If you feel that way, you can be considered out of synch and increasingly at risk of lagging even farther behind the more persevering techies. Here is an eye-opener in the form of a brief excerpt taken from an essay by Bill Gates of Microsoft Corp. on the evolution of the brave new world of Internet, to wit:

"Despite its impact, Internet is still roughly where the automobile was during the era of Henry Ford’s Model T. We have seen a lot of amazing things so far, but there is much more to come. We are only at the dawn of the Internet Age." Bill Gates made this message in 2000, fittingly at a time coinciding with the advent of the Second Millennium.

These thoughts came to mind when a recent interview on Business Agenda Sa Radyo, hosted by Delfin Sd. Perez and aired over DZAR 1026, tackled the wide-ranging subject of Internet as a revolutionary technology transforming the way we live and work, a phenomenon that breaks the barriers of time and space in unleashing the human potential. The guest, Donald Patrick Lim, president and CEO of Yehey — a search engine and directory for Philippine-related sites — proved to be quite informative and inspiring throughout the interview.

In essence, Yehey is the Filipino counterpart of Yahoo! and it has served as a global network in keeping Filipinos interconnected worldwide. Increasingly, www.yehey.com is a site that Filipino-Americans often visit considering that practically all information found in other search engines are also available in this proudly Pinoy site.

It enjoys one big advantage, though, over foreign search engines such as Yahoo! and Google. All information materials pertaining to the Philippines stored in Yehey are regularly updated, aside from being relatively more complete, and are just a few mouse-clicks away. Take, for instance, a Fil-Am student doing some research on the now extinct bakya (wooden footwear), the best site is of course Yehey. Other sites can have information on, say, the City of Baguio but it is likely that the info you get is obsolete and sketchy.

Lim said www.yehey.com has portals for a complete menu of information resources related to Philippine affairs, including services, job listings, chats, matching, forums, news, classified ads, lifestyle, sports, environment, polls, finance, showbiz, photo gallery, etc.

It is revealing that their finance portal has the greatest hits, perhaps reflecting a shift in our collective mindset that what really matters is the economy. Significantly, this telling development should cue our national leaders to lower their political decibel and instead get their act together for our common good.

Yehey has definitely gone a long way and is now a rising Pinoy star in the cyberspace firmament. And to think it started out as a school project for five Atenean students ten years ago. Yehey, as it sounds, is a Filipino expression of joy, or a shout for joy. Looking back to where it all originated, it can be said Yehey is also a leap of faith in the Internet Age for Filipinos. Yehey!

E-mail: businessagenda_report @yahoo.com.ph.