Within Primedia’s 4th QTR results report: (Robert Metz, CEO of PRIMEDIA)

Rentals.com, grew revenue by 7.8% in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter 2006. This growth rate reflects revenue of the entire Rentals.com network of websites on a pro forma basis as if all operations included in 2007 were owned in 2006.

Looks like they might be working on the speed of the slow Rentals.com site:

The Company is focused on improving site engineering and performance, while driving traffic through search engine optimization. Rentals.com has made strategic investments in order to continue to perform in a competitive marketplace, including achieving full sales staffing in the third quarter 2007 and the hiring in January 2008 of a new head of this business, who has substantial online and sales experience in the residential real estate arena. These investments are not likely to impact operating results for several quarters.

I wonder when Robert Metz speaks of a “competitive marketplace” above, if he is referring to the small one person shop that works part time out of his home (me)?

I signed up for the Primedia XChange and just watched the conference online. I noticed a couple of items:

1. On the 11th slide they say, “3 of top 4 rental websites“. That might have been true eight months ago, but that is not correct now. They only have two – rentals.com and RentalHouses.com. I think RentalHomesPlus might take exception to their statement.
2. In the heading Growth Opportunities on the same slide, they have a line item titled Acquisitions. Perhaps I was wrong saying that 08 would be a quiet year.

I am sure Bob Brisco from Internet Brands has watched this too. I think Brisco did a better job presenting his company.

From Motley Fool which calls them the worst stock in the world:

“We begin with PRIMEDIA, which said that its 2007 results would be affected by the subprime crisis.

Why? PRIMEDIA is a primary distributor of apartment and real estate advertising circulars. With fewer houses for sale and fewer new housing developments, double-digit growth isn’t exactly on the horizon. And it may not be for some time.”

Of course this kind of makes me laugh a little when I see this stuff. Actually from the quote above I am not sure Motley Fool really knows what they are talking about – but then I am not a finance guy.

Also, from USAToday:

“Rentals.com – delays in filling vacancies in its sales force”

I can’t be sure when they purchased Rental.com (not Rentals.com their flagship site) because the WayBack Machine doesn’t have any public record of this URL, but I do know they own it now.

Wow, I wish I knew what they paid for that domain name? $250,000? The domain rental.com was originally purchased in 1994.

At first I was pretty scared that with the acquisition of this domain would come a ton of SEO power that I might never be able to pass, but on further review I am happy to say that the Rental.com domain does not carry much SEO power that they can use to their advantage.

I don’t think it is really my place to say what they are using it for right now, but you can certainly take a look. (Sorry CSI developers and programmers.)

I thought it might be fun to illustrate on Alexa what happens when your company gets bought out by Primedia.

Below is RentClicks after they signed their deal with Primedia over a year ago.

Next one up to be purchased was HomeRentalAds last summer.

And just recently RentalHouses – can you see a trend here?

Google came out with a new 411 phone service today, so I thought I would test it out with Primedia. I tried testing it out with my own business, but my phone number is not published on my site.

Listen to the phone call here – download mp3

Am I mispronouncing Primedia or is Google?

It is pretty cool because the service is free!

Try it yourself. The number is 1-800-466-4411.

I couldn’t resist the title of this post (sorry Primedia).

In this press release from Primedia they announce:

“PRIMEDIA Inc. (NYSE: PRM) today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the Company to explore the sale of its Enthusiast Media segment (PEM).”

You might be wondering what the “Enthusiast Media segment” is. They are listed here. They are products from “Soap Opera Weekly” to “Arabian Horse World”.

I am guessing once Primedia got a taste of success from RentClicks, they are dumping their other properties to concentrate on the rental market.

What does that mean for RentVine? I am not sure but I have a tough hill to climb if they will be putting more efforts on the rental segment of their business.

I got another tip this morning to have a look at RentalHouses pricing page.

You can now list on RentalHouses for $39 / 30 days or you can list on RentalHouses, RentClicks, HomeRentalAds and Rentals for $79 for 30 days.

Judging by the graphic of the lawn signs I was correct in thinking that Rentals will be their flagship product. It will be a up hill battle for them to get traffic for Rentals just like what HomeAway.com is going through right now.

I think it was smart of them to offer the $39 package. Now the big question is will they allow any back-door unlimited plans to the larger property managers. I will guess that they have learned their lesson not to offer this because property managers talk to one another and soon as the word is out that some are getting special treatment they will have many unhappy smaller customers.

Heres a question. If you post on the family of sites does your ad run 45 days on HomeRentalAds?

I am very impressed that they could merge their databases together this quickly. They must have a good web site team.

Another question comes to mind. What does this do to the user experience? If I am looking for a place to rent and I hit the RentClicks site that is #1, then I look on RentalHouses that is #2 and then HomeRentalAds and I see all of the same listings will that provide a negative experience to the visitor to these sites?

Also they need to watch out for duplicate content issues, I can tell you from my own experience that Google does not like to display duplicate content – they know this provides a poor user experience and they will only show one copy of the content to the user.

So what is going to happen to all those property managers that got all that great exposure for their properties for a cheap unlimited plan? I would love to hear my readers thoughts on this…