I guess I could say I wish I had seen this from its inception but that isn’t true. Since posts about Walmart’s Classifieds have part of my current interest, I saw Erick’s at TC and read through the comments, coming across one by Bob Wyman. He mentioned the “no-coincidence” thought that Walmart’s new classifieds are being publicized at about the same time the newspaper industry is attempting to “recapture” the classified ad business.

Hence ReinventingClassifieds.com.

From their very first post;

“We’re especially looking for ideas that will help the newspaper industry figure out how to recover some of its lost classifieds business.”

To their post about Wal-Mart’s new Classifieds and Wal-Mart’s official line;

“We recently launched Walmart.com Classifieds beta to provide additional opportunities for our customers to save money and live better. This free, community-based resource allows customers to buy and sell items locally, find local jobs and learn about events in their area. Our new Classifieds beta at Walmart.com provides an expanded offering of products and services, the majority of which are not traditionally available from Wal-Mart, such as job listings, automobiles, rentals and real estate. It also further connects our community of 130 million customers who shop the Wal-Mart brand each week.”

Steve Outing and Co. are attempting to “bring experts together to revive newspaper classifieds by finding a new business model relevant in the Internet age.”

You’ll find a mixed number of opinions there whether classifieds can be saved or reinvented, including Bob Wyman’s. Good reading…

Post from: EveryJoe

Someone Is Trying To Reinvent Classified Advertising

“Newspaper publishers are seeing a significant slowdown in the growth rate of online revenue.”

That’s not all either – Print revenue has also plummeted in double digits for the first three months of 2008. Online classifieds have slowed while online display advertising is booming.

“Newspapers’ online classifieds are particularly vulnerable because most newspaper publishers still get the bulk of their online classified revenues from “up-sells” on the print side, offering online ad placement to people placing print classifieds.”

Very telling to one specific area might be “classified advertising was down 15.4% as lower newspaper advertising volumes, especially help-wanted, had an unfavorable impact on the company’s Web sites.” for one company, Media General.

Maybe the job boards have had an impact? (I wonder if eBay is paying attention?) j/k on both counts :)

Post from: EveryJoe

Newspapers Online Revenue Growth Slowing