Web Week

NZ Web spreads afar

With the Government exhorting New Zealand expatriates to come home and help do some of the work that's piling up around the place, what are the chances of the call being heard?

For those who've transplanted themselves to distant parts of the world, email and the web make news of home only as far away as the nearest PC. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the Herald online is a favourite with Kiwis resident in Australia, the US, the UK and Canada.

Visitors in the past week would have been able to read that a quarter of all tertiary-educated New Zealanders live overseas; and seen what other expats make of home from afar.

Expat loyalty for Air NZ

Clearly, thoughts of returning home have already occurred to thousands of expats and traffic to the Air NZ site suggests loyalty to the national carrier is strong among them. The airline cleverly caters for Kiwis resident in different parts of the world by presenting them with flight options from a range of countries with prices in the local currency. Want a one-way ticket from London to New Zealand? That will be 579 quid, fanks guv'nor.

What's the delivery cost?

Even from afar Kiwis have an eye out for a sharp deal, it seems, with almost 5000 New Zealanders in Australia, the US, the UK and Canada paying visits to TradeMe in the past week. Quite how they plan to ship or get the goods is a mystery.

Web wheeler-dealing

Almost as many expats as patronised the TradeMe site visited ASB's online bank last week. The question is, how many went from one to the other, and in what order? Buyers paying for newly acquired goods, vendors seeing if the freshly hocked family heirlooms have been paid for and others checking to see if they have the means to pay for their bargain ... not to mention their flight tickets home.