Yahoo Squeezed by Craigslist and MySpace in Online Classifieds (EBAY, GOOG, NWS, YHOO)

The Pew Project reported that traffic to online classifieds sites rose 80% year over year, and that 17% of online Americans, or 25 million people, have sold something online. As with many other areas of Internet usage, white, affluent, well-educated men are most likely to participate.

Most important for investors, however, is the traffic data (from comScore). Traffic to Craigslist, which is partially owned by eBay, was up 156% in September, while traffic to Yahoo Classifieds was down 42%.

MySpace (owned by Newscorp, NWS) Classifieds had 401 thousand unique visitors in September, while Yahoo Classifieds had 573 thousand uniques. Bearing in mind that MySpace Classifieds didn't exist a year ago and that Yahoo is rapidly losing traffic, the two may converge soon.

Yahoo's traffic loss matters for two reasons. First, usage of online classifieds is growing faster than other areas of Internet use, as demonstrated by the Pew data. Yahoo doesn't want to get pushed out of this area. Second, free classifieds should be a Yahoo core competency, as Yahoo has always played in the free-services arena.

Meanwhile, the Pew data provides another explanation of why Google launched Google Base. If traffic to online classifieds is rising 80% year over year and Google has its core competency in search (the glue that makes a classifieds site work), it's a no-brainer for Google to participate. Click on YHOO chart to enlarge.

Comments

[Juice:]

Social Networking and Online Classifieds go hand in hand this sites will have a place as long as the internet has palace in society. People will always use social networking tools to find new friends keep in touch with current friends and express themselves. That is Why I created my own Social Networking website sociallive.com this Social Networking sites is for 18 and over adults only website.

2007 Nov 27 06:34 PM

[Directoy:]

I didn,t know myspace have a classified!
Cool i will take a look!

2008 Nov 02 04:51 PM