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.
In return, Oodles attracts enough traffic to make money from Google AdSense. Eventually, it also hopes to earn revenue from content syndication and affiliate partnerships as well. I did a quick survey and saw that Oodle is currently working with 25 major newspaper titles in its 42 cities, including a number of Tribune and Gannett titles.
Can Oodle survive the body blow from Craig’s List? Donato says sure, he’s got plenty of other listings. On his blog, he says more than a dozen providers of classified services have asked to be included since the Craig cut-off.
He also expressed confidence that Oodle, whose 12 person team includes several Excite veterans, can stand out in the field. “We do quite a bit of processing,” said Donato. “It isn’t easy. We index the site, the note the quality of the ad; whether it is a good listing or bad listing; we tag it, and put it through a classic search interface.” In the works are numerous site improvements, including “mapping, and other things to enable buyers.”
So — is Craig’s List being unfair? Or is Oodle basically a parasite, living off the hard-earned listings of other sites? I think its a little of both.
From a consumer’s standpoint, it’s a really good service, with fun, city-specific icons, and an easy interface. Certainly, it brings people to newspaper websites who might otherwise never have gone. Newspapers just need to swallow hard and accept that their listings are going to be posted next to their smaller newspaper and vertical rivals.
But then again, if I was Jim Buckmaster and I ran Craig’s List, I would feel otherwise. Indeed, a strong argument could be made that the focus on specific listings eats away at Craig’s List’s hard-earned “community” by making it easier to avoid going to the site as often, and by highlighting listings from other source. In Buckmaster’s shoes, I probably would have also asked Oodle to keep my listings of its site.