October 28, 2005 – 12:36 am
For a short time, eBay experimented with a Local Trading unit, which specialized in autos, sofas and other things “too heavy to ship.” But in 2001, it closed down the unit, which didn’t fit into its plans for eBay Autos, greater transaction fees, etc. By doing so, eBay took the chance that it would be left vulnerable to competitors filling the void.
Sure enough, jump to 2005, and a flurry of companies are ready to take advantage of the increasingly clear relationship between local auctions, classifieds and transactions. One of them is Santa Clara-based LiveDeal.
Launched by a former eBay engineer in 2003, the 25-person company lists 200,000 items for sale every day, and gets about 500,000 unique viewers a month. LiveDeal’s big news this month is that it has landed $4.8 million in financing, including $3 million from TorStar, the progressive publisher of The Toronto Star and dozens of smaller community and daily papers in Ontario. Other investors in this round include Draper Richards, a VC firm, and individual Silicon Valley investors.
We had the opportunity to talk with Vice President of Development Steve Harmon about the company’s progress. Details from the conversation, and more background, continues below.
October 25, 2005 – 1:13 am
Alternative Weeklies have seen better days, but the two largest companies, New Times Media and Village Voice Media, will try to rescue what’s left and combine forces in a move that will give them entry into 16 key markets, and 25 percent of the country’s 7.6 million alternative weekly readers. A key rationale behind the merger is the chance to supercharge Backpage.com, the Craigs List-like, free classifieds service from New Times.
Village Voice Media brings six markets to the table, including New York, Los Angeles, Orange County, Seattle, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Nashville. New Times publishes in 11 markets, including Phoenix, Cleveland, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Dallas.
Tellingly, online’s a key driver of the deal. Voice CEO David Schneiderman is slated to take charge of the company’s online operations, with a focus on backpage.com, New Times’ Craig’s list-like free classifieds service. The service may be rebranded as “The Village Voice” or some aspect of the title.
To a kultur meister, The Village Voice no longer “matters.” And The Voice, and similar alternative papers around the country, can hardly promise a lock on its traditional “alternative” readers, including college, college grad, gay and minority readers. Still, the alternative weeklies retain large readerships in key markets. Someone is surely picking up the 250,000 copies a week that The Voice puts out.
October 20, 2005 – 12:13 am
Oodle, which aggregates classifieds in 42 cities, has been asked by Craig’s List to stop using it as a source. Craig’s List represents about 20 percent of the company’s 4.5 million listings. To date, Craig’s List has received about one million referrals from Oodle.
Oodle founder and CEO Craig Donato told The Local Onliner that Craig’s List felt there were “server overload” issues, because Oodle sends traffic directly back to the source when an ad is clicked on. “We have a very, very large index,” said Donato.
Donato said that “fixes” were in store, and hopes that Craig’s List reconsiders. Oodle has sought to develop a reputation as being publisher-friendly, and works very well with newspapers, for instance, Donato said. Rather than cannibalize traffic, “we only show enough information” to get people to click through to the originating site.
October 18, 2005 – 11:42 pm
Local advertisers have discovered the Internet and will boost their advertising 26 percent to reach $3.2 billion this year. But after that, they’ll grow just 11 percent per year through 2010, reaching $5.3 billion, according to a new Jupiter Research report, “US Local Online Advertising Forecast, 2005 to 2010.”
According to Jupiter’s analysts, local advertising will fall short in its transition to the Net, as most local businesses will be slow to jump online. Instead, local online advertising will remain centered on national firms targeting on a localized basis.
Why? The portals won’t invest in local sales forces, and existing local advertisers see better leads coming from word of mouth, magazines, trade shows and other offline marketing tactics. “They are just beginning to build databases of email addresses,” notes Jupiter.
