RefreshClassifieds

The New York Post, one of oldest and fastest growing daily Newspaper publishers in the US with 4 Million monthly users, has partnered with Oodle, one of the largest online classified sites.  Oodle.com works by aggregating classified listings from a variety of sources so that users can get access to them on a single site.

It would appear that Oodle will provide a custom built classified site for the general classified listings.  The NYpost.com will continue to maintain separate classified listings for Automotive, Jobs, Real Estate and Dating.

The choice to use Oodle as a provider is an odd for the NYpost.com because Oodle aggregates all classified listings and it may now be possible for competitive classified listings to appear.  All listings in the general classified section will be free but this approach may drive traffic to competitive sites.   Its not clear if the NYpost.com and Oodle will actively filter competitive listings to avoid this problem.

Ozfreeonline.com has recently announced that they are the largest free classified site in Australia.  No source for this claim was referenced but interesting to see the free classified model moving down under.  The site is well design and its very easy to navigate between the different classified sections.

The announcement also highlights a common problem today with free classified with users facing no shortage of options to advertise with.   We think its only a matter of time before stronger tools become available to allow users to post their classified listings to multiple sites.  Obviously the smaller sites have the most to benefit from this approach but it should provide significant value for users too.

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.

After speculation for months about how free classified sites could get incent people to away from other free classified sites.  Listasaurus.com has announced that they will actually pay people to advertise.   The site also claims as one of its goals to provide less spam and fraudulent ads that other free classified sites.  This seems like an impossible business model maintain and in my opinion will actually create more spam than less.  We’d love to hear from anyone does actually get paid by listasaurus.com.

Yourlist.com has launched a free classified site which seems to be targeted at Craigslist.  The site features free listings for most categories except for employment which carry a $15 charge.  The site is focused on providing a safe and secure site for buyers and sellers to meet.  This seems to be tried to make this process as easy as possible at a very price point.  Users can search for classified listings in their city or with a radius of their zip code.  The site is currently only available in the US and most major cities.  There is currenty very little content and with all other free classified sites available I think they will have a hard time building up content.  To help with build content the site is giving away an Apple iPhone monthly through a random draw of advertisers.