9 Responses

1. Brad Waller

   August 7th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

   1

   Will it work? For some maybe. We have offered free video uploads and hosting as part of the classifieds at EPage.com for about a year. The number of video ads on the system at any one time is tiny. And we offer this for free.

   As more young people get into the classifieds selling area, maybe there will be more demand for this, but the core demographic for a general classifieds site skews older and includes lots of the over 35 crowd who don’t think of their video or web camera as the way to sell a car, movie tickets, or home furnishings.

   The other sites that are exclusively video ads are interesting and will attract more of the video ads than one like EPage. But I do have to wonder about the revenue model of a site that hosts video ads, charges nothing, and has no advertising. Is this the old school business model of burning through the money as fast as possible?

2. Andrej Masiar

   August 9th, 2007 at 10:10 am

   2

   Video classifieds is a novel idea, a logical progression from text and photos. After watching a short video you get a lot of information about the seller and the product or service that you would not otherwise - except maybe in person.

   While I agree that the young generation would be more receptive to a new way to do anything, many older people understand the power of video - the color TV has been around since the 60’s. The issue here is to make the technology easy to use and accessible.

   It really comes down to getting a critical mass of sellers and buyers via video. While there’s Youtube and Craigslist, they will not be successful because of the huge signal to noise ratio. Youtube is for entertainment, Craigslist is 90% text. They are not going to change. When there is a community, revenue model will be an obvious choice - Craigslist is doing a pretty good job of funding itself.

   The starry eyed dotcom bubble has burst, iMoondo is completely self funded. So it goes something like “spend the least amount of cash to get the most done” business model.

3. Jim Kukral

   August 9th, 2007 at 10:23 am

   3

   @Brad, once again, you’re way ahead of the curve. Thanks for pointing out that you’ve been allowing vids for some time now.

   @Andrej, I also agree it’s a natural progression. What I see is that in a year from now when everyone has a phone that does semi decent video, this type of thing will be huge. However, how long is it until eBay lets people upload vids to their auctions?

4. Andrej Masiar

   August 10th, 2007 at 11:48 am

   4

   Jim, I would welcome if Ebay started allowing people upload vids to their auctions. Users really need to get used to the idea of video and expect it … even demand it! Now, you can’t really upload a video of your restaurant to Ebay.

   In my experience, some people really hate being in front of the camera. They tense up, and start fishing for words. As with any new concept we need to get used to it, ease into it gradually.

   And if anyone wants to add video to their site, why reinvent the wheel? We are beta testing the API to our encoding and content delivery engine, let me know if you are interested :-)

5. Jim Kukral

   August 10th, 2007 at 11:52 am

   5

   Andrej, I agree it’s early. Those of us doing this online video thing are way ahead of the game, but it will catch on and I think more people will become comfortable.

   Love to have you on my radio show in the future to discuss this more? http://www.videoninjas.tv

6. Joe Trainor

   September 1st, 2007 at 4:47 pm

   6

   I agree, the next logical step will be video classifieds online. The direction that the internet is taking is to not reinvent the wheel. There is a site right now http://www.JADSTERS.com that is doing the right thing when it comes to classified videos. They put up a site that is in BETA testing, but the beauty is it functions like every other site, but gives you the ability to post video. So users who are used to the classic way of doing things still can and they can add video to enhance their postings this way the users (like me) who are not used to it, slowly get taught to use it. A lot of these other sites are trying to hard to be like youtube and spin it as a classifieds. But really its just a classifieds with video. Simple, to the point, and for the users.
   I’ve been using Jadsters.com for the past few weeks when they came out in New York City and its easy to use and you can post as much as you want with your videos. What attracted me to the site was their slogan, they said “We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we are trying to make the wheel turn faster” and thats exactly what they offer. I hate when a site says its simple, but really it takes an hour to learn to use it. I learned how to use Jadsters.com in like 6 minutes. The other cool thing is, its just two guys running this site so if you need to contact someone they get back to you in like an hour.
   I agree with all of you that this technology is still knew and has to catch on, but with sites like Jadsters.com and the approach they are taking. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the next big thing. They already have a real buzz going on in the New York City and have made it into Silicon Alley Insider.
   Lastly if big companies like Ebay start to pick this up well these guys starting these sites should be proud because they pioneered this stuff. Now they just gotta figure out how to beat them.
   For a guy like me who doesn’t know how to utilize the internet, Jadsters.com made it easy for me and thats the key.

7. Melanie Heywood

   September 6th, 2007 at 11:00 am

   7

   Greetings all…there’s another little guy out here who has just launched video on our site. It’s Listasaurus.com. We also have a different twist to our “free” ads in that we are the first online classifieds site to pay users to list their ads. Also we believe in giving our users the option to upload video or not. They can do just text ads, photos with their ads, photos and videos, or just video. We also have a Business Directory that is similar to Yellow Pages in structure, as opposed to craigslist where bizzes have to keep reposting over and over.

   Video is definitely in its infancy, and eventually I do think ebay will catch on. Listasaurus.com is also going to be adding video auctions to our site in the near future. (Also with no insertion fees, but the reverse where we will pay users to list their auction item with us).

   Would love anyone’s feedback, and hope to see more videos out there soon!

8. Joe Trainor

   September 9th, 2007 at 9:44 am

   8

   I went to Listasarus.com, wow that is a lot of words on a page. Its a bit confusing. It scares me off a little bit (no offense) just some customer feedback. I like that fact that Listasaurus and Jadsters.com dont make you upload video to post. I have created ads with and with out video on http://www.Jadsters.com and have gotten great response. I love the fact that this technology is coming out. I honestly just love the simplicity of the Jadsters site because it was easy to use.
   Also I think I read somewhere that they are doing a big marketing campaign come the holidays for Jadsters.com. I will try Listasaurs.com again, but it just freaks me out when the sites are so confusing.

9. Melanie Heywood

   September 10th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

   9

   Joe, thanks for the feedback on the Listasaurus.com site. If you have specific suggestions for us, we’re open to hearing them! Was it the homepage you found confusing? We don’t have too much text on that page, just categories for the classifieds, but again, would love to hear more detailed feedback or suggestions if you have them.

   Thanks again!