AuctionWire - Online Classifieds

Craigslist to surpass eBay in 2009? Compete and Quantcast seem to think so...

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:03:29 +0200

At the Structure '08 conference, one of the eBay guys made the comment that scalability was a solved problem for them. A fellow conference goer observed: airplanedan: must be nice to be ebay... James Barrese says they have scaling figured out and never have to worry about it again #structure08. This comment made me curious... Growth obviously makes scalability really hard, and how much is eBay growing anyway?? After pulling up a couple charges, in particular comparing things to Craigslist, you see some interesting results.

On andrewchen.typepad.com

Taking Aim at Craigslist

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:34:08 +0200

Nimble start-ups like Kijiji and Oodle are challenging Craigslist's long-standing reign as the undisputed leader in web classified ads. If you've never heard of a website called Kijiji, you're not alone. Named for the Swahili word for "village," this new classified service owned by eBay draws just 2.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. each month less than a tenth of the visitors to Craigslist. Nonetheless, this seemingly inconsequential site with an oddball name is at the heart of a legal scuffle between eBay and Craigslist, in which the companies are suing each other for unfairly undermining their business. A quick glance at the global online listings market reveals why classifieds-king Craigslist is worried. While Kijiji is just a speck in Craigslist's eye in the U.S., worldwide it gets just 26% fewer visitors, according to comScore. In the U.S., Kijiji has become the second most trafficked, general-purpose classified site just one year since it launched.

By ANITA HAMILTON

Microsoft's Live Expo Scheduled To Be Executed

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:30:59 +0200

Classifieds will close on July 31^st. Two years isn't too great a run for a product, especially when the people behind its launch would have liked for the thing to overtake Craigslist. Still, according to a post on the official site, Windows Live Expo will "discontinue service" in late July. Users have already been barred from creating new accounts, posting new listings, extending listings, and upgrading to premium listings, so Live Expo's remaining days will be a matter of letting the current offerings expire. This slow death won't exactly be confidence-inspiring.

By Doug Caverly

Get Your Airplane Partson Craigslist

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:07:21 +0200

On business-to-business Web sites like Alibaba and Craigslist, spare parts are showing up for sale by vendors not approved by the FA. Key airplane parts of sketchy origin are being sold in a thriving online market by vendors that aren't on the Federal Aviation Administration's list of approved suppliers, according to a new study by MarkMonitor. The study identified at least 24 vendors using business-to-business Web sites, including Alibaba.com, Craigslist, TradeKey, and iOffer, to sell spare parts for Boeing and Airbus airliners. MarkMonitor, a firm that specializes in protecting brands, says most of the vendors are based in either mainland China or the U.S. The partsincluding valves, gears, gauges, and radar componentshaven't been tested for airworthiness or lack documentation that such tests have been conducted.

by Arik Hesseldahl

Walmart Launches Online Classifieds Powered by Oodle

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:26:12 +0200

The site is hosted by Oodle.com, an aggregator of classifieds from over 80,000 websites, including eBay's Kijiji, Craigslist. Oodle also syndicates listings - published by local marketplaces or directly posted by consumers - across the Web. Oodle listings appear on over 200 sites with over 500k new listings a day, according to information on the Oodle website. Visitors to the Walmart.com Classifieds site can post items for sales for free, and have the listings show up throughout the Oodle network.

By Ina Steiner

Craigslist Tops U.S. Mobile Browsing

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:19:08 +0200

Mobile Web surfers in the U.S. spend more time on classified-ad site Craigslist than on any other Web site, and they spent nearly twice as much time browsing as their British counterparts in March. Those are among the findings from a study by mobile research company M:Metrics in which client software installed on participants' smartphones gleaned information about user activity. It found U.S. owners of smartphones -- not even counting iPhones or BlackBerry devices -- spent nearly 4 hours, 38 minutes using their browsers in March. U.K. subscribers spent just under 2 hours, 25 minutes, on average. The survey tracked 3,500 users of Symbian, Palm and Microsoft Windows Mobile smartphones in the U.S. and U.K.

By Stephen Lawson

Online Classified, Vertical Ad Spending Boom Predicted

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:59:29 +0200

Online classifieds and vertical ads in the United States will make up nearly a quarter of all Internet advertising in four years, predicts the Kelsey Group. The Princeton, NJ-based research company anticipates online classified and vertical advertising, which combined now account for about 18 percent of online ad spend, will reach 24 percent by 2012. Meanwhile, revenues for interactive classifieds and verticals -- called "marketplaces" by Peter Krasilovsky, Kelsey Group's program director of marketplaces, will reach $14.7 billion by 2012, according to the firm.

By Fred Aun

Craigslist bullies unofficial blog over domain, trademarks

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:00:45 +0200

Not everyone is fond of the flaky characters who make or respond to posts on Craigslist, but the company itself has a fairly clean, people-friendly reputation. It's certainly not typically known for going on bullying sprees around the 'Net in an attempt to protect its own trademarks, ala Apple and the use of the word "pod" or, say, logos that also happen to contain representations of apples. But that reputation could be changing, as Craigslist recently issued legal threats against a blogger over trademark infringement. Tim White started the Craigslist Blog (located at craigslistblog.org) in late February of this year.

By Jacqui Cheng

Online Auction King eBay Also Big In Classifieds

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:54:24 +0200

Question: What's the biggest classified ad outfit in the online world? Craigslist? Google? Answer: eBay.

EBay is sweeping past rivals in offering online classified services to users worldwide, a little-publicized fact about the online auction king."Within six months of entering the market for online classifieds (three years ago), we blew past all of them," said Jacob Aqraou, the general manager of the classifieds unit.Aqraou says eBay began slowly building through acquisitions.Today, classifieds are eBay's fastest-growing business unit. In the fourth quarter, classifieds revenue surged 104% from the year-earlier quarter, the company says.

BY DOUG TSURUOKA

Craigslist Revenue in 2008 May Top $80 Million, Could Reach $100 Million

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:48:17 +0200

Charging in Just 11 Markets, 25-Person Company Generates Record Revenue, Classified Intelligence Shows

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla.-Craigslist, the free-classifieds Web site that has become a global phenomenon, is expected to generate $81 million in revenue in 2008 and could easily top $100 million with a few simple changes that might improve the service, a new report shows. The report from Classified Intelligence, the leading consultants in the classified advertising field, estimated growth of 47 percent over $55 million in revenue for Craigslist in 2007. The 12-page report, which will be distributed with PowerPoint slides, also covers a number of issues facing Craigslist, such as its sleaze factor, and its up-and-coming competitor, corporate cousin Kijiji.com.

Continue reading "Craigslist Revenue in 2008 May Top $80 Million, Could Reach $100 Million"

Oodle Helps Consumers Avoid Scams in Online Classifieds

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:34:07 +0100

SAN MATEO, Calif., March 4 - Oodle (http://www.oodle.com/), a whole new kind of classifieds, and the Golden Gate Better Business Bureau, today announced that they will work together to help consumers buy and sell things more safely through online classifieds. The program includes the launch of a safety guide for consumers and a dynamic web site that chronicles the latest scams and frauds to avoid when using online classifieds.

Continue reading "Oodle Helps Consumers Avoid Scams in Online Classifieds"

Crgslst: The Endangered, Sexy Craigslist Search Tool

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:24:57 +0100

Denver, Colorado based Superhero.es has built crgslst, a very slick multi-city search tool for Craigslist. Craigslist itself doesn't offer a multi-search service. By combining the publicly available RSS feeds from Craigslist with AJAX, crgslst fills this need "so fast, we left the vowels behind." Unfortunately, crgslst may be in violation of the Craigslist terms of use and could face the same shutdown that other similar projects have in the past. This situation brings up a number of questions about intellectual property, RSS and mashups.

by Marshall Kirkpatrick

Watch out Craigslist, Sister Site Kijiji Is Taking Off

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:58:20 +0100

Its not yet a Craigslist killer, but eBays free classifieds site Kijiji is taking off in the U.S. eBay, of course, is also an investor in Craigslist, but its 25 percent stake doesnt give it a controlling interest and the other 75 percent is not for sale. So in March, 2005, eBay launched Kijiji as its own competing free classifieds site overseas. Then last summer, it launched a U.S. version of the site.

By Erick Schonfeld

New Australian business directory aims to take on Google Base

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:55:23 +0100

While the world waits for Google to bring its Google Base search engine out of Beta, an Australian search engine aims to take it on in the local marketplace. Google Base enables users to register products, services and content online together with associated word descriptors called attributes. The Australian search engine, called clickfind works on a similar principle, except unlike Google its model appears to be charge users to upload content.

by Stan Beer

Kijiji a Comer in Pursuit of Craigslist's Oodles of Traffic?

admin@auctionwire.info (PurpleCow) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:19:11 +0100

The New York Times recently reported a story about Kijiji's attempt to take on Craigslist. Though Kijiji has some decent traction globally, it had been an unknown in the US. Is that about to change? One factor in recent growth mentioned in the article was campaigns by eBay to inform users of Kijiji's presence. But what about the old tried and true - the organic search referrals that did so much to help Craigslist over the years? I figured Kijiji would look pretty strong on this front, because I've noticed their prominent placement on many local search queries here in Canada, in spite of their strong competition from, among others, Craigslist and Livedeal.

On traffick.com