Resumen del artículo: en este post se analizan las diferentes categorías de jugadores en el mundo de los clasificados online: los medios tradicionales, los "pure players", los actores del sector (p.ej. agencias inmobiliarias), los llegados a clasificados desde actividades aledañas y los agregadores.
For centuries newspaper’s exclusive turf, the online world has changed the way classified ads reach people and interact. Some newspaper groups (see below) have been more successful than others at transferring their offline skills to the online world. Large online media companies like Google (Google Base started in 2005 and has lost most of its steam), Amazon and Yahoo are not being counted among the new media companies successful in classifieds (Hotjobs.com and other examples notwithstanding). Nor has Microsoft: Live Expo was started in 2006 and officially closed last summer. Among the industry players Realtor.com (National Assoc. of Realtors), Rightmove.co.uk (founded by several large UK real estate networks), and Monster.com (TMP Worldwide) have been able to establish a sound presence. In the world of companies which specifically target internet classifieds we’ll analyze three projects because of their different backgrounds and strategies: Craigslist, eBay and Oodle.
Craigslist, the largest classifieds operation in the United States, reports that practically all of its free ads are used by 40 million people each month and that 30 million ads are self-published by users during the same period. Starting as a non profit organization in San Francisco in 1995, it offers classifieds in 500 cities in some 50 countries with a staff of 25 workers. Paid job ads in some cities represent its only source of revenue because its lack of real interest in maximizing profit is a well-known feature of the company. Accordingly, its site has not evolved as much as others and some analysts wonder how long it can maintain the current status quo. EBay owns 25% of Craigslist and both companies keep suing each other, Craigslist accusing eBay of using Board information to benefit its property Kijiji.
EBay declared $7.7 billion in revenue and aims at the global classifieds market more and more, which Classified Intelligence estimates to be worth $100 billion, both offline and online. As the business moves steadily online analysts say that the worldwide online classifieds industry is expected to grow to $15 billion in 2010 from $10 billion in 2006. Smaller than Craigslist in the US, but larger abroad, eBay has been taking steps to capture increasingly bigger pieces of the classifieds’ pie. Recently declaring its intention to invest in the acquisition of a number of classified companies taking advantage of the economic slowdown with priorities in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. From this and other press releases, it clearly intends to become the next world leader, representing no surprise since classifieds account for the fastest growing area of its activity. Through its sites Kijiji, Gumtree, Marktplaats, LoQUo and mobile.de it boasts 82 million visitors per month and has seen its classifieds traffic grow 100% during 2Q 2008 against the same period a year ago. Its property Kijiji, is a big name with roots that go deeper than most people realize. A centralized network of online urban communities, it focuses more on connecting local citizens but can also help connect with people or services in a specific region or network (no wonder its name means “village” in Swahili). It is now leader in some places such as Canada.
A few years ago the market expected other players to play a larger role in classifieds, such as the yellow pages, but their moment seems to have not arrived yet. Traditional media has lost a lot of traction but still we can find some sound examples such as Careerbuilder.com, owned by Gannett Co, Inc., Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company, and Microsoft Corp. Other cases are Fish4.co.uk owned by Newsquest Media, Trinity Mirror and Guardian Media Group, the Australian groups News Corp and Fairfax and Finn.no (Shibsted). Another category of players who some years ago appeared to be destined to take part in the consolidation of the industry were the Aggregators or metasearch companies which aggregate listings from different sources (newspapers, websites and non traditional sources, both national and local). Established players have always feared they may erode their brand equity and in general aggregators feed on non-leading projects. Although they have been around for some years their effect has yet to be felt, but it is still too early to count on their demise.
Oodle, the largest of them all and perhaps the exception, was founded in 2004 and is present in US, Canada and UK. It boasts millions of listings, over 200 leading brands including myspace.com, walmart.com, local.com, and thousands of sites. No other classifieds player makes it easier for the independent sites to reach an agreement than Oodle. Perhaps this strategy of easy integration would benefit the most from the social networks (extension) and verticality (depth) of the new internet since they provide an excellent environment to book and run classifieds and do not share in the brand erosion fear other media may feel. In the world of classifieds, even offline, leading companies were always trying to acquire emerging ones (remember Trader Classified Media?), and eBay follows path. Instead, Oodle has found a way of accessing thousand of databases without needing to acquire them. Who knows if in the future smaller sites, such as specialized blogs, can find in large aggregators another minor source of income thereby empowering this category?
Thanks for this info: i realy think online advertising its next big thing. Free online advertising will take over papers.
Posted by: tony | November 06, 2009 at 09:23 PM
We run a classifieds website http://classifieds.abacin.com
Oodle may be very useful for Facebook, Ebay with a large pool of members for other purpose and wanting to make more money from these members. However, for websites like us, we try to avoid to feed to and from Oodle since it is a direct competitor. Therefore, the competition among Oodle, Craigslist and Kijiji will be very fierce.
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Posted by: abacin | August 23, 2009 at 09:59 PM