circle.ch :: Swiss Post buys search portal search.ch

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2010-08-25T08:13:16

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29. May 2004

Swiss Post buys search portal search.ch
Economy (wiki) | Random Thought (wiki) - urs @ 01:53:17

My favourite search engine for domestic searches, search.ch, has been bought by the Swiss Post [1,2]. This is an interesting deal of a company dealing with letters and packets mainly. The Swiss Post itself has its own online portals providing services like e-banking, ticketing, mail and sms, e-payment etc. etc. To integrate a search portal seems like logical if you look at it now, but who would have guessed that ;-)

I am quite interested in how the Swiss Post intends to enhance the services provided by search.ch. You might argue, that a typical Post company should not burn its hands with e-business, then you should keep the following in mind; even if the citizens tend to travel or move around more than they did ten or twenty years ago, they mostly are at residents somewhere. Traditional services as delivering snail-mail can be combined with online services. The Post company has probably the most actual data regarding addresses. To give an example; the first thing one does after having moved to a new location, is letting the snail-mail get forwarded to the new address. This can be done by signing a contract at the Postoffice. So, the Swiss Post does know beforehand of that change; probably earlier than the Bank, the assurance company or the telecom company. Where does a search engine or search technology come in? Well, you better ask Swiss Post ;-)

But search.ch already combined search technologies with the lookup of telephone numbers resp. addresses. One of their latest feature is the "related websites" ("Websites zum Eintrag"):

http://tel.search.ch/result.html?name=B%E4rengraben&kanton=BE

Since I am not an economist, I can not say exactly, how valuable "early bird" false-free address-information in combination with online services is. But I would guess, the earlier you get them, the better. Froogle "only" does allow smart shopping - in other words - seeking products on demand. But if the Swiss Post creates a site, where one can set up his or her own profile, the Swiss Post should be able to create a "portfolio" of possibly interesting products based on some search magic matching to that profile. Finally, Postfinance offers a comfortable way to pay the bill. Just a random thought...

Oh, and congratulations to Berhard.

[1] http://www.bernhardseefeld.ch/archives/000096.html
[2] http://www.post.ch/SiteOnLine/DE/Accueil/1,1727,17704,00.html