Warren Vernon navigates his firm's website which he describes as a recruiting service that also provides a database of professionals and services.

Sounding much like the international search engine Google, a website named Grogoo.com that offers instant advertising facilities and a job opportunity portal has been launched by a group of young Jamaicans.

"It is a job management tool, an engine for the employer and the job seeker," says Warren Vernon, a partner in the project. "Our aim is to create an environment where sellers may upload for sale ads from anywhere for a fee and change the content whenever they like."

Along with Vernon, partners Ricardo Harvey, Dwight Clarke and Dr Susan Bernard are agog about the success of the website. Vernon tells the Business Observer that the site presently averages over 70,000 hits per day. "There are some days it goes up to as much 300,000. The feedback has been good".

GroGoo.com, Vernon says, came out of a need for small and large businesses to have another option to advertise in a competitive manner online. "This can only be achieved if the advertiser knows real-time statistics about his or her advertisement. That is how many users are viewing how many times his or her advertisement rotates," he explains.

"Most important, Grogoo was developed to allow advertisers to do it themselves. With Grogoo, companies and individuals are able to upload their own ads and change their messages without paying additional fees. Also, they are able to view important ad statistics, such as how many people are seeing their products and services, and this can only enhance their competitiveness," says Vernon.

Three advertising packages are offered at a high of US$37 where ads are rotated on the home page and in the view-ads page.

Users may access the job management function of the website for free.

According to Vernon, job seekers may enter a profile and it is then matched with a complementing job posted by
an employer.

"The system is basically a recruiting service and it also provides a database of professionals and services. If you need a gardener, then you may be able to get one using the site," he says.

The website is registered in Canada and Jamaica, and managed by Vernon and Harvey, both HEART Trust/ NTA employees.

It all started at the University of the West Indies (UWI) when the two young computer studies graduates were looking at the job market. "We examined the market and saw that there was a need for an instant advertising service," says Vernon. "We didn't see anybody providing that service, so we moved into it."

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