Classified aggregators like Oodle and Edgeio have begun to transform how users look at classifieds. These players have put all the classifieds in one place, and levelled the playing field — a bit — among newspapers, alternative weeklies, business journals, TV stations and others.
A few years ago, newspapers would have rather died than participated. But the rise of Craig’s List as an alternative channel has made them take chances. The new feeling is that sites like Oodle, in particular, don’t hurt. Oodle relies almost entirely on passive Google revenues from the traffic, brings in new users, and link back to the newspaper site.
But now, WashingtonPost.com is going from passive to aggressive. In a few weeks, The Post will launch “Express,” a local classifieds product that will integrate Oodle’s API, according to Director of Local Product Development Henry Tam, who spoke at The Kelsey Group’s Drilling Down conference.
The effort represents a classic “own it” strategy by WashingtonPost.com, which in 1997, bought its way into the burgeoning city guide space by licensing CitySearch, an effort that ultimately proved to be overkill. The difference is that this time, there is no exclusivity – Oodle will keep running its nine month old DC site. “I don’t care if they ceom in from washingtonpost.com, or cars.com, or apartments.com,” said Tam.
For Oodle, the licensing of its API represents a first in the daily newspaper space. It had previously licensed the API to Lycos and Backpage, the new classifieds network owned by Village Voice media.
My expectation is that other newspapers will follow, using Oodle and other sources. Newspaper vendor Harvest Info, for instance, offers Deal Storm, a shopping aggregator that could be easily customized to support classifieds.