Partnership aims to grow internet cafe companies

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine unit of Yahoo! Inc. forged a partnership with an online gaming unit affiliated with Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co. (PLDT) to grow the internet café business in the country. Yahoo! said it will be working with Level Up! Games, a subsidiary of ePLDT, for the Yahoo! Advantage Internet Café program. ePLDT is the information technology (IT) unit of the country’s dominant telephone company, PLDT. The program is an offshoot of a similar program piloted last year specifically for internet cafes. Yahoo! said in a statement that the success of the pilot program has led to the new internet café program. Yahoo! said the new program also “aims to reward Internet café owners as they build a loyal customer base and grow their business." Internet cafes which join the program will become members of the Yahoo! Advantage network of Internet cafes and will be supported by Yahoo! by way of marketing and promotions, and by giving them access to Yahoo! communities. Internet cafés from across the Philippines simply have to sign up at www.yahoo.com.ph/iCafe to join the program. This recent internet café program is part of Yahoo! Philippines’ recent initiatives to make its local operations more “Pinoy-centric" given that Yahoo! claims that it has a big share of the local market. Yahoo! Philippines was set up just this year and one of its “Pinoy-centric" business strategies is to make Yahoo! websites the starting point for most consumers. “The partnership with Level Up! allows us to reach out to iCafe owners to help them grow their business while making Yahoo!’s websites the essential starting point for even more online Pinoys," Jojo Anonuevo, general manager of Yahoo! Philippines, said. Anonuevo added that internet cafes are critical in Yahoo!’s strategy since the Philippines is a fast-moving internet-savvy society and some first-time users are introduced to the internet through internet cafes. “The combined strength of Yahoo!’s brand reputation in the Philippines and Level Up!’s distribution network of nearly 10,000 Internet café partners will help transform lives through positive internet experiences to internet user communities in the Philippines through the benefits of Yahoo! Advantage," said Level Up! CEO Jane Walker. Walker added that providing opportunity to local internet cafes is their contribution to advance the local IT industry. Level-Up Philippines, a subsidiary of ePLDT, is an online game publisher with titles such as Ragnarok Online, RF Online, Freestyle Online, Flyff, Silkroad Online, Perfect World, Crazy Kart, and Be There. Yahoo! Philippines will be working closely with Yahoo! Southeast Asia in this internet café program. Yahoo! Southeast Asia runs and manages the Yahoo! Philippines’ website. - Veronica C. Silva, GMANews.TV