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On his new consultancy’s blog, Joe Michaud (outgoing president of MaineToday.com) comments on the debut of ReinventingClassifieds.com and brings up an interesting issue: What exactly are “classifieds” anymore?
Interesting question. The newspaper industry has used the term for a long time (too long?). Michaud tugs at the question and comes up with this:
“Classifieds” is one of those funny words that we all understand to mean a whole lot of things. It’s like a big tangle of string, and you can’t tell where it starts or ends, or how many pieces are really in there.
Is it somebody selling their couch, like in the local Penny Saver? or on Craigslist? Is it a car dealer who buys a full-page newspaper ad because his competitor did, and he can’t risk being second fiddle? Is it a real-estate agent buying a newspaper ad because the seller demands it? Is it a hospital offering a bounty to employees who recruit a new nurse? Is it cars.com? Is it eBay?
I don’t know, but all those behaviors and products and technologies are wound up in that tangle of string, and only a few of us call that tangle “classifieds.”
I reached out to Michaud the other day to ask his thoughts on the question, “Can newspaper classifieds really be saved?” He makes a good point about not defining classifieds too narrowly in answering that question. As we address it, we probably should be looking at the problem from a broader perspective. He puts it this way:
My fear is that by defining the challenge as “saving classifieds” rather than “figuring out how to help employers/realtors/auto dealers solve problems” we could be missing opportunities to redefine newspapers’ role of bringing people together to do business. Which is what we used to call “classifieds.”
I think he makes a good point. And as here on this website we go about trying to figure out how to “reinvent classifieds,” I do think that we’ll (be forced to) expand on what “classifieds” encompasses. It’s certainly not just the printed and online listings that we’re inclined to think the term describes. It will become much more of what Michaud describes: bringing people together to do business.
What do you think? Does the newspaper industry think too narrowly about its classifieds business? Let’s start a discussion. Just use the comments feature below.
Tags: classifieds, definitions
Colin wrote,
Personally, I think a project of redefining the classified is in danger of losing focus. I understand the desire to become a social networking site. There is power in making people need you. But a newspaper risks losing it’s identity in the process. Honestly, I dislike using craigslist because it’s getting full up with spam and the shear volume of stuff makes it an afternoon adventure to browse. A newspaper’s identity is as a spam-less, finite source of ads. I can browse the classifieds in a paper in 20 minutes. Try doing that with craigslist.
Incidentally, I’m worried that this project casts out rhetoric in the name of blowing the box off what we think about classifieds and how to change them, without offering any real solution. You can say “It’s certainly not just the printed and online listings,” but what is “bringing people together to do business?” In the end, the best form of communication we, as media types have is printed or online listings. If we leave our office to talk with people and interact, we need some way to communicate what we’re doing. So we turn around and “publish” it online or in a paper.
I think the classified in idea, if not in letter, will be around longer than people would like to believe. Perhaps it wont be the cash cow it used to be, but what if instead of being a cash cow it was considered a gateway to get people to use a website or to read a paper. When someone is looking at advertisements in the auto classification, maybe we need to throw a link in which leads to our story about that crazy car wreck two months ago. When they click on the story to read more, *bam* there’s a current ad for an auto dealership and a link to their website where their cars are offered with dealer guarantees at only a little bit more than the classified prices.
Then again, maybe they wont click through and the classified will get the win. That needs to happen sometimes, otherwise who would take out a classified? It’s all balance, and it’s a function of how much money you *need* to get from an ad (classified or targeted) and how much you *want* to get. I suppose *want* could also be replaced with *feel you ought*
Link | April 29th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Christopher Ryan wrote,
The Denver newspapers renamed their classifieds “Marketplace”. Great idea.
Link | April 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm