Worldmine: Bits and Pieces

"We've had a lot of help from the government here," says Weingard. Worldmine set up its headquarters in Singapore last year.

Weingard was the sole investor for Worldmine until February 2000. "I didn't want people to invest in fresh air," he says.

Today Worldmine has HSBC and several other smaller investors that are backing the project.

"Revenue is important, because, unlike most dot-coms, we are interested in making money."

-Mark Weingard
Worldmine

Worldmine is also targeting add-value services such as booking systems, and has revenue streams that include content sales, and hotel management.

Another revenue generator is their advertising marketing model, which has been termed "Inner Focused Destination Specific Advertising".

"Consumers want information in relation to their interests," says Weingard.

In IFDSA, ads are customized to being destination-specific, in terms of locale and availability, says Weingard, pointing out that there's no use advertising for a product that you can't buy because its not available there.

"When you're exploring, you don't want to just sit in your room and surf the net," he says. "You want to go out."

"It's not too much focus on e-commerce," he admits. "But it's still commerce."

"Revenue is important, because, unlike most dot-coms, we are interested in making money," says Weingard, who projects that Worldmine should be in the black by the end of next year.