Brothers发布当地商业搜索引擎

Working as an orthodontist in Tampa, Jeff Seymour had his Internet "aha" moment.

Time and again, Seymour was frustrated as he tried to promote his dental practice on the Web. Playing up his use of invisible braces, for instance, attracted Web inquiries from people who would never fly to Tampa to see a dentist.

"I got traffic from all over the country," Seymour said. "And I was paying for every click. It was very wasteful and it started me wondering how using the Internet could make sense for a small local business."
What would work, he decided, was a video tour of his office aimed primarily at people who lived nearby. People could "meet" the dentist, look around and get a feel for the practice without actually coming to the office.

Seymour kicked around the idea with his brother, Jon, who has a medical degree and worked for a tech company. The conversations eventually became a business plan, and earlier this year the brothers launched GetFave.com, a local search engine based in Chicago that includes all businesses operating in the Chicago market.

"We cover everything," said Jon Seymour, chief executive of Fave Media Inc. "Whether it's day care, restaurants or funeral homes, we list every business and sort them geographically."

Businesses don't pay to be listed, but they do pay to have videos as part of their listing, and that's where the Seymours seek to make money.

"People in businesses have paid to have Web sites with 15 or 20 pages that no one ever finds," said Jon Seymour, "but a video is much more effective at getting your message across. YouTube has changed everything."

The Seymours put in their own money and raised some from friends, investing about $2.5 million in Fave, which has online video ads from about 120 businesses, mostly on Chicago's North Side. The company has 18 full-time employees and seeks to expand throughout this market.

But how can a dinky operation such as Fave compete with the likes of Google and Yahoo?

"We don't compete," said Jon Seymour. "Many Google searches get directed to our site. About 80 percent of our traffic now comes from Google."

Unlike a lot of Web outfits, Fave has a brick-and-mortar presence at 2350 N. Clark St., where the curious can come in, pull up a chair at a computer and test GetFave.com for themselves.

"We get a surprising amount of walk-in traffic," said Jeff Seymour.

The Seymours have worked with local chambers of commerce in Lakeview and other neighborhoods to promote their video service and envision a future of many local virtual markets across the city and suburbs.

While there are numerous competitors operating search engines geared toward local communities, the Seymour brothers see Fave, where they will work with customers to make their videos, as having more of a personal touch than others. This may be a big plus for serving Chicago and the suburbs, but it poses a dilemma for expansion: how to move into other markets while maintaining that personal-touch local focus.

"It's a conversation we've been having for some time," said Jeff Seymour. "We haven't reached a conclusion."

NO PARACHUTE: When Krish Prabhu leaves his post as chief executive at Tellabs Inc. in March, he will do so without benefit of an employment contract and the golden parachute such contracts entail.

Prabhu, who was recruited in 2004 to lead the Naperville-based telecom equipment firm, had such a contract then, as did Michael Birck, Tellabs' co-founder and chairman. Birck and Prabhu decided sometime ago that such contracts weren't needed and let them lapse.

"We'd never had employment contracts at Tellabs," said Birck. "I'm a big believer in employment at will."

When Tellabs hired Richard Notebaert in 2000 to become chief executive, Birck said, Notebaert's lawyer insisted upon an employment contract. The Tellabs board later decided that if the chief executive had a contract, Birck, as chairman, should have one as well.

When Notebaert left Tellabs in 2002 to head Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc., he got no golden parachute because he left of his own will, Birck said. When Prabhu was recruited, he did get a contract, but later he and Birck agreed to let them lapse.

Because Prabhu also is leaving by his own choice, a contract wouldn't have made any difference anyway, said Birck, who is happy to be done with executive employment contracts, even if they are the norm in business today.

"You can't chain an executive to his desk," Birck said, "but if the company decides he shouldn't be there, he reaps a bonanza. It seems kind of one-sided to me."