I’ve been watching three new web 2.0 classifieds sites - BlockRocker, rbloc and theadcloud. And for those of you who say I focus on silicon valley companies, I have a surprise for you - all three of these companies are located outside of the U.S. BlockRocker is in Winnipeg, rbloc is in Calgary and theadcloud is in Chile.
None of these are in any position to kill of Craigslist any time soon, but all three have interesting features and contribute to the overall discussion of what a classified ad site should be all about. I wish I could add Microsoft’s Fremont project to this post as well, but I do not yet have a green light to write about them.
Here are the details on each:
BlockRocker
BlockRocker, which is a one man show created by Rod Edwards in Winnipeg, is focused on geography.
The site has integrated Google maps in a way that reminds me of Trulia (for real estate search).
BlockRocker launched on December 1, 2005 and is still working out some bugs. The site allows publisher tagging of classifieds and has RSS feeds for all searches. Listings are free.
rbloc
rbloc, which is also based in Canada, hasn’t really launched yet (there are no listings). But the functionality is there and I like aspects of it. rbloc is completely focused on local (the name is a play on “our block”, as in our street).
It supports both set price and auctions for ads, as well as “wanted”. The idea is to create more of a marketplace around similar stuff. Also, they have a paid ads area to the left of listings. Actual ad listings are free.
Some actual content would be nice, of course. But I’m always patient with new services, unlike all of you people. 
theadcloud
Chile-based theadcloud is the youngest of these very young services, but already seems to have the most legs. Everything is tags, tags, tags - no taxonomies here. Listings are free, and you can submit to as many cities as you like (all cities have feeds, as do tag searches within cities).
And they have another feature which I really like - user comments on individual ads. This thing is only days old, but I really like it.
Hey Michael - thanks for the mention!
I’m happy to report that tagging on BR has taken another few steps:
- Anyone can add tags to any classified to create their own lists of listings. Nice little ajax tool on each view page to do so.
- When creating a classified, it now recommends tags as you type - similar to the del.icio.us behaviour. Another ajaxy implementation.
- There’s also a rudimentary tag cloud on the main page under the map. It works, but it ain’t pretty. Such is “beta” life - Change to follow shortly.
Other news - I’ve been in touch with Marc at TeleFlip, and while nothing’s signed or implemented yet, it looks like I’ll be going with them for North American SMS as another contact option in addition to the phone/email/AIM/YahooIM that are already there. Will also be adding Skype at some point too. Anyway - thanks for posting about TeleFlip - great find.
Alright - thanks again, and looking forward to some constructive criticism and feedback.
–Rod.
Add one more to the list: http://www.tradethis.com. They only have a blog (http://blog.tradethis.com) right now, but development is well underway
Thanks for the mention to theadcloud.com Michael! I’m working, as Rod Edwards of BR, in new features to the site, and you’ll see those additions soon! just keep going to theadcloud.com
Hi Guys,
I also launched a new classified site - http://www.anuncioo.com, and its hard to emerge into the market but with some time and efford its worth while, so keep it up … for us its beginning to progress… we now have up to 3,000 visitors / a day with 0 advertising
Also, if anyone is interested guve a buzz, we can discuss problems, partnerships …. or just if you need a pep talk
Here’s another interesting, non-Silicon Valley based classifieds company…
http://www.3cdepot.com
Looks like theadcould was “crunched.” Their welcome page display nothing except “DB PROBLEM”.
Hey Michael - thanks for the review!!
A quick update:
We’ll be adding tagging over the next few weeks to a month…the reason that we didn’t go this way originally is that many, many internet users still are very comfortable with the “large taxonomies” of yester-year (we currently have 13000 of them). We’ll be doing a semi-mashup of tax-folksonomy with the next realease.
We currently use something called Notifieds to allow individuals and businesses to be emailed when auction and classified requests and offers of interest get posted on the site (by geographic location). That said, we have also been asked to allow our users to create custom rss feeds based on the listings of interest that they choose…if this one doesn’t quite make the next release, it will be soon after.
We are also in the process right now of building the feeds for Froogle and GoogleBase so that all items posted on rbloc.com get shunted into those two marketplaces…and I can’t wait to see if we can do the same with Fremont.
Congrats to BlockRocker and theadcloud on their sites. They are both very cool!!
Mike, congrats on MobileCrunch and getting Oliver…another very exciting blog.
Good stuff! I’d like to also point out http://tagifieds.com/
Classifieds is a tough business to break into, no doubt. It’s an old concept with deep roots in newspapers (and now the Craiglist behemoth), and it is hard thing to do really well. To make it even tougher, it has a huge resistance to growth due to the catch-22 of “critical mass” - the site doesn’t provide real value until everyone else is already using it.
On the other hand, I think we are ready for some new life and ideas to be brought into this entrenched and somewhat boring industry. Good luck to these sites… keep the innovation coming!
What’s this “Canada” you speak of?
Kevin, Its a little known territory up near the north pole.
Actually you can write a little bit about Fremont - it is now Windows Live Expo, listed up on the Windows Live Ideas page. http://ideas.live.com/programp.....1e7645b089
Agreed, tagging is really effective concept to effectively organize/filter un-structured data that has inherent patterns and complex relationships.. So how well suited it is for classifieds ?? I liked the idea of suggesting the tags that makes sense..otherwise this tag abuse will backfire.. Not to mention, better make sure there is a lot of data otherwise “noise (bad tags) will dominate over signal(good tags)”.. So good work but long way to go..keep an eye on google providing APIs for Google Base also..
Keith Hollins
http://www.getvendors.com
wow, so many different classified web 2.0 sitess
it is nice to see that 2/3 of the sites show on this post are not from Silicon Valley
Mike, I hope you are planning on promoting more sites that aren’t from the Valley
- DrDel
http://www.Gabbr.com
Looks like theadcould was “crunched.” Their welcome page display nothing except “DB PROBLEM”.
It’s great to see all these implementations of various technologies for a service as simple as classified ads.
Can’t wait to see how this plays out. As someone mentioned earlier, classifieds are a hard market to break into.
here’s another classified site http://plugstar.com
http://www.listsomething.com is another Web 2.0 classified site worth mentioning. It was originally created for the local South Florida community but has evolved to include other cities now. The site was designed with simplicity in mind and has lots of cool ajax features to enhance usability. Oh yeah, it was designed with the fabulous RoR framework too (our first rails project). Let us know what you think.
Thanks,
Adam
I am the CEO of Rich Media Worldwide the company that developed the 3CDepot.com site. The 3CDepot is something that is here there and everywhere when it comes to selling and or buying. The site is a cross between EBay and Craigs List does not charge fee’s to sell and makes it money through advertising sold through biding.I believe the depot is a site that will change the way the classified business is sone on the internet. It is in Beta now and will go live April one. I would like to hear your comments.