RefreshClassifieds

Skype is probably best known as the alternative communication platform that provides low-cost long distance from almost any computer on the planet.  When Skype was bought by Ebay in 2005 the plan for Skype in the Ebay empire was anything but clear.  In the last 2 years Skype has continued to improve its product line and launched Skype Find e earlier this year.  Skype Find allows user created vendor recommendations and content to be searchable from with Skype.   The connection to allow Skype users to connect directly with these businesses without using telephone numbers is fairly clear.

Skype has recently released support for third-party developers to integrate into Skype and Skype Find.  For directory companies this should be a great opportunity to get access to Skype technology and user base.  The ideal solution would be to connect the Skype Find service with a business directory and cross reference the listings.  If the user wants to use Skype to call the business, they can, or if the business is not Skype enabled, they can use Skype Out to make normal telephone calls.

Skype is a little slow of the mark with its API and a desire to support third-party developers but it is a fairly dominate leader in the instant messaging and voip space.  It will be interesting to see if any major directory provides take advantage of this new technology.

Metro France is reporting a new partnership with AnnouncesJaunes.fr to provide housing listings into the Metro print publications.   The housing listings will be featured in a new section with a combination of editorial and classified listings.  The new section will feature 50 classified listings of the over 400,000 listings currently available on AnnoncesJaunes.fr.

This would appear to be a good partnership for both parties with Metro is reporting that 25% of its readers intent to my a new home within the next 2 years.   Both parties bring substantial exposure for the advertisers with AnnoncesJaunes.fr receiving over 600,000 unique daily visitors and Metro Newspaper receiving 2,000,000 daily readers.

Media corp is reporting, through its ChannelNewsAsia, that Mocca.com is now the most popular classified site in Singapore. The site received 7 million page views and 13,000 listings last month. This is a growth of over 700% in the last 2 months and Hitwise is reporting that Mocca.com receives a third of all classified traffic in Singapore. The site has over 40,000 users with 90% of them being active.

The Mocca.com launch was supported with a series of TV commercials, like the ad here.

These tongue-in-cheek ads caught a lot of attention and have been distributed on Youtube.com. Its not clear if these were uploaded by Mocca.com or by fans of the ads. Mocca.com is still offering free ads and no information was disclosed on revenue so its hard to judge the financial success.Mocca.com also has lots of room to grow. Hitwise is reporting that the Singapore classified marketing is 0.2% of total internet traffic while in the US the classified market is 1.1% of total internet traffic. Its great to see Mocca.com attracting so much success but I’m sure this hasn’t gone unnoticed by competitors. It will be interesting to see if Mocca.com can maintain this level of growth.

In the last year we’ve seen a steady increase of both Radio and TV companies developing classified business off of their websites.  The cost of setting up a classified site are so low now that its very practical to setup the site directly, or create a partnership to provide content.   Even if the Classified section runs at a loss it helps drive traffic to other parts of the site which can be monetized with advertising.

The strategy involves the realization that classifieds on their own are a fairly cheap form of content which will attract a lot of users.  Most classified focused companies try to monetize the classified ads directly but Radio and TV companies can use the classified content to attract users and monetize other parts of the site.  Microsoft Live Expo, and Facebook are using essentially the same strategy to attract users to their sites.

With this sort of strategy becoming more popular we expect to see a lot of pricing pressure on classified only websites.  They will need to seriously consider their relationship with Radio and RV companies and how they want to develop the classified market.

In a trend that seems to defy most Web 2.0 companies, Local.com has released the Uk.Local.com from beta.  Other online sites, most notably Google Gmail have stayed in beta for years.

The Uk.Local.com has also launched with an updated search interface which lets users : 

• Sort results by rating, distance, business name and category
• Limit results to a defined radius
• Filter results by related categories and nearby cities
• Sort by star ratings and read user reviews
• Access recent searches, which are now automatically saved for easy reference

The site also lets users search for various UK landmarks like “Piccadilly Circus” or “Westminster Abbey” and combine these with what they are looking for like “Pub near Piccadilly Circus”.    UK search is up 22% overall since 2006, as reported by Hitwise, and expected to grow as high speed internet becomes more popular in the UK.  

IQZone, one the leading provide of classifieds to mobile phones, has partnered with Daily Jolt to provide mobile classified to all of its 200+ university and college focused sites. The IQZone process to ad classified ads looks like a very easy 3 step process:

1. Take a video or photo with your phone
2. Add your text, price and zip
3. Send to ad@iqzone.com

IQZone can expand the text from abbreviations into more meaningful text description, for example A/C can be expanded into ‘Air Conditioning’.

This should be a good partnership for both companies, with students using text messaging on their phones more and more.  The only problem we see is that Daily Jolt is still not very popular the space.  Facebook is much more popular with university and might be a better talk for the IQZone technology.

Hot on the heals of the 2007/2008 print directory launch in Montreal,  the Yellow Pages group has launched a light edition for the Calgary market in Canada.  It would appear that like the full directory the light edition is being distributed to all homes in Calgary.   Also like the full directory the light edition will include all advertising categories.   The light directory appears to be targeted on people who want a glove box edition, or something to carry with them but not clear how big the market is for portable print directories.

Maybe the most interesting aspect of the light edition is the inclusion of a “Your Life Events Planner” section.  Directory usage is often linked to different life events like moving, getting married or having kids.  Each of these generates a need to contact new busineses in your area.  I think think its a great idea that a directory attempt to connect with these life events that generated so much value for advertisers.

Overall I don’t think there is clear value for advertisers in the light edition.  I’m not sure that a smaller former factor will really generate enough additional usage to justify the addition expense of advertising in both the full directory and light edition.

Disclosure:  Yellow Pages Group purchased Trader Media Corporation in 2006 and I was an employee of Trader Corporation from 2006 to 2007 which was owned by Yellow Pages Group.  I still own stock in Yellow Pages Group as a result.

Jobloft.com latest blog entry about the National  Job Fair & Training Expo, reminded me that online classified sites often forget to use offline channels to increase their brand awareness.   Its great to see Jobloft, a relatively new online start-up, using events and trade shows to grow their business.  Lets look deeper at why these events are generally good value.

The National Job Fair & Training Expo is located at the Metro Toronto Convention Center and should receive approximately 9,000 visitors during the 2 day event.  Lets assume the event costs about $10,000 to attend, with cost for booth space, staff and other expenses.    Lets assume with a reasonable booth position 80% of visitors are exposed to your booth, so the cost for exposure is about $1.40 visitor.   This is just the cost of exposure, and a good event strategy should include interaction tracking either through a contest or some other means to track people entering the booth.

When compared with  search advertising the costs for keyword like “Toronto Jobs” and “Toronto Training”, the cost per click is approximately $1.40 and $2.30 respective in Google Adwords.  This is on a cost per click basis, which basically get the user to your web site but doesn’t ensure they actually interact with it.  Is this equivalent to someone walking by your booth at Tradeshow?  Lets assume its pretty close.

On these numbers alone though, the value of trade shows is not clear and it looks about even value with search advertising.  But consider the industry contacts that are also at this type of trade show.  In the case of the National Job Fair, there are 158 other exhibitors, many of them would probably be interested in Classified Job advertising.  You’re essentially getting free exposure to industry advertisers, which in many cases are the most valuable, for free as part of the event.  When you consider this as part of the equation the value of these events becomes more clear.

Each events needs to be evaluated separately though, if the exposure rate fell below 80% of attendees or cost to attend ballooned above $10,000 then the value of the event should be questioned.

Editor & Publisher, a journal covering the Newspaper industry, is reporting that SFGate.com and Tulley’s Coffee have engaged in a test program to provide LCDs in Tulley Coffee locations with free access to SFGate.com.   Access is currently limited to news updates but may include Classified Information in the future.

We thought this was an excellent example of a Newspaper thinking outside of its traditional distribution mechanisms.  We hope to get more feedback on the test program and inclusion of Classified Information.

Over the past few weeks Google has been re-evaluating how to they rank different web directories, specifically those that are being used exclusively to get high search engine rank. For years its been a common strategy to get your web site listed into as many web directories as possible and use the combined inbound links to increase your page rank. Google appears to be changing the rules on this a little and we have the following recommendations for evaluating web directories:

1. Quality of the Companies and Links

What are the quality of the Companies and Links in the directory like? Do they all resolve? Be wary of sites that have a lot of links to companies with ad specific landing pages or under review just don’t really appear to be legitimate businesses.

2. Fee Process

Is there a fee to submit? If the fee is setup exclusively to ensure search engine ranking or covers multiple directory sites be wary. The fee should be structure should be setup such that you are paying for someone to review your company and ensure it is legitimate. If you are paying for anything else as part of the submission, like inbound links etc.. be concerned.

3. Rejection Process

Mos legitimate directories will have a rejection process and a process to mediate rejection. If the directory you a submitting to guarantees acceptance or offers assurance about increased page rank, we recommend moving on to another service.

With these quick steps you should be able to find legitimate Web Directories that can help both your business and your search engine ranking.