Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

This is from a recent article in RedHerring. Althoug a lot of the Google talk about entry  into the classified listings game is unverified, this is huge news.

I’ve talked about Google offering search for job listings, a la Indeed or SimplyHired, for awhile, and I am unwavering in believing it will happen.

However, seeing it in print – and seeing that it could happen so quickly – helps substantiate what I’ve been predicting for a long time:

Google is going to transform the way people search for jobs  and alter the way employers post jobs.

Enjoy. I’ve highlighted some of the more interesting parts for your convenience:

eBay, Google Look to Lists

As revenue growth slows in other areas, big Internet companies take a lesson in success from sites like Craigslist.
June 7, 2005

Internet companies have woken up to the fact that listings may be the route to a larger audience and fatter profits. While eBay has already wet its feet, Red Herring has learned from sources close to Google that the search giant plans to get into listings as early as next month.

Online and print classifieds make up a $100-billion global industry, according to estimates from Classifieds Intelligence, an interactive advertising consulting and research firm. It’s a market the larger search and e-commerce giants could easily tap.

“All these companies are trying to create new communities of people who didn’t advertise before,” said Jim Townsend, editorial director at Classifieds Intelligence. “You can argue ‘these are free,’ but most of them have schemes for up-selling to advertisers.”

For Google, listings would be a natural progression, as it has single-handedly transformed online advertising into an integral part of marketing campaigns for small- and medium-sized businesses. Regardless of what kinds of listings it gets into, it would be another stream of revenue. Google declined to comment on its plans.

Many newspapers have begun to offer certain categories of online advertisements for free, in an attempt to draw the audience that found newspaper classifieds too expensive in the past.

Many Internet companies, hampered by a deceleration in revenue growth, are betting on listings, too. eBay, for one, has zeroed in on listings as a new source of revenue to combat its slowing growth over the past year.

eBay made its most aggressive foray last week when it bought Shopping.com for $620 million. But it had stepped into the field in 2004 when it dished out $415 million for Rent.com and also took a 25 percent stake in locally focused listings site Craiglist.org.

eBay also bought Dutch classifieds web site Marketplaats.nl for $290 million and German vehicles listings site Mobile.de for $149 million.

In March, eBay launched Kijiji.com, a group of web sites carrying classified listings across more than 90 cities outside the United States. It’s a concept similar to Craigslist, but implemented abroad. Kijiji expanded last month, too, through its purchases of classified web sites Gumtree.com and Loquo.com.

When it announced its acquisition of Shopping.com, the online auction house said it wanted to reach a wider audience. Shopping.com had 22.6 million unique visitors in April, according to comScore Media Metrix. That might be a small number when compared to eBay’s 63.8 million in the same time frame, but it’s a number that reflects an increase of 15 percent over the past year, compared with eBay’s 6 percent. 

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