bpresent - 2:24 pm on Jul 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

a decent search engine is needed

G.au (filtering on 'pages from Australia') seems more reliable at the moment but we shall see.

I hold more hope in the competition mentioned in the article, than in the giant Telstra. They are not very nimble footed so I don't think we'll see much difference between the 'beta' and the real thing for some time to come.

The two 'new' players Y! and MSN could also prove interesting.

If you crank up their engines from the email interface they already filter to Australian based sites (and it just happens - it's not an option) although the new MSN I'm not sure about yet. There still seem to be an awful lot of hotmail users in Oz (based only on my observations and ear on a small patch of ground - anyone have any recent figures?).

It's good to see something happening at least!

Given the much greater uptake in ADSL in recent months we (Aussies) may finally start using the web for product / supplier research a little.