SO are we "dotcomming" the local business landscape at Internet speed, or is it still the tuldok system as far as writing the present chapter on the Philippine new economy is concerned?

At the two-day HatchCamp for Startups seminar held by Philippine Internet incubator HatchAsia.com on July 13-14, local executives admitted that we couldn't yet really cite local success stories in the dotcom arena. They qualified this admission by saying that while a number of Philippine websites have generated a loyal following and have received fresh investments, none has yet succeeded in making a true regional or global Internet play.

"I wouldn't say they're a success already. Maybe the challenge for Philippine dotcoms is that you can concentrate on the US market alone because that is already enough to sustain a dotcom business," said Manny Portugal, chief technology officer of both DFNN.com and HatchAsia. DFNN.com owns a majority stake in HatchAsia.

"In the Philippines, unfortunately you can't focus on the local market because this is still small. So if you focus on the Philippines, you have to focus on the mass market. Maybe this would work for B2B (business-to-business) e-commerce, but for B2C (business-to-consumer), you'd better have a market aside from the Philippines."

Portugal mentioned local dotcoms such as Pinoymail (www.pinoymail.com) and PinoyCentral (www.pinoycentral.com) which have been relatively successful in catering to the Philippine market. He, however, noted that they would eventually have to expand their play to other markets to sustain their businesses.

"The Philippine market is growing, but is that enough to warrant millions and millions of investment?" he pointed out.

In a separate interview, HatchAsia managing director Dondi Mapa said that in considering investments in local start-ups, HatchAsia is looking for companies which already have a regional or global play in mind from the start.

He cited early Philippine online job recruitment sites like Trabaho.com (www.trabaho.com).

"In a short time, these sites were overshadowed by JobsDB Philippines and Jobstreet.com, because these were aiming for a global market from the very start. We don't mind if you start in the Philippines but your aim should be global reach," Mapa said.

He admitted that the success stories cited in local seminars such as the HatchCamp, which was patterned after Garage.com's Internet boot camp in the US, are still based on the experiences of dotcoms in the US and other countries. Mapa, however, said that you could already consider as e-commerce successes Philippine dotcoms such as PinoyAuctions.com and DFNN.com. DFNN.com, for one, has already been given the go-signal for an initial public offering at the Philippine Stock Exchange, with prices tentatively set at a range of P10 to P20 per share.

Mapa also disagreed with the notion that it is now much harder for a Philippine dotcom to become successful, which has been the perception since the bursting of the dotcom bubble in the Nasdaq and other stock markets, and the resulting conservatism of venture capitalists.

"I think maybe it's easier here because the Philippines is a good market to pilot your ideas. If you want a pilot in the US or other markets, it costs a lot, but if you are successful here, you can get more funding and expand your business to other markets," he opined.

Meanwhile, on July 11, a day before the HatchCamp, a new holding company launched the country's first family-run business conglomerate on the Internet. Called Yapster e-Conglomerate Inc., this holding firm offers via the Yapster.com gateway a whole suite of online businesses, including Yapster e-trade, Yapster Shared Services and Active Business Solutions.

Abigail Yap, Yapster's chief executive officer, explained with a laugh that the company's name was not inspired by the popular-and controversial-MP3 search engine and online community Napster, but was a play on their family name.

Agreeing that it is harder for local dotcoms to differentiate themselves and succeed, Yap said that their focus would be B2B.

"The strength of Yapster is that while we provide online services, we also have the enabling technology," Yap said. "We see that approach as a strong model for any Internet play."

While initially concentrating on the internal market of its own group of companies, the long-term goal for Yapster is to expand to an Applications Service Provider to other companies not only in the Philippines but outside the country.

"Currently, we're running Shared Services for the group but we will move into the ASP space when the market demands it. We are not sure yet when we will make this move because that would depend on the market-if there's enough demand to sustain this," Yap said.

As Portugal pointed out, the key is to focus while keeping an eye on new market opportunities later down the line.

"What happens is that you focus first on a particular market segment and then proceed to other opportunities that you would not have found out if you hadn't gone online first," Portugal said.

True, the netpreneurial passion is alive in Filipinos, but translating this into dotcom success means executing business ideas that would be compelling to surfers outside the Philippine market. The Philippine dotcom story is just starting and we are in the exciting part filled with many possibilities, far from the end.