Arts-culinaires.com, the gastronomy portal of the two 'B'

Laurent Bazet and Guillaume Besse, founders of the Ove Interactive start-up in Sophia, are back again, working on the content for this time. Over the boundaries of the pure technology…

There is some change in the new economy of the French Riviera. Fabrice Grinda and Sacha Fosse-Parisis have left Aucland and Frédéric Court, Etexx's co-founder is on another venture. Other figure of the first change, Laurent Bazet and Guillaume Besse. With Ove Interactive, they had experienced the database's domain, with the creation of the first dynamic portals as the one of 'businessriviera.com' for business tourism.Ove Interactive had been taken over at the end of 1999 by RTSe, a finish company listed on the London Stock Exchange that wished to set up in France. The integration (three companies of Sophia, Ove, Insys and Access consultants were taken over to be merged) wasn't successful. Laurent Bazet and Guillaume Besse, the two B, have left RTSe in September 2000. Since then, both started again together. For a new venture associating this time 'content' with the pure database technology. The venture of /www.arts-culinaires.com"> arts-culinaires.com, a portal of the gastronomy.- What is it ? - Laurent Bazet :'It is a search engine for the Web. It is a vertical portal dedicated to gastronomy and wine. The gastronomy under the following rubrics : eating out, health, purchases, recipes and general knowledge. We also deal with the history of the gastronomy and we add a part of training. Before, we worked with the database technology, which was the at the heart of the job at Ove, and now, we work with the content. As a matter of fact, we are doing the opposite now, even if the search engine's technique will be of great importance in the development of the website'.- What is the originality of the project? - Laurent Bazet :'First, it is vertical. It isn't generalist. We will mostly work on the relevance of answers. At the moment, when we do a research in Yahoo's gastronomy rubric, we have two types of information : a URL (the address) and two descriptive sentences. We tried at best to target the websites we will offer to Internet users when they will do a research. We will focus on what the Internet user wants rather than a simple research with key words. We have noticed that behind the key words intentions are hidden. If the key word is 'apple', answers won't be the same if the intention is to cook something or if it is to get information on health. In this case, we will ask what the user wants and the aim of his research.As in every portal, there will be a computer animation easy to plan since the events are still the same : the Christmas and New Year celebrations, the Twelfth Night, Valentine's day, Easter, etc. We started by Christmas and the game of the Advent Calendar (from December 1st to December 24th). For 24 days, six prizes could be won everyday and the first prize at the end. We already had excellent results. Gathering five partners (lastminute.com that gives the first prize, panniers.com, Lutti, Saveurs, chateauchampagne.com), we will reach an audience of 150 000 pages in December whereas we had 40 000 pages last month.- What about the business model? - Guillaume Besse :' A first part is made up with traditional advertising incomes (banners, purchase of key words, news letters sponsoring, advertorial). The second part is in the B to B. We will set up websites promotion campaigns for the participants of the cyber-gastronomy. In the B to B, we aim to provide tools to advertisers to develop advertising campaigns and evaluate their impact. For now, we both work full time on the project and in contact with the agency Techtonic (e-marketing).'- And the target? - Laurent Bazet :The first point is to keep on increasing the audience with simple and immediate actions without budget (exchange of visibility with other websites). Second point : work on the search engine technology. At the end of the first term 2001, a second version is planned, with all the functionalities of a search engine, working from the Internet users' intentions. Third point : establish a business plan together with the project and look for financing for the company we have set up, with a name which alludes to the new economy : Yadugoo…