Publisher launches online franchise-locating tool 17 September, 2006 By Patricia Pickett

Canadian Business Franchise, a magazine published by Richmond Hill, Ont.-based Kenilworth Media, has launched the 1-Minute Franchise Finder, a web-based, searchable database that lets buyers search for franchises in the industry, location and price range of their choice.

According to Cora Golden, publisher of Canadian Business Franchise, it's not that easy for prospective buyers to find good information about franchises in Canada. The magazine publishes a hard-copy directory that gives some information about franchises, their costs, the royalty fees associated with them, and other information. "But you have to go through it laboriously, page by page, and there is never an easy way to compare offerings," she said. It is also impossible to tell from reading the directory whether certain franchises are available in a specific area. "You can hone down the choices but you have to contact each individual franchise" to determine availability, she said.

There are other franchise directories available online, Golden said, but they mostly consist of advertising. "It's (companies) telling (buyers) what they want them to know," rather than what they should know, she said.

The 1-Minute Franchise Finder is a fully searchable database product that can narrow down the list of possibilities according to several criteria. For example, "If I want to find a home renovation franchise and I want it to be located in B.C., and I want to pay no more than $150,000, I can put that in the search criteria and get the options that come up," Golden said. Once a person plugs in the preliminary information: industry category, desired amount of investment and ideal location, a sidebar with options to narrow the results appears to the left of the page that contains all the preliminary listings displayed.

"This is a next-generation technology so there is no clicking through things or doubling back" to get to the previous page to change the criteria, Golden said. "What we are trying to create is similar to the Multiple Listing Service" an online search tool used in the Canadian real estate industry, "but with much more function."

Golden said there are at least 1,000 entries on the web site, each with its own two-page report, which users can either download or e-mail to themselves.

Both in-house and external developers worked on the tool, Golden said. The user interface was built using Flash and there is a reporting function in the back end that pulls out all the stats the user requests. Toronto-based Rich Internet Group worked on all of the components created using the Ajax web development technique for creating interactive Internet applications. Kenilworth also upgraded to a blade server in preparation for future high -density computing requirements. "Currently we are talking to publishers and franchise associations around the world to see if we can get people to use the technology and create a global network of 1-Minute Franchise Finders."

The tool is currently free of charge for prospective franchise buyers. Franchises also get a basic listing for free, although there are additional ads and features available for purchase.