You’ve got a decent online classifieds business, with cheap and searchable
help wanted ads, personals, apartments, etc. But with all that content, is
there a way to create another channel for usership and revenue over the
long-term — especially in a crowded online advertising market? That was
the dilemma facing AdOne, a mature
Silicon Alley start-up that long ago cut a niche in the digital classifieds
business.
Today, AdOne released its answer that question — Abracat, a national service that creates
a locally-based “to do” list for consumers, and then provides answers to
daily tasks via AdOne’s database of 13 million local classified listings.
Users enter their zip codes, and then select from a list of tasks —
finding a pet, buying a car, find a mate, take a vacation etc. And they’re
quickly served a list of classified ads from their regions.
“Abracat is all about local, convenient, reliable one-click access to the
information everyone inevitably needs regarding cars, careers, business
opportunities, homes, and everything in between,” said AdOne Chief Executive Officer Brendan Burns.
Basically, the service gives AdOne clients — most of which come to the
company through relationships with large and medium-sized newspapers — an
extra bang for their bucks. And it gives AdOne more access to traffic; the
service seems built to easily export to other sites via an ASP solutions.
Already, CBS Switchboard.com, Lycos, and USA Magazine have signed on to use
the system. It’s also aimed at getting into the Yellow Pages market, by
offering local listings to doctors, lawyers, churches etc. And it gives
AdOne another shot at building a national brand, something it’s had mixed
success in doing.
AdOne was founded way back in 1995, and has partnered with 700 newspapers.
Indeed, the company is majority-owned by a consortium of 11 print media
companies, including Hearst and Scripps. It runs the popular ClassifiedWarehouse.com site.
