February 22, 2012
By Sharon Hill
Today’s SuperMedia revenue report couldn’t find much to spin, as advertising sales figures continue their 15 plus percent YOY incline each quarter. Fourth quarter revenue in 2009 was $570 million, in 2010 $483 million. Today’s release indicated a Q411 ad revenue figure of $405, for a drop of more than 16 percent year over year.
It’s a shame, as SuperMedia has been aggressively growing its digital products....
February 21, 2012
Apartment.com’s January study of the U.S. rental landscape comes to a not-surprising conclusion that more folks plan on becoming renters in 2012 than had that intent one year before. Some interesting points, however, from this online survey of 3000:
- A slightly greater number of new renters were those moving out on their own than those who had been homeowners.
- Loss of a home to foreclosure accounted for only 4 percent of planned rentals . Rather, the number one...
February 20, 2012
By Sharon Hill
Brian Larson, attorney for the MLS Domains Association, and long-time real estate blogger and litigator, released three distinct announcements about changes at MDA, and its bid to control the pending dot-MLS top-level domain.
1. The China-based owner of www.mls.com, which appears to be an aggregator rather than MLS affiliate, has stepped...
February 17, 2012
By Sharon Hill
We were somewhat startled to see a local Patch.com editor announce yesterday that Patch.com classifieds were no more – temporarily, for an undisclosed time period. See the graphic below.
What we found in our own investigation was that Patch classifieds were still around, though the bulk of them are aggregated Indeed.com Job ads, moved from a now-removed Marketplace tab to the More tab. We found no invitation to...
Canadians now have a new tool that makes it easier to stay on top of the top three general classifieds websites in the country. iSiteWatch lets you enter in search criteria (or “watchers” as the site calls it) for Kijiji, Craigslist and Backpage. iSiteWatch then updates you whenever results come in matching your keywords.
iSiteWatch is not a big time tool from a major classifieds player – it was developed by a computer science...
By Christo Volschenk
Joe Lichtenberger (40) accepted the job of chief financial officer (CFO) at the Scout24 Group, where he will be responsible for the divisions finances, accounting, law, controlling, purchasing and IT from March 1. The position has been vacant since July 2010, when the previous CFO Marc Antoine Sevray left the company, Scout24 said in a media statement.Lichtenberger (photo) was headhunted from Kabel Deutschland,...
By Christo Volschenk
Some do it on a shoestring. Some put their lines in the water, then sit back to see whether anything bites. Others go in fully committed. That’s how different the big classified players are applying themselves today to the challenge of Africa.Google is in Africa with portals*, but no physical presence; Swiss media group Ringier is there with portals and local teams, but almost no money (read...
February 16, 2012
By Christo Volschenk
Rainer Krösing took over as managing director of Berlin-based rental platform Erento.com from Oliver Weyergraf on 1 February. Weyergraf was managing director when Erento was acquired by VM Digital Group in the middle of last year.According to VM Digital Weyergraf left to pursue other opportunities. Krösing will be supported in his management duties by Helmar Hipp, CEO of VM Digital Group. Krösing (below) held...
By Christo Volschenk
Another South African classifieds platform owner is looking north for growth. The African technology news site Techloy reported (here) that South African real estate platform PrivatepropertySA bought a stake in Nigerian real estate platform Propertiesng.com for an...By Linda Karlsson
Today Schibsted’s presented its Q4 2011 results, which showed operating revenue of NOK 3.7 billion ($629 million U.S.), an increase of 4 percent compared to the same period in 2010. The EBITDA was NOK 549 million ($93 million U.S.), compared to NOK 562 million in Q4 2010, which implies an unchanged EBITDA margin of 15 percent.“We are happy to present the results achieved by Schibsted Media Group in Q4 2011, showing...