Facebook: looking for a classified partner
Classifieds and social networks, an untapped opportunity. Many blogs carry posts about it, but not many social networks have successfully introduced a classified advertising service, leave alone monetize the content. Netlog, Myspace, Bebo, Hyves, and now also Facebook are struggling to find the right classified partner.
The article below written by Michael Arrington from TechCrunch provides insights into the issue, the players, the technology and the potential… and to quote him "if Facebook gets this right there is a potential for lucrative advertising dollars – people looking to buy stuff are easy targets" and to finish with a quote from our own CEO, Martin Davis: "Mobiya connects to consumers on their mobile phones right at the time when they have their wallets open…"
Here's a rumor that won't go away – Facebook has been quietly searching for a partner to take over their one and a half year old classified listings application, and may relaunch as early as the end of December.
According to our sources, Facebook distributed a request-for-proposal to a number of classified sites earlier this year (the same model they are using for Facebook Music).
The obvious partner is Oodle, which began powering Walmart Classifieds earlier this year. We've heard some reports that they have in fact already won the contract.
Whoever powers Facebook Classifieds (or Facebook Marketplace, as they call it) has a big hill to climb. Competing with Ebay (and their Kijiji) and Craigslist isn't trivial. The original thought was that social networks were great for classifieds because the buyers and sellers know each other. But Facebook's current classifieds system shows anemic listings. The Silicon Valley network, for example, had a total of ten new listings added yesterday. San Francisco had twenty. New York City – zero. And for those who've forgotten, Microsoft launched their own classifieds site based on MSN friends and private networks (like businesses), and it went nowhere.
Part of the problem is the limited functionality of the existing classifieds system, which allows a short listing, a picture and communication via Facebook's messaging system. Better software may mean more listings (although the bare-bones and massive Craigslist is a clear exception to that rule). Oodle, or whoever wins the contract, may also bring lots of listings from their other networks.
If Facebook gets this right there is a potential for lucrative advertising dollars – people looking to buy stuff are easy targets.
Blyk raises €40M to expand SMS Marketing
SMS marketing has a serious future. Blyk, the mobile operator for 16 to 24 year olds that's funded by SMS advertising, has raised EUR 40 million. Blyk is currently active in the UK and will use the proceeds to support its international expansion into Belgium, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.
That's also good news for Mobiya. Blyk is successfully running SMS marketing campaigns for about 160 brands. With the backing of many tier-1 venture capitalists and a strong sales force Blyk is evangelizing SMS marketing, educating advertisers and creating benchmarks for SMS marketing campaigns.
The big advantage of Blyk's mobile advertising inventory is its segmentation capability and niche demographics. This is complimentary to Mobiya having a keyword contextual and location specific advertising inventory. Both are equally priced.
More information: press release.
Press clipping: Mobiya.co.uk – 10,000 classifieds after three months
Source: aimgroup.com & Classified Intelligence by Linda Karlsson.
After three months of operation in the U.K., mobile-classifieds company Mobiya.co.uk has aggregated 10,000 classified ads — a humble number compared with other classifieds sites in the U.K., but the Mobiya team thinks mobile classifieds has got a lot of potential in the U.K. and in Europe.
We spoke with Sacha Vekeman, VP of bizdev and co-founder of Mobiya. He thinks that people in times of economic crisis tend to buy more a more used stuff. When Mobiya was founded in January 2006, mobile penetration was around 80 percent in Western Europe. "We couldn't understand why there was no classified environment out there accepting MMS or pictures through a simple MMS or SMS transfer. From that idea we started to look further" he said.
The idea of Mobiya is that is should be simple to buy and sell over the mobile phone. Vekeman explains that it is possible to post a classified from a mobile phone in less than a minute. "For other classified companies the e-mail is the primary vehicle for communication. We try to move this industry to text messaging".
Mobiya's target group is big, Vekeman noted. That targed includes people who are not connected, who still read newspapers when they look for classifieds, people on the road such as young income-takers who might be growing a family and who go to work by train.
The next goal is to make 1million SMS transactions in the U.K., in the coming 12 months. He said it's not about classified content anymore: "The value of the content is gone. You can get classified content from anywhere. Capturing classified content is not our big bottleneck. The main thing is to create attractiveness on that content, which means that we take those ads with the mobile numbers in them and make them attractive and then we seek efficient distribution."
Mobiya authenticates all classifieds against the advertiser's mobile number, which eliminates fraud and provides a direct response mechanism to connect buyers and sellers privately over SMS text messaging. The service is free for private users, the company wants to move away from the premium SMS system to a financing model based on mobile advertisement. Mobiya shares classifieds through its network with partners such as Oodle, Bauer Media Group, The Sun, the London Paper and News International.
Mobiya now offers mobile lead generation for mobile content companies and advertisers
Mobiya has always focused on delivering the best possible mobile classified service for both our publisher partners and mobile consumers. We have also been able to continue to invest in the development of our mobile ad serving technology. This has successfully resulted in the delivery of mobile advertising campaigns for a variety of advertising customers. We have now packaged our delivery experience, mobile advertising inventory and analytics into an all-in-one solution, allowing you to discover your lead generation potential over the mobile channel. More information in our brochure: Download LeadGen PDF
Messaging revenues to rise despite economic slump
Despite warnings of turmoil throughout the global economy, mobile messaging growth shows no signs of slowing down according to a new forecast issued by market analysis firm ABI Research, which anticipates worldwide mobile messaging services revenues will increase from $151 billion in 2008 to more than $212 billion by 2013. ABI contends that while supply-side drivers including operators, device OEMs, content providers and middleware vendors are essential to maintaining messaging’s current growth pattern, subscribers must also continue to feel there are valid practical reasons to explore messaging options and upgrade to new plans and services. The report states a growing number of customers view mobile messaging as a more efficient means of communication than voice services, adding that mobile services will remain a necessity throughout bleak economic times since displaced workers will need to be mobile to seek out work.
Forecast: click here.
Mobiya.co.uk three months after launch: 10,000 new classifieds and enters Top 100 leader board in the UK
Mobiya.co.uk has aggregated 10,000 new classified adverts in its first three months of operation. This strong performance catapults Mobiya into the top 100 of leading online classified portals; position 88/100 to be exact. Mobiya estimates that there are 50,000 online classified sites active in this high growth market and this week a new European survey reports a 30% increase in classified listings driven by the current economic crisis.
Mobiya shares classifieds through its advert network to high-traffic portals and large media companies with meta-distributor Oodle. Network partners include the UK’s No.1 national daily newspaper The Sun and the No.1 commercial radio station Magic 105.4. Unique visitors have doubled every week since launch and are already up to 3,500 per day, that’s over 100,000 visitors a month and growing.
What is unique about Mobiya’s classified network is that all adverts are authenticated against the advertiser’s mobile number; this eliminates fraud and provides a direct response mechanism to connect buyers and sellers privately over SMS text messaging. Visit Mobiya.co.uk.