Mobiya.co.uk triples its classified index from 10,000 to 32,000 in a single weekend
A new record was set this weekend as Mobiya.co.uk indexed over 22,000 new classifieds in less than three days. This brings our real-time classified index to 32,000 classifieds, with an average of 1,000 new classifieds every day. 100% of these ads are published with privacy response codes for SMS alerting and scam prevention. Due to the massive increase in our classified listings and the meta-distribution deal with Oodle, the SMS response growth rate doubles every week. We expect to reach 5,000 unique visitors per day by the end of this week, and will double that before the end of 2008. This will bring the annual online advertising inventory to 10 million pages. Mobiya sustains a leading position in the Pets for sale vertical. Dogs, cats and horses leading the pack with conversion rates up to 23%. For every 100 animals posted in our classified network, 23 people buy within the first 48 hours!
Google takes its ads mobile
Google is now formatting AdWords text and image ads for Android and iPhone mobile browsers. The ads can include mobile-only calls to action, and can be created from standard Google ads run on the Web. The ads will also work on other phones with full HTML browsers in the future as they become available. By sticking with full HTML browser phones, the links in the ads can continue to point to regular Web pages and still work in a mobile context. Advertisers can also run one single campaign across the Web and advanced mobile phones, and see where they get the best response.
Report: Text messaging will continue to be the darling of mobile data revenues
Forget splashy video, music and games; text messaging will continue to be the “cash cow of mobile data revenues for some time to come,” according to a new report from Portio Research.
The mobile messaging market is expected rake in $130 billion in revenues by the end of the year, and is on pace to climb to $224 billion by 2013. At that level, mobile messaging will make up 60 percent of all non-voice service revenues.
Interestingly enough, although the U.S. is considered late to the SMS party, Americans now send double the number of messages that Europeans average each month. SMS is the messaging tool of choice everywhere but Japan where mobile email has surpassed the use of text messaging.
Portio Research: http://www.portioresearch.com/MMF09-13.html
Breaking news: Mobiya’s classified distribution carrier, Oodle, lands deal with Facebook
"Content is no longer king!" Traditional media companies are no longer (cap)able to make serious distribution deals with online media giants. Startups that have built media platforms through aggregation technology, distributed applications, search, meta-distribution and cross-channel publishing are powering the online media giants' online advertising dollars and community interactivity.
A couple of hours ago, Craig Donato, CEO of Oodle, announced their deal with Facebook. Driven by an open media mentality and a vision to create community marketplaces that put Oodle in a position to power MySpace's classifieds, and now also Facebook. As TechCrunch reported earlier today: "Even though Facebook and MySpace are archrivals, this makes sense because in classifieds scale matters. The more listings and the more people seeing those listings, the better." Scale matters, no matter where you get the content!
Oodle has proven once again that creating distribution efficiency in a very crowded online classified market space is king. Classifieds is no longer about content ownership, but how you efficiently monetize the consumer and community interactivity, how you traffic the listings via search optimization, how you create a safer scam-free marketplace (using mobile number verification technology) and how you can create win-win partnerships through revenue share models.
We've almost forgotten about the consumer. He definitively wins: faster search, real-time adverts, access to a complete offer, safe transactions, all together making it a transparent and efficient marketplace. Add mobile and it becomes enjoyable and portable, even more profitable (= Mobiya). To end with Donato's own words: "In many cases, you simply want to find a good home for items you are no longer using. In these instances, who you are giving to or selling to is more important than selling to them at the highest price."
Makes you wonder how eBay is going to tackle their gigantic classified problem!?