Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Bezurk makes (some) progress

Bezurk has announced a new distribution deal with Yahoo! Singapore. Good news for Craig and Martin but Bezurk have a tough job ahead. I believe in the comparative shopping model they have adopted. Kayak and Sidestep have proven the model and the VCs agree. But Asia is going to be tougher and not just because of the usual language and currency issues. To succeed you need lots of online advertising, differentiated inventory sources that can be brought together and viable affiliate income streams from local players. In Asia you miss out on affiliate income and therefore the inventory from Wotif, Mytrip/Rakuten Travel and asiatravel (in declining importance). It is good to see distribution deals signed and a few internal issues cleaned up - but Craig and Martin will have to close few more inventory deals for Bezurk to make it.

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