Standing out: Tyloon clients sign up to take advantage of multilingual world of Internet search optimization.WHEN Barry Su started a Web hosting Making a Web site available on the Internet. Many ISPs host a few personal Web pages for an individual at no additional cost above the monthly service fee, but the address is subordinate to the ISP; for example, www.friendlyisp.com/pat_smith. business in 2000, most of his small-business clients asked for top placement on local search engines so they could attract more customers to their sites. Because his clients spoke mostly Chinese, like Su, or Spanish, they had trouble marketing themselves to English-speaking customers. Others wanted to reach their counterparts in China but had trouble finding Chinese company listings in English. So Su began tackling a basic dilemma of the Internet age. "We could build them a beautiful Web site, but if nobody could find the company, what's the point?" he asked rhetorically. Tyloon decided to focus on yellow pages directories as a way to simplify multilingual searches for products and services. Then he really began thinking globally. If an export-import company in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. wanted to reach an unknown counterpart in China, he reasoned, there was no translation software that could connect the two companies. By using yellow pages directories, Su would enable his small-business clients to search a database in their own language and find their counterpart in China or Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. , or vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. . He spent seven years analyzing the logarithmic scales Noun 1. logarithmic scale - scale on which actual distances from the origin are proportional to the logarithms of the corresponding scale numbers graduated table, ordered series, scale, scale of measurement - an ordered reference standard; "judging on a scale of 1 of Google and Yahoo to understand how search engines work. Because he needed a searchable database Refers to databases on the Web that are searchable by typing in a query. The term is quite redundant because all databases are searchable. In fact, that is one of their major features. , Su ended up buying access to yellow pages directories with 15 million listings of U.S. businesses. He then hired a technology guru to build a proprietary "single-pipe" multilingual search engine that would translate the U.S. yellow page directories into Chinese and Spanish. "For the last 10 years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time Internet has grown radically but language is still an obstacle," said Grace Su, Barry's wife and Tyloon's vice president and chief executive. "We're creating a search engine so anyone can search for a business in any country but get results in their own language." Turning the pages Nacho Hernandez, chief executive of iHispanic Marketing Group in La Jolla La Jolla (lə hoi`yə), on the Pacific Ocean, S Calif., an uninc. district within the confines of San Diego; founded 1869. The beautiful ocean beaches, in particular La Jolla shores and Black's Beach, and sea-washed caves attract visitors and , said Tyloon's biggest concern as a startup is getting enough customers to drive traffic to its own site. Moreover, there are plenty of important players in the directories sector including Verizon's SuperPages.eom, which has a Spanish equivalent, and newcomers such as Jake Baillie's TrueLocal.com, which has mapping systems and graphics but still fights for market share with Yellow Pages. "It's good to see small companies trying to compete," Hernandez said of Tyloon. "But in order to have important information for their users, they had to buy their data." Last week, a report from the Newspaper Association of America The Newspaper Association of America is a United States trade association that represents the country's largest daily newspapers and provides services including market research, technology education and support, minority hiring and representing publishers in Washington, D.C. found that 75 percent of online consumers use search engines for product or service information. That's one of the reasons so many businesses are trying to team up with Google or Yahoo! to reach millions of potential customers. Both Google and Yahoo have tools that leverage mechanical translation technology and allow queries in one language with responses in another language, usually on a split screen. The Internet giants have well-established brands and a far broader reach, of course, but Su believes they can't offer the direct and detailed service his site does. Tyloon's clients so far are an eclectic mix of local companies that are trying to bridge the language barrier as well. They include Vivitar, an Oxnard-based manufacturer of cameras and lenses; Sky Link TV, a Los Angeles-based Chinese cable programmer; and Container Worldwide Inc., a cargo firm in the City of Industry. Su believes the addition of a Chinese yellow Chinese yellow Chinese draft cattle of zebu origin. Usually yellow, also brown, red or black in color. pages database in the next few months will be a boon for export-import businesses in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, . The diversity of Tyloon's workforce befits a multilingual search engine and data base manager. Two programmers in Slovenia handle the firm's tech support. An editor in Canada corrects many of the English language English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. problems presented by customers who are trying to build their first Web site. The company plans to add French, Japanese and German language yellow pages within the next year. In a few months, it expects to add a database of 11 million businesses in China, and 2.4 million in Canada, that can be searched in various languages. The company recently hired Juan Yanez Carrera as its marketing manager for Latino businesses with the goal of building its presence in Southern California. Tyloon sells ads and provides Web hosting and design through Su's AbleDesigner.com. Though Su is talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to potential investors, he says be has turned down several clients who wanted to buy into the company. "We believe Tyloon will become known as the next generation search engine because it is breaking the language barrier," said Carrera. Tyloon Inc. Year Founded: 2094 Core Business: Local multilingual search engine and yellow pages directory Employees in 2005: 25 Employees in 2006: 30 Goal: To become a leading global search engine for small businesses Driving Force: Providing a means for English and non-English speaking Internet users to do worldwide business together BY KATE BERRY Staff Reporter |
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