ZaaBiz, Australia’s leading business networking site, will announce tomorrow that it is dropping all premium service fees for all new and existing members in Australia and New Zealand.

In the past, premium services, which included the ability to message other members, advanced search functionality and the ability to create and manage groups, cost members $99 a year.

As of tomorrow they will be provided for free.

CEO, Michael Brecht, provided the following when asked about the motivation for the move:

We believe it is now the right time to give our members something back while offering something to new members, especially as every dollar counts these days

The cynic in me asked Brecht if it was actually about getting more people to try out the premium services before switching the paid system back on, but that was rejected on two fronts

First of all we already offer a one month trial period for premium services so new members are already trialling the services and second of all we have no intention of charging Australian or New Zealand members for premium services for the foreseeable future

In addition to that it should be noted that standard membership is already free, so traction doesn’t appear to be a major motivator either.

ZaaBiz, which launched a year ago, now has over 100,000 members and continues to grow strongly both in Australia and also, surprisingly, India. Brecht credits the popularity in India with the affinity many Indian business people have with English, and as a result Australian, style networking practices as opposed to American.

I’ve questioned the need for geographically-specific business networking sites, in the past, but the cultural nuances of doing business in different countries/regions is an overwhelming reason why it might just be necessary.

In addition to the fast growth rate, ZaaBiz members also appear to be using the site in different ways to competitors like LinkedIn. For instance, the average time on the site is over 14 minutes a visit, while industry figures put LinkedIn visit times at between 5-6 minutes. In addition to the time spent, Zaabiz members also have more page impressions per session than LinkedIn. One reason for this might be the increased popularity of LinkedIn as a recruiting site, whereas Zaabiz continues, according to Brecht, to be more of a pure business networking site.

Finally, the popularity of the site in Australia and India has seen it become a gateway tool between businesses from both countries looking to start working in the other.

With nothing to stop you from joining, except a 2 minute signup process, why not jump onto Zaabiz and give it a go? At the very least you’ll be supporting another Aussie startup and you may even end up adding another really useful networking site to your arsenal.

Check it out.