I am not sure how this model is much different from the Peakhour waste of time that was launched at the turn of the century (and was supposed by now to be ruling the world). or indeed from the clunky websites (sans a real domain) you can build via one Google Account option or another.

Frankly I can’t see how this is all going to work. To build an adequate website you need to take some time, a measure of literacy and a vague idea of design. Not all SMEs have these in any measure at all. Or we could end up with plethora of sites built by the proprietors’ kids (like they used to do when Frontpage first came out) and then abandoned when it all gets too hard leaving the web littered with out of date sites.

Alternatively: I for one welcome our new Googley masters.

Sensis are trying to hold on – I do not give them much hope, they will be dead a buried in the next 5 years… (Or continuing to sell a lie to thousands of ignorant small businesses.)

“Yep, we want to do that. Our strategy is always to make sure that we invest in our Big Pond asset. You’ll start to see some pretty clever stuff happening in devices. I don’t know if we’ll call it the Telstra app store but it’ll be one click, pretty simple to use.”

It’s hard to see how any of these products and services can survive against best of breed competitors.

It will be interesting to see whether Telstra gets back into providing telecommunications for services to run on, which it is in a position to do better than other companies, or if it plugs away in areas where other companies make better products and services than it can.