WHILE LIVING in Australia, Garry Bennett tried to keep in contact with events in his home town of Mitchelstown, Co Cork, by using the internet.

He became frustrated at the lack of quality websites for towns, many of which were run by business associations and irregularly updated. Having worked for Yahoo for five years in the UK and for a web development company in Sydney, Bennett decided to address these deficiencies by building his own site.

"Mytown.ie will give you information specific to your town; everything from hotels and local businesses to news and weather."

It differs from other directory sites because of the range of additional information and the user-generated content it offers, according to Bennett. It has detailed information on 170 towns in 32 counties and has 55,000 visitors per month.

He has agreements with regional newspaper groups, including Independent News and Media and Johnston Press, and privately-owned newspapers to provide local news for around 50 of the larger towns.

Many parts of the site are interactive, allowing users to put up photographs and business notices and chat on a user forum specific to that town. The revenue mainly comes from business listings. While all firms can list for free, those that pay a fee are ranked higher.

"For each town there are around 70 business categories ranging from plumbers to solicitors. For an annual fee the businesses get a presence at the top of the page, with a logo and extra detail while other firms in the category are ranked alphabetically."

Bennett has 20,000 pages listed on Google and says this drives the majority of his traffic. The site took a year to develop and Bennett says it is profitable. It is based in the Rubicon Centre at Cork Institute of Technology and is part of the Genesis programme for accelerate business development in the southwest.

Bennett is now looking to identify local agents to manage the site for an individual town, in return for a commission on advertising sold.

mytown.ie