Online Directory Brownbook.net Launches Mobile Platform
Brownbook.net, a free online directory that can be edited by anyone, has launched a new mobile platform. The new offering, accessible at http://m.brownbook.net/, already contains listings of 27 million businesses.
Among the features of the mobile platform are the ability for users to add or edit any business, write reviews, invite others to review any business in the world, save any of the 27 million business listings on a v.card directly to the address book on their mobile devices, and view maps of business locations.
Mobile content is becoming more and more prevalent these days. This new offering from Brownbook will enable even the smallest businesses to take full advantage of this trend and create listings that have the potential to reach a broader audience than they could with other mediums.
Perhaps years ago, a model that enables users to add and edit their own content wasn't very enticing to the listed businesses or the users viewing those listings. But the trust that Wikipedia has earned has certainly made this an acceptable, and viable, business model. People seem to enjoy having such control over content creation, and as a result, Brownbook's directory should grow at a very healthy pace.
R.L. Polk & Detroit Trading Launch New Service
R.L. Polk & Co. and Detroit Trading Company last week announce their creation of the Premier Lead Exchange, an automotive buyer/seller exchange that enables new vehicle lead buyers an opportunity to buy the best leads in a market area and pay a price based on the lead's likelihood to result in a new vehicle sale.
The Premier Lead Exchange combines the Detroit Trading Exchange with R.L. Polk & Co. predictive Internet lead scoring capabilities to rank order web-based sales leads from highest to lowest on a scale of 1 to 10. (The leads that score a "10" are five times more likely to close as leads scoring a "1."
According to a press release announcing the Exchange, the Detroit Trading Company created the Detroit Trading Exchange to promote the efficient trading of automotive leads at market-driven prices.
The timing is certainly right for this new tool as more and more consumers research their next vehicle on the web well before they set foot on the dealership lot. And, of course, leads are such a vital component of the sales process--regardless of the product; so to offer a tool that will yield the most viable leads will be a welcome addition to the automotive clients who already rely on R.L. Polk's content analysis. The Premier Lead Exchange will most definitely complement Polk's current slate of offerings and makes its lead scoring capabilities even more valuable.
Labels: detroit trading, premier lead exchange, r.l. polk
Throwing the eBay Out With the Bath Water
My first job - probably no great surprise - was in the publishing business. I worked for a local shopper's guide called The Pennysaver, and I could not have had a better introduction to the magical business of publishing.
Shopper's guides, in case you are not familiar, combine the best elements of yellow pages (saturation distribution and lots of display advertising from local businesses) with newspapers (high frequency, and lots of classified ads). Recipients of the publications were mildly interested in the display advertising. But they were extremely interested in the classified advertising - individuals selling cars, furniture, household items, notices of yard sales - and the two together were a potent mix. I got a real taste of the power of this medium one day when this little publication was delivered late - so many people called to check on its whereabouts that it not only brought down the company switchboard, but the local telephone company central office as well. This was followed by total gridlock around the office as people jumped in their cars and drove over to pick up a copy.
What was the magic? Readers believed the classified ads held gold in the form of deals, valuable, useful and unusual things being sold for a fraction of their value by lazy or unsuspecting sellers. And since there was generally only one of every item, there was huge benefit in getting your copy of the Pennysaver as early as possible.
eBay had this same magic in its early years. It had taken the classified ads, stripped out those less interesting display ads and harnessed the low-cost reach of the web, creating as they unabashedly called it in those days, "America's flea market." Bolt on the auction component, which created excitement and engagement, while further reinforcing the notion that all sorts of crazy bargains could be found, and eBay was unstoppable.
That's why I was so surprised to read this week that eBay plans to de-emphasize its auctions in favor of fixed price merchandise. This is on top of increasingly loud protests from eBay sellers that eBay is in effect de-emphasizing them, too, in favor of larger merchants. The math for eBay is simple since it gets paid both for listings and transactions. Bigger merchants have more items to sell, and deep inventories, meaning more listings and more transactions. So eBay is morphing from "America's flea market" to the Mall of the Americas.
While the math might be sound, it seems to me that eBay is tossing out the baby with the bath water by tossing out the classified ads in favor of display ads so to speak. Auctions may be a bit tired, but they reek of the opportunity for great bargains, and they make eBay unusual and interesting. This move won't kill eBay; it's got too much momentum. But it will make it more ordinary, less interesting and less of a destination. What made eBay such a success was its quirkiness, the ability to trip across the rare, odd and unexpected - the classified ads. But with eBay now calling itself a "transactional platform," it obviously doesn't think it needs to deliver a shopping experience. Take the "experience" out of "shopping experience" and you're left with "shopping," and with far too many places to go shopping online, that's going to be a tougher sell.
Labels: auctions, classified advertising, dispaly advertising, eBay, newspapers, yellow pages
Accuity Launches Online Directory to Connect Buyers and Sellers
Accuity, a provider of payment routing data, AML screening software and services, has launched Marketplace, an online resource that serves as a showcase for companies in which to connect with financial services buyers and decision-makers seeking their products or services.
Marketplace (http://marketplace.AccuitySolutions.com) is essentially a platform on which companies can post their contact information (with hyperlinks to their website and email address), company logo, and a 100-word company description about their products and services in more than 150 categories. Visitors can solicit information from vendors that can be used for Requests For Proposals (RFP) to streamline the selection process and requests for more information.
Users can access Marketplace from several Accuity websites, including AccuitySolutions.com, IBANPaymentResource.com and TGBR.com. The new site is also part of Accuity Marketing Services solutions that also include advertising opportunities, lead development and a private label program.
Accuity officials believe that the Marketplace will benefit all involved, and it is certainly positioned to do so. Both the companies that list their offerings and the buyers who purchase their products and services now have an easy way in which to connect with one another. Marketplace, which sounds a lot like ThomasNet, should be a nice addition to Accuity's portfolio and should increase the company's profile in the financial services space.
CoStar Continues to Court REIS
CoStar Group is hoping to further expand its presence in the commercial real estate information market with another offer to acquire New York-based commercial real estate market information provider REIS. CoStar's latest proposal, announced this week, outlines the company's plan to acquire all the fully diluted shares of REIS common stock for a per share consideration of $8.75, all cash with no financing contingency. The all cash proposal represents a premium of approximately 97 percent above the closing price of REIS common stock on Aug. 12, 2008.
CoStar initially offered to buy REIS at $8.75 a share back on June 5. But on June 20, Lloyd Lynford, CEO and president of REIS, responded that REIS was not interested in the deal. While REIS's stock price has dropped since June, CoStar is still very interested in combining the resources of both companies, according to a press release this week that includes a letter CoStar CEO and president Andrew Florance sent to Lynford on Aug. 12.
It will be interesting to see how REIS responds to CoStar's latest offer. CoStar officials apparently feel very strongly that the combination of resources of CoStar and REIS would create a powerful information source for the commercial real estate marketplace; and certainly, customers of both would benefit greatly from a service that pools the resources of these information providers. At the same time, the companies could likely improve efficiencies and cut costs by consolidating some operations.