The e-Moo website has grown beyond its Bermuda roots and has spread to communities as far afield as Australia, Peru, Colorado, England and the Caribbean.Now the bosses of the buying, selling and advertising platform, which has become an online institution in Bermuda since it was founded eight years ago, are looking to accelerate that expansion into small communities around the world.Several of the e-Moo operations outside Bermuda are being run by Bermudians living overseas, or expatriates who used to live on the Island, people who know the site well and how to use it. Now e-Moo, which is part of the Igility Group, hopes to find more people who fit that profile to drive the ongoing expansion.“We have an opportunity to create a global brand with Bermuda roots,” said Robin Hamill, e-Moo’s chairman and chief executive officer.“We want to open 100 new e-Moos in the next 12 months. We think the people who can help us do that are people who have lived in Bermuda and know the website.“We’d love to hear from anyone who sees an opportunity to open an e-Moo in a small community.”By licensing the e-Moo name and online platform to managers in different communities the website is being rolled out in more and more locations.The company targets communities with a population of between 50,000 and 200,000. In February 2010, e-Moo launched in Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado, a ski resort area with a population of around 60,000. The site has attracted about 2,600 registered users and Mr Hamill is confident that will grow over the years.Roaring Fork Valley is one of nine e-Moo locations in Colorado alone and further expansion is planned in the state. There are also eight in Florida and two in Connecticut. e-Moo is also operating in the Cayman Islands, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Tasmania and the rural county of Cumbria in England.e-Moo has a list of further possible locations under review in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Jamaica, Malta and Ireland.e-Moo was founded by American accountant Donna Gauthier, who worked in Bermuda for KPMG and Deloitte. In 1999, she started an e-mail list for friends and colleagues seeking rental accommodation. So great was the demand that she decided to convert the list into a website. She managed that in 2003, with the help of JC Laville-Parker, who chose e-Moo as a temporary name.The website caught on quickly and developed as a site where the community could place small ads for free and advertise events. The website’s cartoon cow mascot added to brand recognition. Igility bought a controlling stake six years ago and acquired 100 percent of the business in 2009.“e-Moo’s growth has exploded in Bermuda,” Mr Hamill said. “It now has about 40,000 registered users and 1,200 to 1,500 advertisements per week.“According to a survey, about 75 percent of the population uses e-Moo at least once a month and only one percent has never heard of e-Moo. So it’s become one of the strongest brands in Bermuda.”e-Moo generates revenue from banner ads, real estate ads and corporate ads, while community ads are free.Small communities provide the right fit for e-Moo, which has a commitment to family values, Mr Hamill said.“One of the aspects of the e-Moo model that sets us apart is that people tend to behave better in a small community,” Mr Hamill said. “In larger communities, there is more anonymity, so you don’t know who your counterparty is and you tend to behave differently from when you are likely to know the person you are trading with.“e-Moo was founded on family values. We want the content to be appropriate, so that we can have 12 year-olds and 90 year-olds using the site.“We’re very different from Craigslist, for example, which is very large and successful in the big US cities. The beauty of e-Moo is that it’s like a Saturday market, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It connects people.”e-Moo hosts not only classified and real estate advertisements, but also a local guide, a dining guide, events list and a directory.Bermuda Press Holdings Ltd, the owner of this newspaper, owns a stake in e-moo.Useful website:www.emoo.com