Giving Information A New Dimension

Kris Hagerman saw an opportu-nity to

build a new kind of con-sumer information resource on the World Wide Web that would

combine the comprehensiveness of the yellow pages with additional value-added information

that would enable consumers to make better, more informed purchase decisions. The same

application also had the potential to provide a compelling and cost-effective advertising

medium for businesses. This was the dual vision behind BigBook Inc. To turn this vision

into a reality, the company required a top-performing, scalable, high-end database.

Powered by INFORMIX-On Line Dynamic Server, today BigBook is the nation's leading online

yellow pages service.






The phrase 'Let your fingers do the walking' takes on a whole new meaning when, instead of
looking for a big yellow telephone book, a consumer dials up the WWW. According to Kris

Hagerman, President and CEO of BigBook, "The yellow pages serve a need for quick

access to basic business information. They are published once a year and provide the

consumer with a way to sort businesses by category, get a telephone number, and sometimes,

obtain a brief summary of the business. I was convinced that the WWW could provide a

platform for delivering a new kind of consumer information resource that included a lot

more than telephone numbers. At BigBook, our goal is to provide consumers with the ability

to gather a much broader collection of information, and to sort that information according

to specific criteria that was important to them."






The company's application enhances the existing information in the yellow pages by adding
a variety of features and content that are not available anywhere else. For instance, all

businesses included in BigBook's database have their own home page that includes a street

level map to assist consumers in finding the business. In addition, consumers can read

third-party reviews of restaurants, hotels and stores and add their own input about local

businesses they have encountered. They can also build a personal address book with the

names of businesses they use most frequently.






It also provides consumers with a more efficient way to find the businesses that can best
meet their needs. Customers can input their criteria and conduct a search that provides

them with a short list of the businesses that meet a short list of the businesses that

meet their needs. For example, a consumer can use BigBook to identify all the Italian

restaurants on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, see their locations on a map, read a

review by a food critic and browse through comments made by other BigBook users. This kind

of feature helps consumers make better decisions and provides a tremendous advantage to

people who are traveling and who aren't familiar with businesses in the area.






BigBook also offers businesses a unique and extremely targeted advertising opportunity.
Because the application is online, BigBook gives businesses the ability to add or enhance

their web page anytime, at no charge. "With the yellow pages, a business has only one

time each year to update their information and it's expensive," says Hagerman.

"BigBook gives them the opportunity to keep customers informed of important changes

in real time, at little or no cost. So, if a business has a sale, adds a product line,

changes a menu or opens a new location, they can immediately reach a very targeted

audience with this information."






Betting on the right database


From the moment BigBook was founded, Hagerman was searching for a relational database that
was capable of delivering robust performance, seamless scalability and tremendous

flexibility. "Big-Book is a data-intensive application," states Hagerman.

"And with the pace of growth on the web, our application had to be able to grow

seamlessly with demand. From the outset, I knew that we would be betting the company on

the database decision."






BigBook was destined to be one of the largest real-time database applications available on
the web. To provide consumers with detailed information about the 11 million businesses

included in the BigBook application, the database had to be capable of building a web page

for each business on the fly. "We took a hard look at all of the major database

providers. We selected Informix On-line Dynamic Server because it offered high

performance, scalability and flexibility. In addition, a key factor in our decision was

Informix's ability to act as our a strategic partner. We needed a database partner who

could grow with us and work well with our other strategic technology partner, Silicon

Graphics. And Informix has a very close relationship with SGI."






Staying ahead of the competition


BigBook's application, located at http://www.bigbook.com, went live in February of 1996
and within three months, became one of the top 100 most visited sites on the web. Viewed

as the national's leading online yellow pages service, BigBook has over 400,000 hits per

day and has won



numerous industry awards for product leadership. The company started


out using a single two-processor SGI Challenge DM, and quickly and seamlessly scaled to
two four-processor systems.






Its steady growth stems from repeat customers and word of mouth. "We've seen all this
traffic without really advertising the service," says Hagerman. "And the repeat

customer business has proven that accessing this kind of data through the web is habit

forming." BigBook believes it has found a long-term niche as a unique provider of

information on the web. According to Hagerman, "Unlike Yahoo! or InfoSeek, people who

access BigBook aren't really browsing for information. They are on a mission to buy

something."






Advertisers can leverage BigBook's robust relational database platform to precisely target
consumers by any combination of geography, product/service category, keyword, or

demographic profile. For example, the BigBook application ensures that Toyota advertises

only to people who are looking for new cars and that Ace Hardware's advertising banner is

shown only to people who live in the state of California and are looking for hardware.






To stay ahead, BigBook must continue to offer more features and integrate more value-added
information to consumers and to business. "This is a horse race," says Hagerman.

The only way to stay ahead is to make sure your partners run every bit as fast, if not

faster, than you do. We're relying on cutting-edge technology from Informix and SGI to

help us redefine a ten billion dollar industry."