Susan Mernit's Blog

Susan Mernit notes a MediaPost Daily article indicating that online employment classified revenue is now greater than offline classified revenue.

While this may be a defining moment for the newspaper industry, it's hardly surprising, as newspaper classifieds have seemingly become more sparsely populated on a daily basis over the past several years... one only needs to look at employment classifieds in the formerly glorious SJ Merc to understand. (In fact, the SJ Merc, formerly KRD's biggest money maker, is now a loser, thanks to the death of classifieds.)

And why not? The prices that newspapers charge for print classifieds are outrageous, especially for the limited real estate said prices buy you. Online, where cost structures are low, employers get a much better deal: significantly richer job descriptions, the ability to pre-screen candidates with questionnaires, auto-integration of submissions into employer resume databases, and so much more.

Sound like any other industry? That's right, yellow pages/directory. Not surprising they are the battleground du jour.