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  • Greg Collier 6:37 pm on October 14, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Remembering Al Davis: More than an owner; More like a legend 

    I’m an Oakland Raiders fan – have been since I was a young kid growing up in Northern California. In recent years, people have been surprised to hear me declare my loyalty as the team was sacked, blocked and otherwise beaten down one game after the next. But I’m proud to say that I never gave up on the organization – from the players all the way up to Mr. Davis.

    You see, unlike a lot of my Silver-and-Black brethren, I was also a big fan of Al Davis, the man at the top of the Raiders organization. As we know, Mr. Davis passed away days before the Raiders faced the Houston Texans in what turned out to be a thrilling game. I even loved some of the commentary after the final play of the game, with the thought of divine intervention by Al Davis to make sure that the boys would “Just Win, Baby.” 

    You see, Al Davis was the Raiders. He turned them into the organization that they are – the team that gets a bad rap, the team that everyone else loves to hate, the team that may not make it to the playoffs but will ruin it for a rival by winning a final week game that everyone had already written off. And when they’re in their glory, well… there’s no living with a Raiders fan at that point. 

    That’s why I could never understand how anyone could say they love the Raiders but hate Al Davis. It just doesn’t work that way. 

    Personally, I had a deep respect for Mr. Davis. He wasn’t afraid to zig left when everybody else zagged right. That shows great vision, character, strength and just plain guts – doing the right thing when it’s not popular. Without regard to public opinion, including his own Raider fan base at times, he did whatever he thought was best for his team. To the end, his “Just Win, Baby” mantra guided his life, his team and the way he conducted business. 

    In some ways, he was also a business hero of mine, someone who inspired me to zig left in business while my counterparts zagged right. A CNN reporter once called me “crazy” for trying to challenge the mighty Craigslist over their site content.  But it doesn’t bother me one bit – because I know that conforming to the ways of others isn’t how you measure success and failure. 

    The Raiders are off to a strong start this season – and I’m right there with them, a former season ticket holder (my name is on a plaque at the Coliseum) who has since landed in the Washington DC area but maintains his loyalty from afar via Directv’s NFL Sunday Ticket. 

    I’ll fly out west for a game later in the season, just as I do every year. But I can’t help but wonder if it will feel different there in the Coliseum, somehow, without Mr. Davis behind the glass in his suite, overlooking as the Nation cheers on the Silver and Black.

     Rest in Peace, Al Davis. You created a legacy. We’ll help you keep it alive.

     

    • Vernon Broussard 4:13 pm on October 15, 2011 Permalink

      Nice article Greg. He definitely was the game changer. He created something that made us proud to be from NorCal when we were growing up. Thanks for sharing that. And I think I remember seeing your name at the coliseum…in the mens bathroom…bur I don’t wanna repeat what it said. Lol. 😀

  • Greg Collier 10:28 am on October 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    An investor-free company has flexibility to adapt, grow and succeed 

    I’m often asked about who’s investing in Geebo and my response sometimes catches folks off-guard.

    Geebo isn’t a company that was built out of big outside investment dollars. It started modestly as a grassroots effort and has built itself, some 10 years later, into a solid business. More importantly, it’s a company that answers to its users, not its investors. And I think that makes it even stronger. 

    Certainly, I’m not looking down on companies that take investors’ money to grow their businesses – quick cash can be a way to fuel some quick growth and hopefully some traction in a competitive marketplace. But, I’ve also always subscribed to the theory that an investment of your own sweat and money will make you work harder and offer more rewarding returns. Plus, there’s no guarantee that those investment dollars – and the investors breathing down your neck for results – will actually do anything to advance your mission. Some hard work and determination – and your own money – will make you work. 

    Over the last several years, many of my competitors have collectively raised more than $100 million to challenge Geebo, Craigslist and others in this space. But that hasn’t necessarily given any of them an edge. One of those sites, Edgeio, for example, has since failed, despite an injection of $6.5 million in capital. 

    Meanwhile, Geebo remains on solid ground, growing the way we intended when the site was launched more than 10 years ago and taking some risks that might impact the bottom line in the short-term but will create greater value for the long-term. 

    Deciding, for example, to remove personals ads from Geebo at a time when that part of the business was becoming quite lucrative for other sites, was a bold move for us. It was a moral move that allowed us to go home at night with a clear conscience about our impact on the safety of the users. Others, whose users have been the victims of violent crimes, cannot say the same. 

    One of the reasons Geebo can take such risks is because it has never been influenced by outside investors whose interests are in making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. From the beginning, Geebo employed a “percolation” strategy for growth and set our sights on building value for our users. 

    That’s not just some marketing message at Geebo – we don’t just “talk the talk,” we “walk the walk” when it comes to our commitment to customer satisfaction and social responsibility. We don’t make our business decisions lightly – whether adding a safety feature, venturing into a new partnership or killing a section like personals – and try our best to be transparent with our customers. 

    We want them to hold us accountable. 

    Related posts:

    Why won’t Geebo’s competitors take steps to keep their users safe?

    My challenge to Craigslist: Keep criminals off your site

     

  • Greg Collier 7:56 am on August 18, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Site reacts to bad PR with new safety features but Is it enough to rebuild trust? 

    Why does it take some bad PR to shame companies into doing things that should have been done in the first place?

    Airbnb, a small start-up that fell into a vat of public relations hot water last month, has just launched a new set of features that are intended to protect its customers from being victimized by people they meet on the Internet. Yet, these new features are so basic that I can’t help but wonder why they weren’t part of the company’s original business model.

    Here’s the back story: Airbnb is a site that teams people who want to rent their homes or portions of it to strangers who will be visiting the homeowner’s town for a short stay – maybe a vacation or an overnight business trip or even just a lost soul trying to find himself on a cheap journey around the world. In theory, the site is an unconventional alternative to a traditional hotel room.

    Related Post: Learning tough lessons: Use caution, protect yourself when putting your home in online marketplace

    It’s a scary concept, for sure – but not unheard of. People rent out beach homes and mountain cabins all the time. The difference is that Airbnb customers are just regular people in their everyday homes who are basically putting out a welcome mat for a stranger on the Internet who is willing to pay the asking price. Scary, right?

    Earlier this year, the concept blew up in Airbnb’s face when a San Francisco woman who used the site to rent out her home returned to find that the place had been ransacked, robbed and vandalized. And while Airbnb initially had her back, the company seemed to turn against her – according to her accounts – when the PR hot water started to boil. Suddenly, she was on her own to deal with this problem.

    That brings us back to Airbnb’s new features. Since the incident with the San Francisco woman, the company has launched 20 new safety features. (It boasts that it is “delivering over 40 new features and services,” but I only counted 20.) On the plus side, features like address verification, video profiles and reservation requirements are probably effective at avoiding agreements with petty criminals or irresponsible college kids.

    But others, such as references, social connections and photographs, are easy for criminals to hack and manipulate. And then there’s that $50,000 Host Guarantee that’s like insurance but isn’t really insurance, but is subject to the terms and conditions, which still say that “the entire risk… remains with you.” Sounds like a lot of legalese intended to protect Airbnb’s interests, instead of the company’s.

    I’m not trying to be a glass-half-empty kind of guy nor am I trying to rain on the company’s parade. Believe me, I’m all for startups that are entering the market with unique, innovative ideas. But the responsible business owner has to think through the potential pitfalls of the business model. Anytime you facilitate the potential meeting of two strangers over the Internet, you have to think about the potential worst case scenarios.

    Related post: A partnership with WeGoLook brings peace of mind to classifieds

    It’s not like we don’t know the lengths that people will go to in order to victimize other people. We’ve seen example after example about victims being robbed, assaulted and even killed by people they met via craigslist ads. (This is one of the reasons that Geebo does not accept personals ads.) Maybe that’s why it bothers me that a company like Airbnb would launch a service that puts so much trust in complete strangers without these basic safeguards and protections in place right out of the gate. It’s not like there wasn’t plenty of evidence that people will victimize each other over the Internet if given the chance. Why did it take a tragic incident and a PR nightmare to push Airbnb into launching these features?

    Yes, there’s a bit of a bias here. In all honesty, I’m not a fan of the business model that Airbnb has launched – and that’s really only because I’m concerned about the users of the site. Read the story about the woman in San Francisco and then ask yourself if a $50,000 Host guarantee would make you feel any better if you were her.

    Yeah, me neither.

     

  • Greg Collier 3:48 am on July 31, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Learning tough lessons: Use caution, protect yourself when putting your home in online marketplace 

    I can’t say it enough: the online marketplace can be a scary place, folks. And as much as you would like to put your faith in your fellow man, that’s not always possible. As private citizens, we need to take the steps to ensure our own safety and to avoid situations that potentially put us in harm’s way.

    Case in point: There’s a very sad and unfortunate story gaining traction on the Internet about a woman whose San Francisco apartment was ranscaked, robbed and vandalized by the strangers that she rented it to through a property-rental site called Airbnb. The site teams people who want to rent their homes or portions of it to strangers who may be in their hometowns – maybe vacationing, maybe hopping in for the night for a next-day business meeting or just a lost soul trying to find himself on a (cheap) journey around the world.

    For anyone who’s ever owned and rented out a ski cabin or beach house, these sort of deals are nothing new. But those folks know how to protect themselves – they collect deposits, they set rules and guidelines and they put it all in a legal, written agreement. Sure, they take a risk that a rowdy group of frat boys on Spring Break could destroy their property. But they protect themselves through insurance and legal options.

    I’m not here to bash AirBnB’s business model. But I will point out that it – as well as its customers – are exposing themselves to some unnecessary risks, including bad publicity. The site manages all aspects of the rental, including collecting the payment upfront and distributing it to the property owners within 24 hours of the renter’s check-in.

    Here’s where it gets squeamish: the only forms of communication between landlord and tenant ahead of time is through a messaging system on the Airbnb site. Once the two parties reach an agreement, then the site releases information like email addresses and phone numbers. And while the site encourages people to communicate with each other via the messaging system, it strongly advises them to not communicate offline or to meet face-to-face until the reservation has been finalized.

    Why on Earth would anyone ever agree to such a thing?

    As the founder of Geebo, I have gone to great lengths – everything shy of screaming from rooftops – for people to use caution when dealing with strangers in an online marketplace. While most folks out there are decent human beings who mean no harm and are only looking for a “good deal,” there are some who will use the opportunity to victimize another person. It’s sad – but it happens all the time.

    Earlier this year, Geebo partnered with a company called WeGoLook, which dispatches real people to physically inspect something that a person is considering buying through an online marketplace – a vintage car, perhaps, or maybe a rare collectible. The idea is that an independent person inspects the authenticity of the item in a safe environment – protecting the buyer not only from being scammed by a phony item but also from being robbed (or worse) when they meet to conduct the final transaction.

    What’s ironic is that folks laughed when we explained that WeGoLook’s services could also be used in the personals ads that are on other sites. (Geebo has chosen to not host personals ads.) Sure, maybe it’s unconventional to dispatch an independent third party to meet and interview a potential date – to make sure that the person on the other end of the potential encounter matches the descriptions and photos that have been exchanged. But, we’re talking about minimizing risk here, folks. What if that athletic, well-groomed, sensitive man in the photo turns out to be a frumpy unshaven couch potato with some body odor challenges and a violent temper?

    When you’re trusting people with your only real safe haven – your home – you can’t be careful enough. Sure, the vacation home might have some kitchen appliances or a TV that a renter could destroy. But your own home is likely to contain valuables far greater than a $39 coffee maker.

    I realize it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover – but you can tell a lot about a person just in sitting down and chatting with them face-to-face for a few minutes. Some people are great actors and can fool even the best of us. But at least you can say that you took all the necessary steps to protect yourself in the event that things don’t work out.

    I feel for the woman in San Francisco. To read her blog posts (here and here), she has been victimized beyond lost treasures and a trashed home. Her personal sense of security is gone. Her trust in others has been compromised. She hints that she’ll be moving soon.

    The online marketplace can be a dangerous and scary place, folks. Please be careful out there.

     

  • Greg Collier 6:44 am on July 18, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Pay Attention, America: Argentina bans sex ads in classifieds, takes stand against human trafficking 

    There’s a perception among some of my counterparts in the online classifieds business that adult-oriented classified ads allow consenting adults to find each other on the Internet for the sake of engaging in adult activities.

    But let’s be honest about the situation – this has become far more than just a forum for consenting adults. It’s become a human trafficking snake pit, a place where innocent women – and certainly young girls, too – are being offered as sexual favors for cash. It’s a disgrace that this sort of behavior can occur in a modern-day, civilized society – but it does, without government intervention.

    Finally, a government has taken efforts to squash this open forum by passing a law that bans sex ads in newspapers. Last week, Argentina’s President signed a law that bans sex ads from newspapers in that country. Recognizing the hypocrisy of these publications, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said: ,

    Newspapers can’t print headlines demanding that we fight human trafficking, while their back pages present ads that humiliate women.

    For years, I have been saying something very similar and, most recently, called on other online classifieds site operators to join me in removing “personals” ads from their publications. To date, none has joined me.

    The new law in Argentina is indicative of what happens when entities fail to self-regulate and protect their consumers – the government steps in. But what other choice was there? These ads were leading to countless murders, rapes, robberies, and scams, all of which fall on to local police and court systems, a drain on local resources.

    Here’s the thing: This isn’t just happening in “some other country.” This is just as much a problem for the U.S. as it is any other country. America prides itself on being a global leader in, well, just about everything. Washington should be paying close attention to the government intervention in Argentina. There are headlines in cities across America about people who are murdered, raped, robbed and scammed via online classifieds sites, notably Craigslist. Heck, there’s even a movie called “The Craigslist Killer.”

    I can’t tell you why, exactly, these other site owners won’t join me in my efforts to rid the Internet of marketplaces where innocent people can be preyed upon and victimized. I always thought it was a business decision. But, a recent article in the Village Voice, a well-known New York City tabloid, tells another story. The newspaper also owns Backpage.com, an online classifieds site that continues to post personals ads.

    The article is really more of an assault on a CNN reporter who has been working to raise awareness of the human trafficking problem in this country. But what’s more disturbing is that the author uses the First Amendment to the Constitution to defend the placement of these ads on the Backpage site. In the article, the Village Voice writes:

    Backpage.com is not a newspaper. It’s an Internet bulletin board where people can place ads for anything from rental apartments to bicycles to lawnmowers. And, yes, it’s a place where adults can post notices so that other adults can contact them. What happens when two adults find each other through Backpage.com? I couldn’t tell you. The whole point of Backpage.com is that we aren’t involved after two consenting adults find each other through the community bulletin board, which exists solely so that people can freely express themselves—sometimes in ways that make other people uncomfortable. We’re First Amendment extremists that way. Always have been.

    Is that what this is? The First Amendment? Certainly, if it is, that makes it tougherfor the U.S. government to take a stand the way the Argentina government did. Lawyers and judges would have to get involved to argue about whether these ads are protected under the First Amendment. It could get expensive and take a lot of time.

    In fairness, I will note that Backpage, according to the Village Voice piece, says that 123 employees screen about 20,000 ads everyday, “making constant searches for keywords that might indicate an underage user…” The article says that it cooperates with law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children when suspicious ads are red-flagged and that its reports have actually helped to find runaways. In fact, in what appears to be a pat on the back, the article notes that the screening process resulted in 230 reports to law enforcement last month.

    That’s quite a load on local law enforcement. Imagine how many reports Backpage might have made if it didn’t allow these sorts of ads to begin with.

    Still, I maintain that this is a fight that’s worth fighting. Human trafficking is a black-eye on today’s modern society and the fact that we, as a civilized nation, turn a blind eye when it comes to the open marketplace for these sort of human transactions is – at the very least – shameful.

    I look forward to the day that the U.S. government takes a stand to protect innocent victims of human trafficking. More importantly, I’m hopeful that my counterparts in this industry will regulate themselves first and recognize that, collectively, we can bring human trafficking efforts to a crawl instead of providing them an express lane.

    Related reading:

    Huffington Post: Child Sex Trafficking: Setting the Record Straight
    My challenge to Craigslist: Keep criminals off your site
    Craigslist removes some adult categories: Hold your applause

     

    • Lauren Taylor 9:14 am on July 18, 2011 Permalink

      Great article, Greg. We echo your sentiments! Keep the pressure on.

    • Christian Astorga 1:52 pm on August 31, 2011 Permalink

      Awesome article Greg! You certainly hit the nail on the head with this post! It stands to reason now that most companies sell their moral bases (if they ever had any to begin with) for the right price. Yes, it is true that Backpage does offer a bit of work to local police officials, but honestly, wouldn’t it be better to eliminate that section and do away with the problem from the root? I’d rather live as a police officer who doesn’t have to deal with human trafficking because the problem doesn’t exist due to a communal effort nation-wide. That Backpage submitting suspicious ads to the authorities is just a way for them to cover their butts before the public. They are trying to prevent “The Backpage Killer” from ever screening. To me it appears they are compromising. Dangerous game for all players…

  • Greg Collier 11:08 pm on June 15, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Pre-inspect a car before you buy? It makes sense 

    One of the biggest perks that comes with surfing the online classified marketplace is the ability to shop beyond the area where you live. The Internet powers a widespread marketplace, allowing consumers to buy from anyone, anywhere.

    Of course, with that freedom comes some risks and some limitations. How could anyone possibly buy a car, for example, from someone in another part of the country? After all, you need to test drive a car, check it for oil leaks and ripped upholstery and be sure that the VIN number on the car matches the one on the paperwork.

    That’s where inspection services like WeGoLook, a Geebo partner, come into play. When you find the car of your dreams on Geebo, you can also reach out to WeGoLook, which has a team of inspectors on-call across the country, ready to test drive that car, check its condition and present you with the red flags or reassurances that you’ll need before handing over your hard-earned cash.

    Here’s why it works: WeGoLook isn’t buying or selling the car on your behalf. In fact, beyond its fee to conduct the inspection – which starts at $49 – WeGoLook isn’t in the business to offer advice or form opinions. For all the inspectors know, you’re more than happy to buy a vintage car that has body damage or needs mechanical work. WeGoLook just wants to make sure that you know everything you need to know about that car ahead of the transaction.

    Getting a full run-down on the car from WeGoLook is certainly better than trusting the word of a seller you’ve never met, right? And it’s safer, too.

    As Geebo’s founder, I have been standing on this soapbox about the importance of safety in the online classified marketplace. Its importance can’t be overstated. There have been far too many instances of innocent people being victimized simply by trying to engage in an online transaction. That’s why a partnership with WeGoLook is such an important piece of the Geebo experience.

    Sending a WeGoLook inspector ahead of time tells the seller that you, the potential buyer, won’t be meeting him on a dark street with thousands of dollars in cash in your pocket. It tells him that he won’t be able to rip you off by pulling a bait-and-switch on the car he’s selling. It tells him that he’ll need to advertise elsewhere if he wants to victimize someone.

    We don’t let that happen on Geebo.

    And remember, the inspection services isn’t just for cars. It would work just as well for jewelry, computers, artwork or even a rare baseball card. For me, an investment of $49 is worth the peace of mind I get from knowing that I won’t be the next victim out there.

     

  • Greg Collier 8:31 am on May 27, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    San Diego magazine chooses Geebo, highlighting commitment to online safety 

    For some time now, I’ve been soap-box preaching about the value of a partnership between a safe online classified community such as Geebo and locally-circulated publications. For the most part, I’ve been referring to the opportunity for newspapers.

    But local magazines are another excellent example.

    Earlier this month, Geebo partnered with East County Magazine, a local publication in the San Diego region that was impressed with Geebo’s commitment to providing a safe haven for online classifieds. For folks in San Diego, that sort of commitment hits close to home. The city has been rocked by at least two high-profile crimes that originated through ads on craigslist.

    The first involved the widely-publicized 2007 slaying of San Diego State University student Donna Jou, who met her assailant through a tutoring ad on craigslist. More recently, San Diego teenager Garrett Berki was shot and killed after a botched robbery attempt that occurred when he answered about a computer for sale on craigslist.

    Thieves and violent criminals will always find a way to seek out innocent victims. But as publishers of online classified ad sites, we don’t have to make it easy for those criminals to use our sites as a means of finding people to victimize. Geebo screens every ad that’s posted to the site and has made a commitment to refuse personals ads, which are often a front for prostitution, human trafficking and other illegal activities. Likewise, Geebo is working with an independent service called WeGoLook.com, which employs inspectors – or “lookers” – to verify items for sale before the buyer and seller agree on the terms of a transaction.

    San Diegans, like Geebo, understand that it takes a proactive commitment to keep a community safe. Miriam Raftery, editor and founder of the magazine, said her decision to partner with Geebo for classifieds stemmed from the violent headlines that sent shockwaves through her community.

    “As a nonprofit media, we are dedicated to helping improve our community and keeping our readers safe,” Raftery said. “We are delighted to partner with a reputable company such as Geebo to provide our readers with the safest possible online classified advertising opportunities.”

    We welcome East County Magazine as a partner not only in the classifieds business but also in our efforts to keep the Internet safe.

     

  • Greg Collier 9:45 am on May 19, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Why won’t Geebo’s competitors take steps to keep their users safe? 

    A couple of months ago, I penned an open letter to my competitors in the online classifieds business, asking them to join me in taking some bold steps to make our sites safer. For some time now, I’ve been standing pretty much alone on my soapbox, promoting Geebo as a classifieds site that puts user safety first.

    As much as I enjoy tooting Geebo’s horn whenever possible, this open letter challenge wasn’t meant to be a promotion of Geebo or otherwise present a holier-than-thou message. This was a way of reaching out responsibly to my counterparts in the industry, as if to say, “Let’s put aside our competitiveness and take the steps necessary to deter criminals from preying on innocent victims, via our sites.”

    Not surprisingly, I didn’t receive one response from any of them – Craigslist, Oodle, Backpage and others. Not one of their executives so much acknowledged my letter. Certainly, I didn’t expect that all of the others would jump on board – but I also didn’t expect them all to ignore my pleas for increased user safety.

    I can only guess why they were non-responsive. Maybe they don’t have the manpower to monitor ad submissions. Maybe they didn’t want to acknowledge a competitor for fear of losing customers. Maybe they don’t see the assaults, murders and rapes that stem from meetings on their sites as their problem. Maybe they just don’t care.

    But how can they not?

    Earlier this month, police in New York City reported two separate assaults on prostitutes who advertised their services online, one on Craigslist and one on Backpage.com. And in San Diego last week, a teenager trying to buy a $600 computer off of a craigslist ad was shot and killed by three other teens during the course of a robbery gone bad.

    Robberies and assaults occur everyday and criminals looking for victims will do whatever it takes to find them. But do our sites have to make it easy for them? There’s no way a crime involving prostitutes would have originated on Geebo, which doesn’t accept personals or escorts ads. Likewise, Geebo’s partnership with WeGoLook is intended to prevent the types of tragedies that occurred in San Diego. By dispatching an inspector to verify the item for sale ahead of time, especially bigger ticket items where a buyer might be carrying cash, WeGoLook and Geebo can offer some assurances to potential buyers that the deal is legitimate.

    I guess I could use this blog solely to toot Geebo’s horn and publicize things like our sponsorship of FAIR Fund’s annual Pearls of Purpose Gala, an organization committed to battling human trafficking of young girls. But that’s just self-serving and doesn’t advance the causes.

    I can’t stop hoping that, even though the recipients of my open letter chose to be non-responsive to me, that they’ll take the words of that letter to heart, take note of the incidents that are originating on their sites and start making the changes that deter criminals from preying on their users.

     

  • Greg Collier 3:31 pm on May 13, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Classifieds and newspapers: More reasons why there’s still a spark 

    In a blog post here last week, I chimed with some thoughts on the relationship of newspapers and classifieds. Newspapers are local brands and, as such, have the advantage of serving as the community’s bulletin board – both online and in print. It’s not too late for newspapers to lean on classifieds for increased revenue.

    I shared my post on the Facebook pages of some newspapers, including McClatchy Newspapers, the company that owns the Sacramento Bee, the hometown paper of Geebo’s birthplace. I was happy to see a comment post by a McClatchy rep, albeit an anonymous one.




    This rep’s argument in the exchange about Career Builder is strong. Newspapers were quick to realize that the most lucrative pieces of the classifieds revenue pie included job listings, real estate and car sales. Those were the community businesses who were doing the advertising.

    But classifieds also included everything else you see on sites like Geebo today – used furniture, rooms for rent or garage sales. Those were the listings from the people in the community, the readers with whom newspapers had a trusted relationship because of their journalism. And even though those 2-line, agate-typed listings for a lost pet didn’t bring in as many bucks as the job listings, they were a link to the community – something that was just as valuable.

    A report released this week by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University highlighted a case study about TV station KSL in Salt Lake City, which jumped into the online classifieds game early on and focused its efforts around providing a safe online marketplace for its audience. Owned by the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, the station refused adult-oriented ads and screened for potentially fraudulent ads. (via NYT)

    Newspapers once did the same thing. And it’s exactly what Geebo does now.The Columbia University report quotes Clark Gilbert, president and chief executive officer of the station’s online properties, which includes KSL.com. He said:

    “Here’s something hard for old-media people to accept. … Our news content gave a level of trust to the classifieds, and classifieds drove relevance back to the news.” Or, put another way, the fact that readers have come to rely on the classifieds under the KSL brand helped to
    build relevance and credibility in the news as well.”

    Interestingly enough, the same Columbia University report also uses McClatchy Newspapers as a case study, looking at how the chain has had to rethink its advertising model. The linkage between the news side and the ad side of the business is breaking down and news orgs are looking for ways to replace it.

    The report quotes Chris Hendricks, VP of Interactive at McClatchy, who said: “The longstanding premise of content and advertising being inextricably linked has clearly fallen apart.” He said the company has started selling space on Yahoo or Facebook as part of the pitch to local advertisers, essentially turning its own salesforce into the local sales team for worldwide online companies. “It’s almost like we are a sales and distribution company that decided we’re going to fund journalism,” Hendricks said in the report.

    As newspapers rethink their advertising models, it’s important for them to remember that classifieds were once an important element of a lucrative model. Yes, they may be seeing nice returns on employment ads or real estate listings – but are they still the trusted marketplace host for their local readers? There’s still a chance.

     

    • Gary Randazzo 10:44 am on May 18, 2011 Permalink

      I agree with Greg’s assessment that newspapers’ classifieds can play an important role for their community.

      I also agree that newspapers need to rethink how they are approaching the advertising model for the Internet.

      I do not agree that newspapers should become advertising brokers for Facebook and similar programs as an approach to funding journalism.

      Newspaper publishers need to recognize the value of paid subscribers as an audience for advertisers that can be reached consistently. Publishers also need to recognize that subscribers”hire” newspapers to do a lot of jobs. The Internet allows newspapers to do those jobs more effectively and efficiently.

      So rather than reselling programs others have developed and thereby give away the value they create and the ability to create new value, publishers should try to find ways to create programs that do the jobs that Facebook and others do but for their constituency. For example create social networks based on community events and organizations.

      Publishers also need to create a relationship between their print/digital editions and their websites that are symbiotic. Houston Business Journal offers bulk digital editions to businesses and then updates subscribers with emails. I believe symbiotic programs can be created for display and classified advertising and for subscribers.

      I also believe that newspaper publishers are discovering this and will ultimately reclaim ground that has been lost.

  • Greg Collier 3:42 pm on May 4, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Newspapers and Classifieds: They can still be a team in the online age 

    The newspaper industry has certainly fallen on tough times in recent years and it’s sad, in a nostalgic sort of way, to see the old print edition slowly head out to pasture. It had a good run, though, surviving the arrivals of radio, television and around-the-clock cable news before the Internet hit the scene. We now know what a game-changer the Internet was. But despite the warning signs, newspaper executives were caught off-guard by it, blinded by the resiliency of the industry to survive the earlier game-changing forces and convinced that their business model was immune to the power of the Internet.

    Since the beginning, newspapers have made their money from advertising, using the eyeballs of their daily readers to sell pieces of the newsprint page to advertisers eager to showcase their products and services to the folks living in the area. That’s been the basic model for generations and, for quite some time, it proved to be a quite lucrative model. But it wasn’t just those big fancy full-page ads featuring the latest cars or fashions that brought the big bucks for newspapers. The classifieds – those daily agate-typed two-liner listings that advertised things like missing cats, apartments for rent and used cars – were also a newspaper cash cow.

    Geebo, of course, is in the online classifieds business. And a decade ago, when Geebo was just getting started, I pitched what I thought was a slam-dunk of a deal to the Sacramento Bee, the local newspaper where the company was founded. The idea was to upsell classifieds customers – notably employers providing job listings – by including it in both the newspaper’s print edition and also on Geebo, with a 50-50 revenue split. Initially, the executives at the newspaper were excited about the deal but the decision-makers at the top killed the deal. They didn’t understand why the online listings were important. The Internet, after all, was just a fad.

    Fast forward to today and we know how this story has evolved – and just how wrong those newspaper executives were about the Internet. Granted, not every newspaper is struggling in the online landscape. Some have built quite the online presence – albeit a bit late to the game – to showcase their content. And some are bringing in ad revenue by way of those Web pages. But it’s certainly a lot more crowded in that media landscape today than it was 10 years ago. The so-called “citizen journalist” has been empowered by blogging tools, Facebook posts and Twitter, as well as mobile apps and instant digital photography. Readers today have an overwhelming number of choices when it comes to a news provider.

    But let’s not throw in the towel on newspaper companies just yet. The truth is that many of them, especially in medium- or mid-sized markets, still have a lot of life left in their brands, their reputations and their reach.

    Consider this: Newspapers have long been regional news outlets because they had a limited geographical reach, a physical boundary that they held to because of the costs involved with the daily delivery of the product. As regional sources of news, they focused primarily on local headlines but also rounded out the offerings with news stories from the next county, the next state or even the other side of the world – sometimes from wire services, other times from their own correspondents stationed in key cities.

    Today, with the power of the Internet, newspaper companies have the opportunity to expand their reach and compete for readers on a global level – just the same as every other newspaper, or blogger, for that matter. And while that potential reach can be enticing and exciting, there’s also no shame in focusing more on re-building that core local audience, the one that not only wants to know if the planning commission approved the new shopping center but also if anyone spotted Fluffy, the neighbor’s cat, anywhere near Main Street and Central Avenue.

    All of that, of course, brings me back to the classifieds. Here at Geebo, we understand the significance of a global audience. We, too, are looking for ways to expand regional listings to broader audiences. Last month, we announced a partnership with WeGoLook, a company that performs on-site inspections of items – largely big-ticket items like cars or boats – for prospective buyers, regardless of where the product is located.

    We still believe in the power of local and continue to welcome partnerships with newspapers to both localize and globalize their classifieds listings. A site like Geebo already has partnerships with some of the niche sites that newspapers are turning to for specialized listings, such as cars and homes, but can offer them a greater variety of listings because we haven’t limited ourselves to just one partner for car listings or job listings, for example.

    Certainly, classified ads are only one part of the newspaper’s other potential sources of greater revenue. Advertising in the Internet age may be different, but it’s still lucrative – just ask Google. Today, newspapers who target a regional area may not score the big display ad from the national retailer, but it is possible that the local car dealership or grocery store might be interested in reaching that targeted regional audience that’s checking in regularly to keep up with the headlines from their neighborhoods.

    In some ways, things haven’t changed at all.

     

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