I was actually looking at a page and then all of the sudden it just started doing all of these weird things, even as I write this it is going off loading and stopping and scrolling down the page.

The Home page search box is a little confusing as it seems to list councils or areas – I am still not quite sure what it does! The listings are all from Domain.com.au and the layout of the search results is quite fine – actually good. You will notice that as soon as you want more information you are transported to Domain.com.au and there you will see the value for Domain.com.au. I think this takes away from its usefulness and unless users find this easier to use than Domain, I cannot see it lasting very long.

Server application errors are rife throughout the site and the mapping is not working, nor are a number of other links.

The right hand side gives you a number of options to refine and this is well done and is quite a good innovation.

They have also added a blog which has no content yet, but I am sure they will add articles in the coming weeks.

Again, this is just another example of something being rushed out. Maybe they just launched it as I was looking at the site and if so they will be up all night fixing the problems. I can give excuses for small companies making mistakes like this, but not larger ones.

All in all this does show potential, but again , if they only carry domain.com.au’s listings then why visit the site, why not just go to Domain.com.au? One reason may well be that once all the errors are corrected it will be quicker to find listings than on Domain.com.au

On the notice they do mention they are looking to add more functions shortly so we should be patient. I think the proof of its success will be the lift it gives Domains visitor numbers and we should see that occur by the end of next month.

Links:
Domain.com.au
Justlisted.com.au

Now why? Well because Justlisted started out as a pretty cool little site, then it simply did nothing and sat back and watched everyone just basically laughed at them. Earlier this year the site was down for a couple of weeks for maintenance, almost never heard of in today’s online world!

I have never got the principal of this site. It basically carries hardly any property information, a few pictures resized, a description, some pricing and that’s about it. Hardly a site that has visitor loyalty stamped across it.

So who benefits from this deal? Well the Sensis owned JustListed gets a national website without having to pay sales people. Domain get another reason for agents to join them. Bit of a win win for both parties.

Sensis probably figure they can make money alongside the advertising, but to me it just says ‘we give up’. Maybe Sensis are becoming more accountable instead of continually blowing 10′s of millions on ordinary products (read Sensis search)

Here is the press release:

Domain.com.au and Just Listed are pleased to announce an exciting new partnership.

Effective August 1 2007, real estate agents who advertise on Domain.com.au will automatically have their listings displayed on Just Listed at no additional cost.

We also look forward to extending the reach of JustListed clients, by bringing together two of the longest established and most successful real estate sites in Australia.

How do I take advantage of this partnership?
If you currently advertise on Domain.com.au, please upload your listings as normal.

If you do not advertise on Domain.com.au, our Customer Care Team will help you through the process – allowing you to advertise across both sites for the one price.

Please contact Amanda Evans, on 02 8596 4881 or sales at domain.com.au.

This agreement replaces all previous listing methods for Just Listed clients.

About Domain.com.au
Domain.com.au is the easiest way to reach your property audience. Leveraging the strength and credibility of the Fairfax Media network – reaching out to 1,958,642* unique browsers.

Domain.com.au is Australia’s Best Classifieds website – as voted by Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), 2007.

Links:
www.domain.com.au
www.justlisted.com.au
www.sensis.com.au
Editor Note: I grant Domain.com.au as being a ‘long established and successful site’ but NOT JustListed. As for Australia’s Best Classifieds Website, well the other big players (REA) did not enter that competition, but still it was a victory Domain have hardly been shy about in press releases.

Rumour has it Justlisted has been sold to Domain.com.au. So can anyone guess what was paid for this site? While you are at it, let me know who paid who? Seriously, I think it is really a nothing sale, but if true, more important questions are raised about the validity of Sensis as a serious Internet company. It was only just over 3 years ago this site was going to go National, a property guide newspaper was rolled out and big things were promised.

Just what are Sensis going to do now? I would love to be surprised – but after the multi million dollar Sensis Search Engine flop, the multi million dollar Just Listed flop, the multi hundreds of millions of dollars Kaz Computing flop, I really think they are out of flops! Maybe the Yellow Pages will………….ooops, they did it again!

To me it all comes back to the inexperience of many executives in relation to the real estate industry. Here are some things that any new players have to get through their collective heads first.

1. You are not going to find any new buyers/tenants for agents, statistics shows that anyone and everyone involved in this market has already found a place to search for properties, so all you are going to do is take visitors away from other portals.

2. Deals with franchise head offices can seem like a good idea, but really the investment needed has to go deeper, they need to be able to put people on the ground and in the faces of the principals of these offices to gain any real traction

3. You should never, ever, ever start spending big money on promoting a real estate portal with less than 30% of the listings of the main portals REA and Domain. You might get them to visit once but getting them to come back is a stretch when REA and Domain already have much more content. You need to spend 18months to 2 years gaining content and do soft promotions of a site, once you reach 60+% then start your big spending.

4. Think Different. If you spent all of your interface thoughts on creating a site that places the user of the site as number one you will gain ground. MyHome failed on so many counts, yes it has some pretty nifty features but it is nothing new. The first look should be Google’s interface, clean fast and efficient and one that users are accustomed to. Remember Google are not in the pretty market, but they are clean and fast.

5. Forget 100% about 3rd advertisers on your site to begin with. If you must concentrate on branding mortgage calculators, insurance calculators and local results. Once you build popularity add some other advertising, but make 100% sure it has the benefit of the user in mind.

6. Give Equity at the Office, after all these are the people that make the final decision about where they spend their money. I doubt too many principals or directors get excited about you giving head office equity. History has shown that the actual office receives nothing from these deals except for maybe a discount.

7. Being Cheaper. Agents at the office level do not care a jot about you being $500 a month cheaper than REA if you bring in no buyers/tenants.

8. One thing amazes me about all these new entrants is this limited time free deal. You should be damn well free and you should be free until you can actually bring in business on a regular basis and if this is 1,2,3,4 or even 5 years then so be it. MyHome have no choice but to extend their free deal and this will keep being extended until they know they can actually get money out of agents.

9. Have only one package and guarantee it from the word go. If you had a guarantee to all agents that there will only ever be one price point for advertising properties then agents will not have to worry about future, silver, gold or platinum deals. Make the agents compete for the quality of what they provide, the text content, the photos, the movies, the plans – that is the difference today between the also crans and the quality agents – not whether their listings appear higher than their competitors!

10. Stop telling us how revolutionary you are and show us how revolutionary you are. The Internet gives complete control to the user, you will soon know if they like you, especially if there is competition that this market desperately needs. At the moment REA and Domain are in control and there is nothing I can see out there that is going to change this. You are not going to get any free rides from the press, if anything it will only get worse with the new media ownership laws, so you have to play this game by inches, win over the agents at office level, tell consumers about it once you get the content and have an interface worthy of a change and then start ringing the till!

There is still no word on an Australian launch but my guess is that they will test the XML for a few months and then launch the site Australia-wide with some kind of tie in with their popular Trading Post newspaper.

The XML Feeds will be available for the greater Sydney area and Blue Mountains on launch. Just Listed have not provided information on when this will be, but I assume the XML formats will be provided to me in next few weeks.

Now all they need to do is completely re-engineer (and re-design) their site and they might be onto something!

Will keep you posted if I hear anything!

Technorati Profile

Why?
Well it is quite simple really, paper based property guides are a thing of the past. Poor reach mixed with expensive per line costs are driving many newspaper property guides to the wall and the next few years are going to be especially tough considering the power the Internet has over newspapers in terms of reach and costs.

Others to follow?
Fairfax will continue as will many other established brands but the yearly price increases will not. The ones that will go by the wayside are the realestate.com.au guide. It has been a bold move and one which realestate.com.au are still “testing” the waters with, but management will soon realise that the online space is where their future earnings lie.

The Just Listed Magazine lasted just a little over 12 months. Even back in October 2004 Andrew Day (Sensis Chief Executive Officer) said ““The Just Listed™ magazine is a natural extension to the Sensis Classifieds portfolio and an exciting new addition to the Sensis advertising network,”. “It also increases the breadth of our growing range of specialist vertical products covering automotive (AutoTrader™), general classifieds, (Trading Post®) and lifestyle (CitySearch®).”

Even I was a little excited by this but it turned out to be a bit of a dud.

It is amazing how things change in such a short period of time. Tis is a quote from Sensis the other day…..

“The focus is very much online – we want to be national, online,” Sensis public relations manager Felicity Hand said.

It really makes me laugh how these companies continue to fail but seem to be able to put a positive spin on things.

The Justlisted.com.au website is in desperate need of some inspiration, it is cold, old and has very little information for the buyer, oh and it is still only Sydney based, even though they did say it would be national by the middle of the year. It also does not accept XML feeds (even tiny sites with tiny budgets can do this) and most major franchises work with these types of feeds.

Again Justlisted really do need some talent that understands the Internet if it is ever to be successful.

This is not good news for Agents, however as far as consumers are concerned it makes life easier only having one portal to search for all available properties.

For Agents it will continue to mean price increases, and if News Ltd are successful in their takeover bid for the remaining shares, price increases are something agents will have to get used to.

As for competition, Realestate.com.au are only wary of one rival and that is Domain.com.au. However this site will probably just keep cruising along until media ownership laws change and a possible union with a TV company such as Channel Nine give them the marketing it needs to get the site in the mainstream across Australia.

But News Ltd, can play that game to, and has a history of protecting its turf very well indeed.

So who will be the main challenger to Realestate.com.au? Domain? Just Listed? Homehound?

Well I do not think any of them will, I think it will come from left field and may well be nothing to do with a realestate portal.

Stay tuned!

1. The site has just basic information for each property. This is bad because the general public is so used to getting so much more information through listings on sites such as realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. House Size, Land Size, VR Tours, Floor Plans. The Internet is built around being able to deliver a wealth of information so that the public can make an informed decision about contacting an agent. The old newspaper days of telling us little and getting us to contact agents is over, although still applicable to newspapers. This saves agents time and money and also the consumer.

2. Fix the damn system up
Having to upload images thru a client side software package separate from listing information is time consuming and just plumb dumb. Fix this up please.

3.Accept Feeds
As agents move more and more towards systems (like Agentpoint – owned and operated my my good self) and others such as My Desktop and Properties Online)they want the ability to feed that data into your system. Get your developers to spend one week writing a schema to accept this and you will at least get a look in with larger agencies.

4. Dump the Paper Guide – Although an excellent publication and although there might be good money in it if successful, it is old school and doomed for long term failure. Ok, you are now a publishing company and have the excellent trading post, but do not get too smart. The Internet is the future of realestate, not newspaper guides. Agents will only use newspaper in the future for branding, nothing else, so bite you lip, swallow a little pride and dump the guide.

So it will be interesting to see what happens (if anything) over the coming months with Sensis and www.justlisted.com.au, having bucket loads of cash does not give you internet success, it just makes rivals wary.

Positive Spin
Whilst Sensis will be putting a positive spin on this, I think they will get a very lukewarm reception from Agents. Another reason is that it costs only a few dollars for private advertisers to advertise in the Trading Post, so Sensis will be caught between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand convincing Agents to advertise in Just Listed and the other trying to woo as many private advertisers to the Trading Post.

Going National?
Just Listed last year announced it would be going national by the middle of this year, this will be a test for them as I really do not think they can, most Agents I speak to do not get any real results from the website and the only reason they advertise is because it is FREE.

Sensis more than any other company in Australia’s history has blundered from one IT purchase to another and their balance sheet from purchases would be in the red by at least a couple of hundred million dollars, will Just Listed go the same way?

Interesting times ahead!