From Providence Business News, March 17-23, 2003
Local online and traditional providers of classified listings are up against some new competition.
Linda Woods and Tom Viall, two former managers of the now defunct OSO.com, which closed its doors late last year, have launched their own business, Vega Interactive and a classified listings Web site called ListItRI.com.
The duo began talks of starting a business once they heard rumblings that Cox Interactive, a division of Cox Communications, was shutting down OSO.com, which eventually happened.
"There was a huge wind-down process and a lot of advanced warning," Viall said.
That allowed the two to get the ball rolling.
ListItRI.com would be based on OSO.com's online classifieds feature, but would include technology to allow more interactivity and search capabilities.
The site would also go head to head with others offering classified listings including AutoTrader.com ForSaleByOwner.com and ProJo.com.
Based on Woods' research, other companies are charging more for their service, and bill differently. For example, she said, The Providence Journal and AutoTrader set a price on a single ad over a certain amount of time. ListItRI will charge a one-time monthly fee of $9.95 for the posting on unlimited number of ads. A one-time fee of $39.95 will be charged to those members that requested a yearly membership and who plan to run several ads throughout the year.
While at OSO.com there was a strong perceived rivalry between the Web site and ProJo.com, Viall said. But, undercutting others is not what this new company intends to do, he added.
"We didn't want to get into that model," he said. "We don't (however) have space limitations and we can offer members fewer restrictions."
ListItRI, which plans to begin offering listings by service providers such as auto dealers and Realtors, will have a bit of additional competition from ProJo.com come April.
Belo Interactive, the Internet subsidiary of Belo Corp., owner of The Providence Journal, announced last week that it will be launching a new classifieds section dubbed HomeCenter. The new feature will offer real estate listings on 11 Belo television and newspaper affiliated Web sites. ProJo.com, according to Belo spokesperson Linda Fisk, will begin listing its new online classified real estate beginning in April.
Viall said they would not follow in the lead of OSO.com.
Viall believes that OSO.com placed too much emphasis on online advertising as a revenue source.
"We learned don't build your business on online advertising," Woods said.
Although it won't be its main revenue stream, ListItRI.com has included some aspects of banner ads on its site.
The startup has signed a contract with Cox Communications by which Cox's high-speed Internet home page will link to ListItRI.com. In exchange, Cox will have promotional banner ads with links back to Cox on the ListItRI.com site.
The two companies have also agreed to launch a similar site on April 1 in Connecticut in connection with Cox Communications called ListItCT.com.
In total, Vega Interactive plans to launch eight more sites in other US cities by the summer.
