RentMarketer just launched RentBits.com which is a 180 direction change for the company.

RentMarketer which has been around for several years is a distribution channel. RentMarketer basically will take one rental listing and then distribute it out to many sites (such as RentVine.com).

Now with the addition of RentBits they are changing direction to aggregator (similar to Oodle.com) while still staying a distributor. RentBits goes out and spiders rentals sites like RentVine and then they place a small description and thumbnail photo and then links back to the original source.

Oodle.com does this already, however RentBits will be able to specialize in just the rental industry and should have the advantage.

I went to Oodle.com today and noticed that they are now accepting listings on their site. So now I guess you could consider Oodle as a competitor to sites like Rentals.com and RentalHouses. Perhaps I missed it but appears Oodle.com try to add that feature very quietly (I rechecked their blog and didn’t see it mentioned).

And once again a company like RentalHomePros is being trumped by yet other company to have access to some rich data on rental properties.

RentMarketer released a new look for their site this morning and I think they hit the nail on the head with the new design.

The Flash movie really gets the point across. I have made a few suggestions to Dan over the years about how he should show a graph to drive home the point of where most of the leads come from. I think he finally listened to me!

I hope Dan has been tracking conversions to his site with some analytics package because my guess is that he will double the sign ups from the home page with the new design.

Good work Dan. (I also like that my site being included in the Flash movie!).

(Dan, since you changed the logo you might want to change the favicon too).

RentMarketer is now displaying job postings from SimplyHired on their site. You can also post job listing as well from the RentMarketer site.

Looks like the price is $10 bucks for 60 days to post.

Looks like Dan is trying to create all the niche verticals he can within his space. Smart move in my opinion to at least test it to see if it will bring him any extra affiliate money.

Dan over at RentMarketer launched a new posting package today that allows for unlimited postings. It sounds like many property managers like the flexibility of an unlimited package.

No price is listed on the site yet for the monthly fee.

It will be interesting to see if this new package becomes a favorite among property managers. Judging from the unlimited package that RentalHouses had, I will guess it will be popular.

I am still trying to figure out a discount pricing plan for my site. I know I need one, I just want to make sure I provide the right one.

Dan over at RentMarketer started a new site today, this time for Real Estate - it appears that it will be similar to his rental site.

I started a real estate site years ago and I can tell you the competition is much greater than what it is in the niche rental industry. I wish him the best of luck.

If Dan can somehow get his listings in all the MLS systems out there, he will really have something.

Looks like Lisa Ray at RentMarketer who has the real estate background is the lead person on this one:

“Numerous clients have been asking us to do something similar for the for sale industry” says Lisa Ray, VP of Sales and Operations for RentMarketer.com. “ForSaleMarketer utilizes the power of the internet to drive more leads to agents, brokers, owners and investors by distributing their properties across the web.”

I got word that as of last week CSI (Consumer Source Inc.) is not allowing RentMarketer to post to their family of sites anymore. The reason I hear is that CSI is now considering RentMarketer competition.

I don’t see how RentMarketer is competition. RentMarketer is basically a reseller.

From what I understand RentMarketer was paying full price (or close to full price) for RentClicks listings, so I am not sure why they would want to lose RentMarketer’s clients.

As of last week RentVine is now receiving ads from the RentMarketer network. We are part of the Platinum package: $89.95 which also includes other big sites like RentalHomesPlus.

For more discussion on this topic visit Dave’s Top Posts page.

Dan Daugherty over at RentMarketer is getting some good newspaper press lately. The latest article is from the Rocky Mountain News:

“I was posting my 10 rental properties on my home PC to several rental sites. I was posting the same information on each site, and it would take me hours to do.”

The newspapers love to cover the past Google employee angle.

A few posts back I wrote how Oodle works, today I thought I would spend a little time on RentMarketer.

RentMarketer.com works basically the opposite of Oodle. Where Oodle scrapes (or gets feeds) from many sites like RentClicks and RentalHouses, RentMarketer receives listings from property managers to distribute out to sites like RentClicks and many others.

Correction: RentMarketer does not receive a feed from RentalHouses. See a complete list of sites.

If you are lazy and do not want to post to every Dick and Jane site out there (there are tons of them them - and mine is one of them!) RentMarketer can save you some time entering your properties in to each one.

For one flat fee you can be included in to many rental sites including a ton of free ones like HotPads. The real beauty of RentMarketer and what makes it so powerful is the long tail affect. Sure being in a mega site like RentClicks will get you some leads, but you should actually get more leads from all the other free sites combined.

To learn more about RentMarketer, listen to the podcast show I did with Dan Daugherty.

Just so you know I am not providing a feed to RentMarketer (at least at this point) and I was not compensated in any way to write this post. I do think that Dan Daugherty does have a very innovative business model that we will be seeing more of in the future.

My guess is we will see a RentMarketer type site pop up in the vacation rental market soon.

[tags]RentMarketer[/tags]

On Friday Dan Daugherty was nice enough to coming on the RadioVine show this week and answer some of my questions. We talked about:

• His history at Google
• The current consolidation of online rental ad sites and what it means for his business
• Will all online rental ad site be free in 5 years
• and many more topics

Listen to the podcast here.

I made a mistake on the show and said I have the next two weeks filled with people to interview, what I meant to say is those two interviews won’t be until the first couple of weeks starting next year.

If you are interested in coming on the show next week, please send me an email.

[tags]Dan Daugherty, RentMarketer, radiovine[/tags]