RefreshClassifieds

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA), released a report on Friday, addressing Q2’ performance in the newspaper advertising space. The report features detail on the 19.3% increase seen in internet advertising revenues, during Q2’ of this year, versus the like in 2006. Even with the increase however, online advertising spend only accounted for 7% of all ad dollars taken in by newspapers. With that being said, online, no matter the advertising percentage, shows extremely well when compared to print revenues. According to the NAA, print revenues declined by over 10% in Q2’, when compared to last year and, as we guessed it, the biggest print decline is being seen in the classified ad sector. Classifieds themselves are down over 16%.

The results above are not surprising, if you have been watching how our larger advertisers are shifting their media campaign dollars. The next feat for newspapers and magazines is to figure out a way to be seen as a needed partner in that advertisers long term, new media plan. Determining the role they have to play, will allow for longevity and a way to capitalize intelligently, on online market opportunities.

RealEstate.com.au has launched a new site focused on Holiday Rentals.  RealHolidays.com.au focuses on the holiday and recreational real estate rental markets.  The site uses the same interface as RealEstate.com.au, which makes it easy for Real Estate agents to cross advertise listings.  The site features over 19,000 holiday rentals, and is almost twice as big as their closest competitor in the Holiday rental category.

A large part of the Australian economy is powered by the Tourism market so the site should be well positioned to take advantage of this market.  In addition Australians are choosing to travel more and more around their own country with domestic air travel increasing by 50% as compared to the 10% increase in international flights.

Traditionally cottages, holiday and recreational property rentals have been harder for classified sites to monetize because of the investment required.  By combining the Holiday Rental aspect with their core Real Estate business RealEstate.com.au should be able to monetize the advertising with minimal increased investment in their website.  One disadvantage they may face is speciality sites that offer customize search parameters that RealEstate.com.au can’t ad fast enough.

Local.com has announced that they have renewed a multi-year deal with Yahoo to provide sponsored links on Local.com.  The deal seems like a good relationship for both parties but its not clear how successful the Yahoo search marketing products have been.  Yahoo has been steadily loosing ground to Microsoft Live.com and Google is the gorillia in the space.  The Yahoo new search marketing system is currently only available in the US but Microsoft and Google have launched internationally.

No financial terms were disclosed as part of the deal but Local.com has been growing steadily but I suspect that most of their revenue comes from their own sales force.  There is also no mention of Yahoo.com licensing the Local.com local search patents.  This might be a critical factor with other competitors as Local.com has indicated their desire to enforce their patent ownership.

Poxt.com has launched a free classified site focusing on the Portland/Seattle area and offering video classifieds. The site is very clean with a nice design and the ad creation process is very simple. Advertisers can easily attach a Youtube with the emedded URL link. Pricing for the site is setup to as $1.99 for 30 days for Jobs and Housing ads but free for all other ad categories. Payment can be made via Paypal.

As always the hard part for Poxt.com is differentiating against the other free classified sites. Especially considering the market their in with Microsoft Live Expo focusing on the Seattle market. The site is offering an affliate program to post both Poxt.com banners and classified ad widgets. Poxt.com is offering $0.49 for each Banner or Classified Ad unit displayed for accepted affliate sites.